About Dena
“First and foremost, I’m a Daughter of the King and a long-time Christ follower. I’m also a dog mom who enjoys reading Christian books, cardio drumming, traveling often, and I’m a bit of a technology geek. My life has seen its fair share of curve-balls and I’ve found that I’ve become closer to Christ in each trial as He’s comforted me and shown me that I can solely put my faith and trust in Him. 2 Corinthians 1:4 NLT says “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” I feel thankful and blessed for the messes in my life – as they have brought me closer to God. Through the messes, God has given me a message to share with you.”
#NoMessNoMessage
~Dena
26
Jan '19
Silver Lining in Hardships
26
Jan '19
Have you ever felt such sadness when going through a struggle in your life, only to have it turn around and be one of the best things that could have ever happened?
If you’re currently going through a hardship or a struggle, I get it – it’s really hard to see the “other side”. During this time, some people get bitter and some people get better. You do one or the other – there’s nearly no gray areas here. For me, the greatest thing about a life struggle is seeing God’s hand at work. Usually it’s after the soreness of the hardship has worn off – it’s then, when you quiet your soul, that you start seeing things more clearly.
When I was going through my most recent life struggle (quite some time ago) it was extremely hard to understand why, but God has shown so many amazing blessings from that struggle. You see, God had His plan. Maybe, just maybe (well, in my case I believe), God brought this struggle into my life to introduce me to a whole other world of amazing people that I’d have never known
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19
Jan '19
Fraud
19
Jan '19
If I’m being completely transparent (and I totally am), I find it peculiar that I find myself in situations where I need to go back and read my own blogs for encouragement. What is that? WHY is that? If that doesn’t make a person feel like a “fraud”, I don’t know what does. I think this is why we have to keep reaching out to God, because if we find ourselves slipping a bit, we’ll end up in a place wondering how we got there, and in my case, wondering how strong I could’ve been to write the words that I had written “previously” (by going back and reading
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12
Jan '19
Don’t Block the Blessings
12
Jan '19
We are all familiar with social media. We have friends, followers, or have established online groups where others with similar interests join and collaborate. It’s usually a fun time with these other people on the other side of the screen. They throw likes our way, they comment with compliments or similar points of view and they even give great ideas on various subjects… until they don’t. It’s then that you open up your social media account and see something you don’t like. “Did they really just say that?”, we ask ourselves. We can either be
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05
Jan '19
The Still Small Voice
05
Jan '19
This blog may become like what Seinfeld became – a tv show (or a blog, in my case) about “nothing”. I tend to ask God to lay on my heart what He wants me to write about, and in some instances, things will just happen and I’ll get an idea and start writing. Other times, I just get nothing. Nothing. Right now, I have nothing.
“How am I supposed to write a blog, God, if I’m not getting anything from you to write about?”
Well, it’s clear this is a struggle for me, because my life is so busy that when I ask, do I actually quiet myself and listen?? I like to say that I do, but do I really?? I’ll sit for 2 minutes quietly waiting, and then my mind starts wandering off somewhere, and then I
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29
Dec '18
Faith in the Doubt
29
Dec '18
Remember when Mary found favor with God? Remember the angel told Mary that she was going to conceive and give birth to the Son of the Most High (Luke 1:32)? What was Mary’s initial response? Was it “Thank you God for bestowing upon me this blessing?”. No, it wasn’t that. What about “Thank you God for allowing me to conceive the One who will be called the “Most HIgh”?” No, that wasn’t it either. It was “How can this happen?” Mary knew how this worked. How was this going to happen, and how was this happening?
Luke 1:29-34 NLT “Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid,
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22
Dec '18
Autonomous Faith
22
Dec '18
We’ve all most likely heard the song by Carrie Underwood – “Jesus Take the Wheel”. In this song she sings about giving control to Jesus and letting Him take over in her life. I was recently driving on a busy local highway and had a thought as I watched the cars zig-zagging in and out of the lanes in front of me. I thought, “How may I feel someday when I first get into an autonomous vehicle?”. Have you entertained this idea/thought before? It’s absolutely coming. No driver, just a big piece of metal with cushy seats in it, and a lot of sensors to be able to sense anything that is near it, while you just hope and pray that it doesn’t touch any of those things. Yikes!
I work for a company that makes prototypes and tests the safety and reliability of autonomous vehicles. I’m very interested and enjoy watching the progress that is made and I try to keep up on any news articles that are written about this new and upcoming
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15
Dec '18
God’s “Provisioning” System (GPS)
15
Dec '18
Yes, many of us may remember the days long ago of the AAA (Triple A) Maps and MapQuest, but most of us are now used to current technology and our Global Positioning System (GPS) app on our phone that simply tells us what to do to get to where we need to go (no, it’s not really to tell us “the time to beat!”). Our GPS basically tells us which direction to go when we are in unfamiliar territory and need guidance.
So, how can we relate this analogy to our own life? Can you think of a time in your life where you had NO idea which way to go? (We’re talking actual “life” now, not driving south on I-75.)
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08
Dec '18
Unrequited Fear
08
Dec '18
As babies, we don’t realize what fear is. We have the comfort of parents and loved ones and fear is not something that enters our mind. As we start to get older and have experiences, that’s when fear starts to sink in. Life happens around us and we learn what we may be “afraid” of. As a child, I remember being afraid to go down into the basement after dark at my house – even though the basement was finished, if my parents would ask me to go down and get something, I remember as soon as I’d pick up whatever it was down there that they asked me to get, I’d run so fast up those stairs – hitting each stair with a big boom with my feet as I ran back up. There was never anything down there to scare me, but the perception of the darkness
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01
Dec '18
Buzz Kill
01
Dec '18
Fun-sucker, buzz kill, killjoy – we’ve all used these words to describe someone in our life at some point. We define these words as someone who steals our fun, someone who just doesn’t want us to have joy, or someone who tries to steal anything good we have in life. Instead of jumping up and down with us as we celebrate, they look at us like we’re crazy and make us feel, for lack of a better word, stupid. You know who I’m talking about. We’ve all had this person (or persons!) in our life.
I think many people on the outside of Christianity (and maybe even some Christians, and I’ll elaborate more on this in a bit with myself as an example) think that once they allow God into their life, that their life is going to become stale and boring, and all the fun will just be
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24
Nov '18
Eggs and a Basket
24
Nov '18
Early this morning I started thinking how in the past, I’ve occasionally put all of my eggs in a single basket (and I was reminded how horribly that has usually worked out). Having a Plan A without a Plan B for a Type A personality like me usually spells disaster, mentally. It’s not something that I enjoy doing, and not something I often do – usually if I have a Plan A, I also like have a Plan B. That’s just the way I work. God gave all of us temperaments, and one of my temperaments is that of a planner, therefore, it’s just natural for me to have that alternate option. But – occasionally I’ll do it. Trusting more than I should, I’ll do it. Only Plan A. “Let’s do this!”
Well, I’ve found myself in life, as I mentioned, with all of my eggs in one basket. When that failed miserably, I was a bit shocked, but was I also relieved? In my gut (God’s still small
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