Hi, I’m Mollie. But what you really want to know is what’s hiding behind that name. What makes me different than anyone else. What hats do I wear and what worries do I carry with me through my days.

I’m not thrilled with my current situation. 7 months ago I lost a custody battle My kids live an hour from me. I see them 6 days a month. I hear all the time how other parents can’t imagine, and I promise you that is absolutely true. It’s not something you get used to. I call them every night, and still, sometimes by the end of the call I’m holding back the tears, because that’s all I get. A few minutes a night on the phone with them. I re-entered the working world almost a year ago now and I’m struggling. I’m having trouble paying the bills. The major ones are paid this month; the car payment, car insurance and electric bill. The others, well, I’ll figure it out. I sell ketones because I’m pretty sure they have helped me not have a full on nervous break down over the last two years. Which is when my life started careening out of control. I struggle to get out of bed because it’s just easier to sleep through it. Some days I don’t get out of bed.

You may be wondering why I’m sharing such very personal stuff. I think it’s in the hiding behind a fake smile and pretending everything is ok that we get stuck in our circumstances. It’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to struggle with the internal dialog running through your head. But, please, find somebody to share it with. It’s in the sharing that light gets in. Light and darkness cannot exist in the same place. I’ve help to that concept. Clung to it as a lifeline.

I trust that God has a plan even when I can’t see it. Even when I feel like nothing will ever get better.

Godspeed,

Mollie <3

This post is a part of a writing flash mob that takes over the internet every week. A one word prompt and 5 minutes to write with no editing allowed. Want to learn more or join in the party? Come on over and take a look around.

Be loyal. To your family and friends, to your job(s), to God. Absolutely make loyalty your mission, but don’t forget the person in the mirror. It’s easy to forget yourself in most things, but especially in this.

THE CHALLENGE

I challenge you to take a picture of yourself right now. Do you have it? Good. Who do you see in that picture?

Now, take a minute…how do you wish the woman/man in the photo were different? I’m not talking about physical appearance here. What qualities, what characteristics do you wish to develop in yourself? What do you want to be known for? Remembered for? Do you have them in mind? Find an app to write them on your picture with. (I used WordSwag.)

Now, go find this post on my Facebook page.

Now, share your picture with me in the comments.

Then, if you will, share that post with your friends so they can participate as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT NEXT

Keep that picture where you can easily access it. Keep her/him in mind when you are walking through your days. Remember that photo when you are reacting to situations. It might not come quickly, but sooner than you think you will think of those qualities you are trying to cultivate in yourself before you react, before you say the unkind words, before you look to the world to tell you who you are.

 

I will leave you with my life verse:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” –Jeremiah 29:11

God has you. He has a plan and a purpose just for you.

 

Godspeed,

Mollie <3

 

 

 

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link-up. FMF is where bloggers gather together to form a writing flash mob where we all write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes with no editing! Sound like fun? You can learn more and/or join this week’s link-up here!

 

When I’m hurting my first instinct is to hide away and deal with it by myself. Well, if I’m being honest my first thought is why am I still not married so I have someone to carry this burden alongside me?  I miss having someone who is near to me when the world starts to crumble at my feet. Someone I can call and they come no matter what when they hear the distress in my voice. Someone who’s arms, when they’re around me, act as a barrier between me and the harsh realities of the world.

 

But then I remember that I have all of that, not in a man, because God hasn’t sent him to me yet, but in the arms of the Creator Himself. He is there whenever the world starts to crumble. He is there to pick up the pieces and to set me on the road that will lead me to where I am supposed to be. Every circumstance, every heartache, has served to create in me the spirit of a warrior who fights a battle with the enemy every day and each battle teaches me how to better fight. We fight not with men, but with alongside God. He is always near. To draw near to God, you need but to take up the warrior’s stance, on your knees!

 

 

Godspeed,

Mollie  <3

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link-up. FMF is where bloggers gather together to form a writing flash mob where we all write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes with no editing! Sound like fun? You can learn more and/or join this week’s link-up here!

Excuse me while I have a nervous breakdown real quick.

You know some days the stressors in our lives bring crashing down all of the carefully pent up fears that would paralyze us if we gave them too much thought. I’m afraid I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life. I’m afraid I’m not mothering my boys well enough. I’m afraid I’m going to turn horrible awful men out into the world because I didn’t do a good enough job. I’m afraid that I am never going to truly succeed at anything. That I will just be “trying” or “starting out” in a perpetual loop forever. I’m afraid I will always feel like a loser.

Ok, that’s over now. Time to get back up, dust myself off and walk forward. Wallowing in my failures is not an option. I choose to bring two people into this world and they deserve better than a mother who can’t see outside of her own fears long enough to raise them well and to make a better person out of herself and to keep striving for a better life for us all.

Honestly, these were my exact thoughts tonight.  It’s ok to have these moments, as long as you know where to go to get yourself out of it.  Here is my arsenal I choose for tonight:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And because a little bit of brave is always a good idea when you’re feeling the weight of your fears:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no excuse to stay weighed down by your fears. Not when God has given us all the tools we need to see through to the other side!

Godspeed,

Mollie  <3

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link-up. FMF is where bloggers gather together to form a writing flash mob where we all write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes with no editing! Sound like fun? You can learn more and/or join this week’s link-up here!

We are collectors in this life.  We collect experiences.  And like the things in our house, we showcase some of those experiences by posting them on our social media or telling everyone we meet about them.  Others, like a box of old mementos and letters from a failed relationship hidden in the back of a closet, we hide away from the rest of the world out of shame or fear of what people will think.  But it’s those moments, all of those experiences that combine to make us unique and special and perfectly who we are.  It’s that memory that pops up for us that shapes the way we react to the next experience in a different way than anyone else.  It’s your collection of experiences that touches the world, shapes other people’s lives and tells them that they are not alone in the struggles of life.  Go ahead and hide the things that you need to, but if you’re brave enough bring it all on out to the living room and let people identify with the things that make you who you are.  Let them hear the echoed “me too” when they see something familiar in your story.

 

Godspeed,

Mollie  <3

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link-up. FMF is where bloggers gather together to form a writing flash mob where we all write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes with no editing! Sound like fun? You can learn more and/or join this week’s link-up here!

YOU have to know your own worth before anyone else will recognize it in you.

Who are you?  Do you really know?  Have you taken the time to really think of what makes you, you?  Of what makes you unique?  To really do this accurately you have to be able to drown out all the voices that try to tell you who you are and focus in on the only voice that truly knows.  Can you hear Him whispering in your ear?  When you set out to discover your worth, let His voice be the loudest one you hear.  Let Him tell you of all the great gifts and talents He has placed inside of you.  Be prepared though, as soon as you let His voice be louder, all of the other voices are going to try to win out and tell you that you’re not all the beautiful and wonderful things He says you are.  When you’ve got it, come back and tell me.  I would love to know those places inside you that were planted and are being cultivated by God.

 

Godspeed,

Mollie <3

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link-up. FMF is where bloggers gather together to form a writing flash mob where we all write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes with no editing! Sound like fun? You can learn more and/or join this week’s link-up here!

Sometimes I just want to scream, “What do you expect from me?”  There are so many things that are expected of us in this life, and there are in turn so many things that we expect out of life.  I learned long ago, that expectations weigh us down.  It’s like constantly hanging onto the what if’s that life can sometimes leave us with.  I know what it is to be stuck in the never ending cycle of what if I had done this and what if I had said that….that does nothing but keep us trapped in the past, wishing for a future that is never coming.

I fought it for a long time and tried to hang onto what was and what I thought should have been, but there is no good in that.  No peace of mind.  Now, I am trying my best to fully embrace this outside the box life unexpected that God has put me smack in the middle of.  I don’t always love it, and some days I get frustrated with it, but that’s when faith comes in handy.  My life verse is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  On those days when I get frustrated with this life, I just take a minute to remember that God has it all under control.

Godspeed,

Mollie <3

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link-up. FMF is where bloggers gather together to form a writing flash mob where we all write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes with no editing! Sound like fun? You can learn more and/or join this week’s link-up here!

One short year ago my future looked different than it does now.  I expected to be married with my two boys and his two girls, a crazy dog and two cats.  That’s what today was supposed to look like for me a year ago.  But life happens and the future changes and evolves to meet it.  One future picture fades as another stands up to take it’s place, and on and on it goes.

I have found in life that when one future picture fades, it often leads me into a place of self discovery.  With the fading of that last picture I discovered a new passion hidden within me for helping people realize their health and fitness goals as a Beachbody Coach.  I absolutely love it!  I don’t think I would have found it had that old picture stayed intact, because everything I was, was all wrapped up in the life I was living then.  I wasn’t looking for new opportunities then.

Somewhere along the way I’ve heard the phrase, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

Dream anyway.  Make your plans.  Just don’t hold too tightly to them.  No matter what the future holds or doesn’t hold, one thing has to be constant.  You have to believe that God has it all in hand.  That He knows what He’s doing, and that everything will work out just the way it’s supposed to.

What are your plans?  Go ahead, tell me.  Promise I won’t hold you to them!

 

Godspeed,

Mollie  <3

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link-up. FMF is where bloggers gather together to form a writing flash mob where we all write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes with no editing! Sound like fun? You can learn more and/or join this week’s link-up here!