I’ve been actively learning how to cultivate a beautiful life that is lived on purpose. It’s taken me about 6 years to face my feelings and emotions that were keeping me stuck. Instead I was just trying to “pull myself up by the bootstraps and keep moving forward”. I was a champion at that lifestyle. I would begin to crash and burn emotionally and then say to myself, “NOPE! Get back up, keep moving, keep pressing on!” and I would suppress it all again. That lifestyle gave me so many incredible gifts- grit, perseverance and the ability to do hard things when I didn’t “feel” like it.

The one thing it didn’t give me was wholehearted freedom. I had to actually FEEL what I had been suppressing for decades in order for it to lose its grip on my life. I have always been a striver. A worker bee. Motivated by an inner belief that if I could just do enough for God that He would miraculously take away the sadness I was hiding. I always followed the Bible as closely as I could, yet none of the joy, compassion and kindness flowed from the heart. It only flowed from duty.

After some rigorous emotional health work, my heart and emotions are now in sync with my brain and can I tell you how freeing and life giving that is? To believe it with your mind and it also be completely true from the heart and emotions. To experience both grief and exponential joy.

Through this journey I have learned that a healthy life has inflow and outflow. We are to be like a river- with a source of water moving through our lives- not a stagnant pond that grows algae and stinks. We are to connect to a source larger than ourselves and freely give to others in the same way we are given to. Free and tangible love, compassion and forgiveness.

Inflow and outflow.

Because of this, I wanted to create a space on my blog where I bring awareness to the places in Lubbock that you can partner with and use your gifting and strengths to have an “outflow” also. To give you the opportunity that can open your heart space and create more meaning in your own life and in the lives of others. To be the connector between ministries and a massive group of people who may be interested in joining the cause.

I plan to showcase 1-2 non-profit ministries in Lubbock on my blog monthly. You can come here and get to know the many different hidden gems that are helping the people who need it the most.

I read something that Bob Goff had written once, “Jesus wants us to find the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the naked, the strange, and those in jail and love them.”

It was really profound to me how simple loving others can be when we look for those who need help. Real help. Tangible, spiritual and emotional help. When we stop to love the one that God puts in front of us then we can truly change the world.

I hope that this category on my blog will help you to find a cause that deeply resonates within your heart and that your put your money, your time and your love into helping others through it. Find what God is doing around this town and get behind it!