Author Archives: 365 days of marriage

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About 365 days of marriage

I started this blog in April of 2011. At the time, Bret and I were wedding photographers and it was a way to share how marriage is more about the day to day and so much more than the wedding day itself. For about 5 years, I blogged about the joys and sorrows of the Christian walk, marriage, work, family and friends. I’ve blogged every day since a few weeks after I started. In May of 2015, we photographed our last wedding. Now, I have become passionate about simplicity, particularly in marriage, Christianity, business, travel and life. For a number of reasons, we have become minimalists. I’ve found that having simplicity makes life so much deeper, refreshing and joyful. I hope that this blog will help others see the benefits of living simply.

Day 2320 – Sometimes, You Just Need To Plug It In

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::sings:: ….plug it in, plug it in!!!!!!

Ahem. So! I’ve been doing a lot more driving than I did in the past, so I put a bunch of books on tape and sermons onto my iPod. The other day, I was having trouble hearing one of the sermons. Defeated, I turned on the radio. *sigh* I considered buying a battery operated speaker set up.

I was setting off on a long drive and I thought, well, I can try and listen again…

“What’s this? Not all the way plugged in?!”

I noticed that the cord I used wasn’t fully plugged into my iPod. I plugged it all the way in, and viola! Sermons and books loud and clear!

I thought it was a great life lesson. Think about how many times you’ve complained/struggled/been annoyed with a situation and in the end, it was such an easy fix. If you just stopped and calmly assessed the situation. Sometimes the computer isn’t plugged in. Sometimes the fuse is blown.

Take the time today to take a step back and look at your struggle, you might find that you haven’t plugged it in.

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Day 2316 – The Last Drink I Ever Had – Or – Sharing Our Mistakes Publicly

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On September 29, 2014, I had my last drink, ever. I’m going to share my testimony at church about my journey through alcoholism, not taking sin seriously and what God changed in me at a later time. I’m super excited to share the full story, but I’m sharing it there first….I’ll (hopefully) get a video and I can paste the full text in a blog post. Since I’ve been working on this the last few months and fine tuning yesterday, not drinking has been on my mind.

I’m listening to How To Win Friends And Influence People In The Digital Age and it got me thinking about social media and the things we share online. Us humans are full of imperfections, mistakes, failures and just all around screw ups. I was thinking, what if we all openly shared our mistakes? What if, instead of making ourselves sound good and that we have it all together, we shared our mistakes? What if, instead of hoping no one finds out our secrets, what if we shared them?

I’m finding through being open about my drinking problem, that it is so much more freeing to discuss it in the light. The power it once held over me (What’s wrong with you Jen? How can you deal with this?) now is one I’m happy to talk about (Wait until you hear what God did in my life!)

I challenge you today, bring your sin out into the light. It’s a lot easier to deal with it there than hiding in the dark corner.

Here’s the bottle that spurred today’s post….funny enough, it was sitting outside the library….this is the last beer I had….not the same bottle of course…. 😉

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