New Space

While I'm not sure there is enough people who read this blog to warrant this post, post it I shall. I have moved from BlogSpot over to Wordpress. I had the idea that a prettier, cleaner space would inspire me to write more, so off I went. This blog has been a space for me, for the past 7 years, to get thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, etc out of my mind and onto the page. It has helped me grow and kept those close to me involved with what is happening in my world. As I grow and mature, I feel it is only appropriate that my blog does the same. SO, if you happen to follow along here, hop on over to my new site and continue on the journey with me!

http://keishagansen.wordpress.com/

Taking Stock

 

Making lists. To do lists, dream lists, book lists, grocery/menu lists. Lists everywhere.
Drinking coffee and water and repeat.
Reading Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist and crying and laughing and identifying and learning with every page.
Wanting the weekend back. Monday’s are rough y’all.
Playing Sam Smith. Over and over and over.
Wishing that I could have a full week to process all the things going on in my head these days.
Enjoying setting up our home. Everyday it feels a little more like “US”.
Waiting for direction and open doors. 
Loving being married to my best friend. He just makes days better. 
Hoping for so much. Hope upon hope.
Marvelling at how the Lord works. How he takes our plans and ideas and wrecks them, then pulls back the branches to show us this beautiful path he has prepared for us.
Wearing the typical office day attire. Jeans, tank top, parka. (it's FREEZING in here. Always.)
Thinking that I wish I was by a body of water with a cold drink and a book instead of at a desk with florescent light overhead.
Feeling anxious & eager! I have so many ideas, so many thoughts, so many dreams swirling around in my head and my heart and I want to start getting some of them OUT!

 

"And on the days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days"

 

 

-Ray Wylie Hubbard

Anticipation

Have you ever had that feeling in your gut, where you just KNOW something is about to happen. Your heart beats faster and your mind races and you feel like you are about to ride a roller coaster for the first time or walk down the aisle towards the person you love most. Full of anticipation. Full of hope. Overwhelmed with inspiration. It seems that everything you read was written just for you. Like you want to write down, record. remember every thought, every word read, every idea had. You can't sit still and you are sure you are about to explode or jump right out of your chair and run. Just run until you can't anymore, or jump and yell and dance. Anything to get the energy building up inside of you out. The future seems limitless and it's terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

That is me today. I feel like I'm just on the other side of a wall, where I'm about to turn the corner and see what's around it, but I'm just not quite there yet. But I can hear the music, I can hear the laughter and excitement and I know once I finally get there it will be worth the agonizing wait.

The best part, is I'm not gonna do it alone. I'm gonna look to my left and see the man I promised to love forever holding my hand, his eyes wild with excitement just like mine, and together we are about to step out into the biggest adventure of our lives. We may not be able to see it all clearly yet, but every day, every step, the picture gets clearer, the music gets louder, the big reveal is coming.

I now pronounce you....

It’s been one whole month since I got married to my best friend. Our wedding day was truly a dream come true and every time I think about it; I get a little misty eyed. There was so much love and support and joy that day and I just bubble over with thankfulness and smiles. That day is over now. It’s a part of the past and a memory that I will treasure forever. Since then, we have gone on an incredible honeymoon to Cabo, come home to a house full of boxes, unloaded some of those said boxes, gone back to work, cooked meals, cleaned floors and began to learn what marriage is. I can tell you what I have learned in my extensive time of being a wife.

 It’s fun. It’s fun living with your best friend, it’s fun setting up your own home, it’s fun having the fridge all to yourself, and it’s fun not having to wear pants all the time (sorry mom).

It’s safe. I have never felt so secure in Steve’s love for me. I can unashamedly be myself and know that his love is there to stay. He can see the ugly in me, the stubborn, the selfish and love me anyway. I can fall asleep and feel safe with him beside me. I can face the uncertainty of the future and know that I am safe with him by my side. There is such security in marriage.

It’s hard. Yep. I said it. It’s hard, really hard sometimes. Even in just one month, being married has challenged me. I have seen things in myself that I do not like. I have been grumpy, and irritable and selfish. I have had to let go of the idea that marriage would take away all my worries or sadness. It doesn’t.  I still get sad, I still struggle with the things I struggled with before. The difference is I can now either let my husband walk along side me through them, to let him be my teammate and support or I can hold them inside and let them slowly eat me alive, let them slowly affect my home life. Because now, my struggles, worries, fears, moods, are not just my own, they no longer affect only me. Through them I can choose JOY and let my home and marriage be a place of safety and encouragement and laughter and support or I can choose bitterness and walls and let my home be a place of silence and fear and eventual resentment. The choice is mine.

It’s humbling. There isn’t much more to say on that.

 

So there you have it, my big, huge revelations about marriage.

It's Good.

It's Good Friday. As I sit on my floor, the twinkle lights give my room just enough of a glow. My body aches from the workout I just finished and I take the last drink of water from my cup and I am overwhelmed. Today my Jesus walked to Calvary. His body ached from the lack of sleep, the walking, the beatings. He was nailed to a tree, a practice much more painful than we often let ourselves think about. He denied a drink to help numb the pain, he never said a word of protest, worst of all, he had done nothing wrong. This Jesus, fully man, fully God, who came to this broken world and loved it beyond comprehension was now sacrificing every. single. part of himself to save it. To save me. To make me worthy when I was worthless. To make me clean where I was the filthiest of rags. To make me His.

His blood flows over us, it screams "look at this love! Look at how much your worth to me!" And more times than not, we turn our backs. But today, today I choose to look fully on that love. To let it wash over me minute by minute. To remember and to be thankful. For that is all I can do. Show my thankfulness with my life, by giving it daily back to him. For all he asks for in return, is me.


Jesus paid it all, 
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow


O Praise the one who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead)3x
well praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead
Jesus

Breathe In. Breathe Out.

Joy. Gratefulness. These words seem to be irrevocably intertwined. This truth seems to be swept over me again and again. I see it everywhere; there is no joy without thankfulness walking right beside it.

It’s like a breath. You breathe in thankfulness, you breathe out joy. In and out. In and out. Sometimes life gets in the way, it seems to block our inhale and we have to fight to get the breath.  When we do, it’s sweet, like the biggest breath you take after coming up from underwater. It’s life giving and we must fight for it just as we would fight for air.

When your job makes you want to pull your hair out, breathe in. When your possessions seem to be breaking all at once, breathe in. On days where the tears fall, breathe in. When everything is going well, breathe in. Keep breathing until it becomes default.

 

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

They say that I'm a dreamer.....

She was a dreamer. Her head always filled with adventures and possibilities, with places to visit and jobs to try and people to meet.  While in her head she traveled the world and worked dream job after dream job while effortlessly having perfect hair (because let’s all be honest, our daydreams always include effortlessly perfect hair), she sat at a desk in a town she once loved and her heart longed for more.   

 

Oh, she loved her life. There was a boy who loved her and who she loved more than she thought she could ever outwardly express, and there was a wedding, and a new home, and a job where she liked the people she worked with and never had to wear a pant suit. There was a part of her, I think there would always be a part of her, that wanted to pack up (with future husband of course) and drive until they hit the ocean, buy the cheapest house they could find as close to the beach as possible and open a coffee shop. Or hop on a plane and cross the ocean to Ireland or Paris for a year.

 

Maybe one day they would or maybe not. I guess one can never truly know. The one thing she did know was that the world was calling to her. It was calling her to come explore it, to see its wonder, to love its people.

“Come and play”

Just Write

Just write. Write about fears and dreams. Write about feelings and moments and thoughts. Write. Chase. Remember.

 

Write about how the sun warming your skin makes you want to run and twirl and collapse in the grass to watch the clouds go by. Or how putting on your favorite sweater in comforting in a way you can’t quite explain. Write about the way your job makes you feel, or sometimes how it makes you not feel.

Write about your daydreams. Like the one where you and your love move to Ireland and work in little shops, barely getting by but having the adventure of your lives. Or how you move to a beach town and live for the beach and each other.

 

Write about Guatemala and how even after 4 years you can’t seem to get it out of your head and desperately want to go back and love on the beautiful people, while they teach you more than you could ever teach or do for them.

Write about your favorite songs and the memories they bring to mind. Write about college and the girl you were then, the things you learned and the ways you’ve seen yourself grow. Write your biggest dreams even they sound completely ridiculous. Put them out there. Don’t be afraid of them. Write about new hobbies or things you just try once. Write about the things love has taught you.

 Be bold. Be brave. Write.

Spiritual Blessings

This....just this...what joy, what hope, what love. 

Ephesians 1:4-14 

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.[a] 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure.10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God,[b]for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.

12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God.13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own[c] by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

Live

New Year. Resolutions. Lists. Actions. Intensions.

These things seem to go with each other.

I did make resolutions this year and I bought a notebook to list them out in and make a weekly plan of how I was going to accomplish these goals. As I was reading through all the things I had written, all the things my heart had said it wanted for this year, one word kept coming to mind. Live. That's what it all boiled down to. Really living, packing life into each and every day. Not just existing, but being full of life. There is so much to see and do and feel and love and if you spend each day just going through the motions you can miss it.

So I have a LIVE notebook and a LIVE list and these are just things that will help me stay on track. That will help me to take full advantage of this blessed life that I have been given. What a tragedy to waste these breaths on TV shows and this imaginary world on the internet (not that either of those things are bad, but when they take over, they are life sucking and toxic).

This is a big year for me, and one that I am excited to fully live in.