I love the book "Captivating" =)

So during the second semester, some of us girls had a Captivating book study. I got this book from Megan my senior year of high school and it never really applied to me until last year and this year, especially. It has SO many crazy awesome stuff in it. It is definitely my favorite book. From what's in this book, it sounds like I wrote it because it applies that much to me =) I just found some really good quotes/verses in it today (since I never finished reading it this year), so I thought I would post them and maybe they can bless someone else as much as it blessed me today =)

"Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers, but not catch them; she will look for them, but not find them." Hosea 2:6-7

You're probably wondering why in the world I put this verse up as being inspiring. Well I have found this verse so incredibly true these past couple years. I have learned that life is NOT easy ever since my junior year. Sometimes I would ask why, but this verse explains it all. Sometimes, the things that make me happy block me from being close to God. I found another section of the book that explains it better....

"And so you will see the gentle, firm hand of God in a woman's life hemming her in. He'll make what once was a great job miserable, if it was in her career that she found shelter. He'll bring hardship into her marriage, even to the breaking point, if it was in marriage she sought her salvation. Wherever it is we have sought life apart from Him, He disrupts our plans, our "way of life" which is not life at all."


Again, this may sound harsh again, but we need to be focused on God and put Him in the middle of everything. I have found this extremely hard to do, but it's all a learning process for me. I slowly am getting better and it will be a life-long journey for me. I truly want God to be first in everything I do...any relationships, friendships, school work, jobs, family...everything. It's so hard for me to do that, but like I said, it's a learning process and God has been showing me that. I can be thankful for these hardships because I learn so much about myself and what God wants for me.

Here's another long part of a chapter I found super interesting. It's about forgiveness. I don't necessarily struggle with forgiving people very much, but I know a lot of people do struggle with that, so I thought I would post it so it could help someone else =)

"Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling--don't try and feel forgiving. It is an act of the will. "Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving," writes Neil Anderson. "You will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made." We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for "if your forgiveness doesn't visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete," said Anderson. We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our fathers, our mothers, those who hurt us. This is not saying, "It didn't really matter"; it is not saying, "I probably deserved part of it anyway." Forgiveness says, "It was wrong, very wrong. It mattered, hurt me deeply. And I release you. I give you to God."


This part of the book was so neat to me. I had never thought of forgiveness this way. I have found myself always waiting until the feeling was right and until I felt like I could truly forgive that person, but this chapter really turned that around for me. Like I said, usually I'm a person that forgives pretty easily, but I just thought this was really cool to read and hopefully it can help any of you who are reading this blog =)

God bless you all and enjoy the beautiful weather God has given us!!! <3