Meet the New You by Elisa Pulliam

This book is amazing. I wanted something that was going to give me real life direction, from someone that has actually experienced what its like to want to change your life and live better for God and yourself. This book does it. It has real life experience mixed with scripture to back up what you're struggling with. It also has applications- ideas and thoughts, actions for you to take to make you new. It also has information and knowledge on being able to reflect back on certain areas of your life and see how you could change them for the better or reflect on areas where you are struggling and want to make a difference. The scripture is fitting to whatever area you may be going through also. You don't necessarily have to go in order, there's a vast array of topics. Choose one or two, or the whole book, it's up to you!

For more information about the author and her works click here


I received this book for free from bloggingforbooks.com in exchange for an unbiased review

I can't Imagine

I can't imagine my life without these boys. Well, I could but, it would be gloomy and depressing. Love them so much, even on the roughest days.

Dawned on Me Today...

It dawned on me today, driving down the road, listening to Adele's "Hello" on the radio, that, yesterday I closed a chapter in my life that I never thought I'd have to close. I took yet another step towards being free from the very thing that's plagued me for the last 9 years. I let go of something that used to be important to me and something that I felt I had to hold on to for some reason.
As it hit me, like a punch in the gut, I had to snap myself back to reality because; it was almost as if that realization had paralyzed me.
I never dreamed when it all started that it'd end this way but, it has, and now the next chapter brings new, better things that will go on without the last.
Only a few more obstacles to get through before it's all officially over but, in time that will come too.
Thankful for moving on. Thankful for making the best decisions for me and my sons...

Didn't Expect

I used to think I'd be a great singer and tour the world with Michael W. Smith or Third Day or someone equally appealing. I also thought I'd be a famous writer, with writings of my heart and soul plastered on the pages of crisp white paper for the whole world to see.
Then, as time went on I thought I'd be a wife to an amazing man who treated me like a queen and worshiped the ground I walked on. Together we'd have a few children and maybe a dog. I'd stay home caring for other's children while my husband went off to work every day and I'd be the craft goddess of the world. 
My husband and I would love each other through every smile and tear, every good time and struggle. We'd love our children even more and give them a quality life full of experiences that families have; without spoiling them rotten and with making sure they were disciplined but loved...
Never did I imagine that I'd marry a drug addict/alcoholic who offered nothing but lies and cheating, and would choose everything over me and our children.
Never did I imagine having the children and having to raise them myself while fighting off demons in a war against myself (and the husband's too). I didn't imagine that instead of experiences, my children would get a mother who, some days can barely function and who would be perfectly content staying in pajamas, watching Netflix, and cuddling with her pillow all day.
I didn't expect to struggle with how to work, who would be with my children? How to support them when I couldn't even hold my head up. I didn't think that the piles of craft stuff would sit on the shelves beckoning me with my children to "let's do a craft mommy" and I say no because, my body just won't move. 
I didn't plan to be avoiding and angry because of the mental abuse I endured while trying to get some semblance of that imagined marriage I promised myself. I never desired for my dreams to come crashing down and leave me so cold, lifeless, abandoned, and hopeless. I didn’t mean to suffocate myself with so many hopes that promises I knew would be broken, would come true. 
But… I look at the face of my youngest son. His cheesy little smile and I hope that he never has to endure the pain and heartache his big brother has had to go through. While hearing my oldest, so engrossed in anger and pain- the yelling and fits that I never considered my children would have; I cry. Sometimes to sleep because I can’t help but think how I contributed to that hurt. 
I never thought that dreams I’ve made moving on, wouldn’t happen but, when they don’t I press on and make new ones. When the voices and chest pains tell me I’m not good enough for goodness I try even harder to tell them to go to hell, you won’t destroy me. You won’t destroy my children either.
And I look, I read, I struggle to find a way to take away that pain. And I know that on the day that I’m barely making it through my day and hanging on by a thread, I manage to get through because God is carrying me. Someday, he is going to set me down into the most glorious life he has planned for us and he’s going to remind me to continue to use all these lessons I’ve learned for good. And maybe if it’s not the amazing life I had thought of, it will be something even more wonderful because it’s his plan and somehow, someday, I will feel completely free to believe that there is something perfect for me, that all this struggle was for something.
Someday I’ll be healed and so, hopefully, will those little lives I’ve created; and I know that it wasn’t me: It was God that gets me and takes me exactly where he wants me to be.