Roar Faith!

So I guess you can thank my lovely boyfriend for the fact this blog still exists. At this point in my life uncertainty is my best friend  and I am so terrified of the future ( although also excited) and I basically feel like such a hypocrite given the amount of articles I've written on beating fear, that I basically just wanted to quit, delete my blog and run and hide! No seriously, when's the next boat/train/whatever in the opposite direction? I completely get how Jonah must have felt!

Great start eh?

It just goes to show that I am human too. I admit that as I write this, I am fighting the urge to click on that little delete blog tab I have open, I am tempted but I won't do it. This blog has never been about me, it has always been about helping others and honoring God through my writing and I can't do that if I delete the platform I've been blessed enough to use for my work. This is where my flesh gets crucified and I have to follow my heart and share what I believe God want's me to say today.

Just before I get into this, let me remind you this blog is a temple living blog, we talk about issues relating to soul body and spirit on this site. We've done roots now we are on the stems, which is the spiritual stuff and then finally we will get to the body bit and look at environment and taking care of your physical temple. That's the destination, but given my personality, I can't just get there, so right now we are on the stem, spiritual content. I do try to make a point of being respectful to people who may believe differently to me, but at the same time my life is designed to serve God and so I do talk about this where it feels right...today it feels right.

Anyway, moving on.

Back in 2012 I read Lisa Beveres book " Lioness Arising"  I mentioned this to a friend and they commented that they were pretty sure the Hebrew root name of Hayley had something to do with a lioness. 

I did my research and sure enough it was true, the hebrew root name of Hayley ( although it may also have other meanings) Athaleyah which means lioness of God. I was so excited about this that I decided to make Athaleyah my online handle, this extended to the website where I met my now boyfriend. 

He decided that Athaleyah was too long to remember so he deemed me Athy and has been calling me this ever since.  Every time he does, it serves as a tiny reminder of who I am in Christ, which really should be all that matters, but let's be honest it's not easy to not care what people think, especially in the beauty industry.

I used to think that it was okay to care what people think, justifying it as just how the world works and while we are certainly not of this world, we still have to live here, but I was wrong. You see until we can see ourselves as God sees us, our relationship both with God and ourselves will be a little off, and this will have a knock on effect on our relationships with people.  

As I write this, I am thinking about the ladies event I will be attending a little later. I am miles away from home and I really only know one person at this event, and to be honest I am a little ( no allot) nervous. For me attending this event is a massive step of faith. I suffer with anxiety, especially in social situations, but God has not given us a spirit of fear and that's all that anxiety really is and so I am going to feel the fear and do it anyway....with Jesus.

I shouldn't be surprised that yet again God is asking me to walk by faith, everything about being in London and with my boyfriend has been about faith. The whole thing started with 20 seconds of insane courage to get on a coach from my home in  Wales to London to meet someone I had never met in person( my now boyfriend) way back in 2012 ( I don't recommend this, but if you are going to do this, then please tell someone where you are going and make sure you have 100% peace that it is God's leading not just emotion, pray hard I did.) 

This was incredibly unlike me for two reasons. Firstly I am an incredibly cautious person and secondly, I had a good few reasons not to trust that everything would be fine, despite the insane amount of crazy peace that captured my heart and made even my fears think twice, because I have a history of being abused by men, and yet here I was catching a coach to London to meet a guy I didn't know, because I had 100% faith that God was in it.  

Since the every other puzzle piece shaped stepping stone has also been all about faith. The bible says that Jesus's sheep know his voice, but when He actually speaks it's a good idea for a sheep to listen to the shepherd because the shepherd has the sheep's best interest at heart. 

It is true there is a fine line between faith and stupidity, but nothing about faith is ever safe and yet it's the most safe and sane thing we can do to trust in God and walk by faith. The shepherd can see things we can't he's taller than us!

So that's about it for my story. Now let me share some of the lessons I've learned.

Faith Roars!

More often than not, faith requires doing something that is scary, uncertain and in same cases, seams down right crazy!

It's common to feel as-though you must have a screw loose upstairs to be actually doing this thing that you are sure you know that you know God is leading you to do, but having had more than a fair share of these moments myself ( and still being in one right now as I look for more stable work/accommodation in london) I can definitely say that God is always faithful. 

If he is truly in something and he asks you to step out, he will catch you. He will never ever fail you, his word is full of promises  and God is not a liar, so you can be sure His word is true.

When a lion/lioness roars you hear it, it's loud, proud and out there. There is nothing small about a lions rower and there's nothing shy or small about stepping out in faith. Its radical obedience in the rawest form.

I used the example of the meaning of my name to prove my next point. God knows I'm a little absent minded sometimes, so He made sure that I never get to forget why I'm on this earth. To serve him. Being a lioness of God means a life surrendered  to the king of not only the jungle, but the universe too!

God always equips us to get the job done.

He is our provider, he love us unconditionally and a part of that love is provision. Now don't get me wrong, it is a partnership we are supposed to do our bit, but God will always, always meet our needs. I like the way one speaker said it, (although I can't remember their name so if you know who said this please let me know so i can credit them)

Do the possible and God will do the impossible. - Unknown 

Thirdly if you don't know who you are in Christ then you're not going to operate fully in your faith.

You need to know your lion or lioness to Roar  like one. If you think you're a lame little worm, when really you're a lion you are not going to be comfortable in the dirt and you're not going to thrive there.

God want's us to thrive! So it is imperative that we find out who we are in Christ, and let our faith roar!

Now I know some of you reading this will be thinking something along the lines of

"but Hayley I really am a worm!" or"I don't know who I am in Christ!" or maybe even "that's for everyone but me"

Dear friend let me help you,

You are not a worm or a chicken or even a silly little sheep, you are a lion/lioness and you were born to roar, that passion inside of you, that big dream that you think is too big to even get started, that was given to you by God and he has a plan for your life. 

The reason that dream is too big for you is because you were never meant to achieve it alone. God may call individuals, but he uses  communities and teams to make things happen. No one person can be an expert in everything, we all need each other and that is exactly how God intended it.

Believe in yourself because God believes in you and I do too and guess what?

 We need you. 

See this whole knowing who we are in Christ stuff, really isn't all about us, it's about the hurting and lost world that we are born to serve and Jesus wants to save.  We may think that low self-esteem is really humility, but actually it's a lie of satan to think that it's okay to dislike or hate yourself because what is in your heart will spread. If you hate yourself, you will hate your life and if you hate your life but refuse to let that frown be turned upside down by Jesus, then you really are not going to be as effective in bringing positive change as you could have been.

Maybe today like me , you are being asked to take a huge step of faith, remember you are a lion/lioness and rower!

Maybe you need to use your faith to trust God has got a certain situation and it's time for you to be a sleeping lion.

Which ever it is for you right now, remember  God is faithful no matter what, if He promised it, you will see it, and nothing, absolutely nothing can separate you from His love.

Raw faith roars so roar dear friend just like the lion/lioness you are!

Catch you next time guys,

Love Hayley

xXx

I'm not on my home computer and finding adding the reference links a little difficult, so when the owner of this computer gets in from work I will find out how to do it and add them a little later. 

London It Is Then...

Have you ever had one of those days where you had everything planned and then God comes along and is like "nope, got something else in mind" and your left with a strange sense of inner peace, but with a tint of nerves like you just somehow know things are about to change??

I'm in one of those moments right now. As I write this, my bag is sitting on my bed, along with all the papers I need to quickly file to take with me as soon as I'm done writing this post. I am just about to set off for London again, just as I have plenty of times before, to see my amazing boyfriend. ( Ah the joys of long distance relationships) only this time, something is really different.

I am a strong believer that if you put your trust in God he will lead you and he speaks through many different ways. I always make a point of double checking that what I believe to be God is actually him, through the counsel of a few really wise elders, the word of god, the peace in my spirit and is there favor?  

For example I was quite content in my PJs, all cosy on the softa at my Nanna's house when all of sudden I got the call to go to London again...now how exactly at this point I feel is really important for me to keep to myself, but after the fact, I will definitely explain myself a little more but for now let's just say I am about to take another 20 seconds of insane courage and follow the magnet that is pulling me to London.

As a result of this call, I did something very unlike me, You see I am scared of being out alone in the dark  but nevertheless 

I left my grand mother's at nearly 10 pm last night, meaning I would have missed the last bus home, and so I had to get a taxi. Usually it costs somewhere in the region of £30 to make this trip but I had favor and the taxi driver allowed me to pay him a little less, since it was all I had on me at the time. 

I can't say how grateful I am to said taxi driver and when I find the name of the firm, I will definitely be sending a little something to say thank you.

Anyway, back to my story...

I got home around 11pm, and was able to book and print my ticket to London (with the help of my genius mother) and get the washing done ready to go with no problems at all.  

I have absolutely no idea what awaits me in London, other then my amazing boyfriend and his  lovely family and of-course, church tomorrow, but I  really do feel like not recording this moment would be something I would regret, so here it is. I'm off to London again.

Catch you later.

Love Hayley

P.s I know the editing of this post is not great, It's roughly written and not what I usually do but like I said I really don't want to not have this moment recorded and I'm sharing it with all of you my awesome readers because when God does whatever it is He is about to do, I want him to have as much glory as possible. Writing about spiritual stuff like this is not really what this blog is about, but never the less, the spirit is apart of the three parts of a human being so occasionally I do allow myself to post things like this. Anyways enough rambling hope you all have an awesome day!!

Shoes shoes shoes! - Making Peace With The Past And Moving On

Dear Readers,

I think this may actually be the last completely soul-based post from me for a while.  Although this is primarily a soul care blog, I feel that a big part of taking care of your soul is looking after your health and environment also and so that is going to be the focus from now on.

 I have really enjoyed these past few years, writing articles about the soul and personal development recommendations relating to it, but if you dig around in the roots soul just like the roots of a flower it's gonna get messy and you will end up coming across the same root sooner or later. At some point, a flower needs to break through the ground and start reaching for the sun, and at this point in my life, so do I.  Before this happens though I do have one final lesson I would like to share with you.

Time For Another Story

For the last few years, I have felt like I'm walking around the same old routine with certain issues and decisions in my life. 

I kept on making the same mistakes over and over again I basically was acting like a clown, attempting to walk in shoes that were far too big for me.

How that looked is, I  was chasing a dream that was not only way bigger than me, but also not really my dream. 

I was living the life I thought would gain the most approval because I had a huge problem with conflict and not being liked and I really didn't think much of myself.  Recently, I tripped over my clown shoes and hurt myself so much I decided it's time to put them in the bin.

[caption id="attachment_1364" align="aligncenter" width="230"] Enough clowning around![/caption]

The next pair of shoes I put on was the running shoes. I had a "let's get stuff done" kind of attitude. 

I enrolled in a bunch of courses, set up a new business, got a new job, sorted out my home life (sort of) and made a decision I was going to do everything I could to turn my life around, it was great for the most part. 

There are some great lessons to be learned from running the race that life presents you, however, I have never been into sports, and again I tripped over my shoe laces and found myself face-down wondering what I'm even doing with my life.

That leads me to the high-heals.

I now hold myself to a much higher standard then I did previously, I don't believe in beating myself up about things, but at the same time, I will not accept less than working towards being the best version of myself either.  

High heels can be painful, and it does take a little while to learn how to walk in them and even when you have mastered it, you can still fall over if you don't watch your step. It's the same with life. 

Holding myself to a higher standard is a good start, but getting consistent and watching  I don't slip up is an entirely another thing.

[caption id="attachment_1366" align="aligncenter" width="254"] Lady on a mission![/caption]

With all of this in mind, I got to thinking, what's the number one thing that could give me the potential of falling over? 

When I got really quiet and honest with myself, I realized that the one thing that had led to a majority of my past mistakes is that I was refusing to make peace with my past.

I treated certain people in my life with less respect then they deserved because of past hurts relating to those people. 

I had walled up, that not only stopped people from really getting to the core of Hayley as a person, but also kept me locked in a very lonely cage with a big black dog called Jet (depression) standing watch as gate-keeper.

I listened to a song recently by Matthew West, called the list, and then as if by divine intervention the same thing was recommended in a book I was reading.  

The concept is that you write down every mistake you ever made, or every event that ever hurt you and then you add a one-word emotion or short phase to each thing, you do this all the way through your life right up to where you are now, and then you make a conscious decision to forgive and release the people on the list, rip it up and move on with your life. I did this and I have to say it was one of the most freeing things I've ever done!

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1pQrsUDjDU[/embed]

Before you put on a new pair of shoes, you have to first take off the old ones. 

In this case, those old ripped up shoes is the past. Make peace with it because if you don't just like a zombie it will come chasing you with the intention to ruin your life.

Old shoes, hurt, they are falling apart, they don't serve us anymore. 

The only place for them is the bin, it's the same with our past. Forgive for your own sake, make a decision that the past is gone and today is a new day and start working towards the future you want to have. 

Yes, memories will still come up from time to time, but once you have made peace with your past, it's strange, those memories don't really hurt anymore, they just were, but are not apart of your life and that's okay.  

It's okay to not be perfect, it's okay to have regrets and mistakes and things we rather forget, we all do but carrying that stuff into your future will ruin it.

You don't need that baggage so let it go.

Sometimes yes, counselling and/or professional help is needed to properly put things to rest, there is nothing wrong with that, but at some point there comes a time where you can't talk it through anymore then you already have and it's time to accept that nothing you do or say will change what has happened. It's time to let go and move on and you are absolutely worth that.

Also, remember that there is nothing stopping you from doing better in the future, learn from the past, then let it go.

So in closing, I highly recommend that you make peace with your past and find a pair of shoes that fit you. Your soles and your soul will thank you.

Catch you next time guys,

Love Hayley

xXx