Today is a new day and another fresh start. I just came of a month straight of taking part in the Minimalism Game, the Minimalists 30 Day (or in my case, 31 day) Challenge. #MinsGame

Here's how it works, you "get rid of one thing on the first day. On the second, two things. Three items on the third. So forth, and so on."

It's starts off easy, but I tell you, finding 20+ things to get rid for days in a row can prove to be quite the challenge.

But, I did it. Some days I struggled to let go, and dreaded what was to come. I became anxious about the impending reality of opening the drawer of treasured VHS tapes, you know the ones I was saving for my grandchildren... the grandchildren that will have no idea what a VHS tape is...Yep, those grandkids that don't even exist yet.

Going through the process of letting go, although stressful at times, proved to be exhilarating. I found such freedom in loosening the grasp I had on things that I had not looked at for years, things that I didn't need, and things that I realized actually had their grasp on me. Less was becoming more in my life.

By the last day, I found myself sad that it was over, because I still had "stuff" that I didn't need, things that just took up space and served no purpose.

These past 31 days, as I see it, are just the beginning. Letting go has also curbed my appetite to accumulate more. I think more deeply about why I am buying "things" and as I process these decisions, I find that most of the time, whether in the store or browsing online, I simply pass and walk on by the extra stuff.

My home is happy and my bank account is not sacrificed because of my shopping impulses.

​And really, it's not about the "stuff." It's deeper than that. As I tossed the objects, the weight on my heart became lighter as well. It was a great mental discipline and a freeing exercise for my soul.

Letting go! What a workout!

Here is a link to the the challenge if you are up for the task. If you do it, let me know how it goes! I'd love to hear! http://www.theminimalists.com/game/

In the meantime, Enjoy the snapshots of my past 31 days of Letting go!

Please welcome guest blogger, Melanie Moscicki, as she shares a post that originally appeared on her site "From Faith, With Love"

God the Potter…
I’m nearing the end of wrapping up my Mending Your Soul class, though I am well aware the real work is just beginning in me. It’s been a long emotional journey, but is not without the reward of comfort and endurance that can only come from Him. For someone who has spent countless years fighting to stand strong WITHOUT God, laying all the brokeness and shortcoming out at His feet has been mortifying, humbling, and healing all in the same breath. May the words of my heart give hope to those still trapped in the prison that is your past. 

The Potter
~A Poem by Melanie Moscicki
Mending the Soul 2014
Another year,
a million tears,
so many times she’s tried
To fix the broken little girl,
she buried deep inside.
He says to her,
“Come follow me,
I’ll make you new again”
but the walls she built are far too strong
to ever let Him in.
She hears the sounds of laughter,
of joy she’s never known
Could it be? A girl like SHE
should live on LOVE-alone?
So many scars from trusting
cracks from being dropped,
cast aside as nothing
but an empty, broken pot.
But He says He’s a potter…
The best there ever was,
and He says I’m HIS daughter…
and His work has just begun.


Isaiah 64:8 says “Yet you LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are the work of your hand.” I pray that each of us can grasp this truth in the depths of our soul. We are not finished friend, we are each works in progress by the creator of ALL that IS and that ever WAS, the God of miracles, the God of redemption, the God that makes ALL THINGS new.
~ From Faith, With Love,
Melanie

***Physical, sexual, verbal, spiritual, or neglectful- abuse deadens the emotions, slays the self-worth, cripples the mind, even destroys the body. Mending The Soul is a Biblically grounded and psychologically informed first-of-its-kind comprehensive approach to understanding and treating every form of abuse. You can find out more about the program and where to get plugged in HERE.
Video about Mending The Soul

I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ and I struggle. I struggle with Anxiety, trust and depression. I am hopeful because of the struggle, it means I have not given up, It means that I continue to battle. It means that God is not done with me yet. #TheStruggleIsReal

Sunday, I found myself in the battle. I did not know why I was immobile, unable to move, feeling heavy and sad. All I knew is that by 4pm, after a day of isolating myself from my family, their activities and conversations, I could either continue to lay down or I could get up and FIGHT. I chose to fight. I chose to move through the heaviness, to move through the sadness and the weight of my unknown grief.

So, I got on my dancing shoes (my trail-runners) and I hit the mountain. My husband joined me. My husband, who also did not know the source of my sadness, walked with me, he hiked with me and he ran beside me quietly as we hit the trails. And then it happened, around mile three, I could feel the weight lifting and my eyes open to see the light of the new day. Then, by our fifth mile, I felt like a brand new person.

Depression has a way of creeping in unexpectedly, lurking and crouching, hoping that we will continue to lay in it, continue to listen to it and believe what it has to say. Depression thrives on immobility.

​As someone that has struggled with depression most of my life, I know that in the intricacy of how I am made, that I may continue to struggle with it until I am called home to heaven, sometimes alone, sometimes with someone walking beside me, sometimes with some saying (after a few days) "Get up off the couch and move!" I believe that there is truth to what the medical field has said regarding the benefits of exercise to combat depression. There is something in the way that we are designed that allows movement to re-set us and help us to dig ourselves out of the funk that we can be in.

For those of us that struggle occasionally and those that struggle often, know that there is hope. Sometimes, we fight alone, sometimes we fight with someone beside us, sometimes we fight with the aid of medication and sometimes....no, ALL THE TIME we fight with the the Lord at our side.

The Lord says that we can cast all of our cares, even when we don't know what they are, upon him. The Lord, who says that His yoke is easy and His burden light, calls us to take His yoke on us. The Lord will never leave us or forsake us in our sadness or in our struggles. Our Lord, who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imaging is by our side.

Today, if this is you, fight. Fight to move. Fight to lift your eyes up to the source of life and light. Fight to get up. You got this, because He's got you!

As one who remembers, I love you in the Lord,
​Mia

As I was driving to a women's event tonight that I was singing and speaking at, I spent time praying, going over my set list in my head and talking through my testimony. Thinking about my testimony and all the patterns of living that God had redeemed me from, I said to the Lord "Man, I used to be such a whore, such a slut. If people really knew how bad and lost I was would they really want to listen to anything I had to say?"......to which God always replies "Yes, it is in your weakness that I am strong. I have redeemed it all, now go and tell people how forgiving and strong I AM!"

It was a short conversation. But then He said to me "You know, Mia, you really WERE a slut." Through that whisper He showed me what a slut really was.... what I really was....and what I am no more. It wasn't about the guys or the partying; the drinking or the sneaking around behind my families back, no, it was about one thing. Then he gave me this acronym and opened my eyes to the truth. He said you were Someone Longing to Understand the Treasure that you were.

It all made sense. Because of my misconceptions of who I was, the lack of believing the truth that I was dearly loved and forgiven, I went on a search for anything to fill the hole that I felt was in my life as I longed to understand the treasure. Little did I know, so many years ago, that the answer was found in Jesus and Jesus alone!

I am no longer a bad S.L.U.T but a good S.L.U.T
I am now Someone Living in the Understanding of the Treasure

PS. There's nothing like worship leading, sharing your testimony and coming right out to a group of women that you don't know and telling them I used to be a SLUT!  Come to find out there were a lot of us there who now stand redeemed living under a new understanding. Thank Be To God!!

II Corinthians 4:7-10

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

**Please pray as I dig deeper into the S.L.U.T theme and share and teach from God's Word on this subject.