1 Year

I started this blog with a simple prayer one year ago:

God, please give me a mind that’s full of Your love and compassion; a mind that thinks of others before myself.

I’m so humbled that you’ve taken the time to get to know my heart, whether you’ve read since the beginning or stopped by once. I’m an ordinary girl with a simple mission: to love God and follow Him. I fail everyday, but His grace gives me hope for tomorrow. 

Thank you all for being so genuine, loving and honest. Thank you for staying in touch and sharing your beautiful lives with me. Thank you for letting me watch God work through you. Thank you for inspiring me. 

May your roots grow deep in God’s love ♥

Jaclyn Rae

photo via weheartit

Autumn

Anyone else excited for fall?! I know I am! I love sweaters, boots, and bursts of color. Here are a few photos from an impromptu autumn photo shoot with my friend, B, at the park yesterday. He’s camera-shy and doesn’t want me to post his picture, but I wish I could so you all could tell him how cute he is.

What did you do this weekend? Whatever it was, I hope it was beautiful.

XO,
Jaclyn Rae

For Kevin

I met Kevin in high school. 

He’s been one of my best friends ever since. 

We lived in the same dorm my first two years of college and hung out everyday. I’d call him to grab coffee at 1 a.m. or ask him to teach me how to throw a football. 

 

We’ve done so many fun things together. Family dinners. Church. Snowmobiling. Going to the zoo. Running. Swimming. Birthdays. Going to the beach. Co-leading a Bible study. 

But when people ask me why we’re such good friends, I don’t start with the fun things. I tell them he drove me to the hospital almost everyday for a month while my mom recovered from brain surgery. And that he cried with me when my grandma passed away. And prayed with me more times than I can count. That’s just the kind of friend he is.

Happy birthday to one of the best guys I know. Kevin, I hope your 24th year is filled with adventure, blessing, joy, and all the other beautiful things in life.

With love,

Jaclyn

Things They Should Teach You In School

• How to love someone.
• How to tell someone they’ve hurt you.
• How to apologize without defending yourself.
• How to tell someone you don’t love them anymore.
• How to resist impulse spending.
• How to be polite and assertive.
• How to ask for help.
• How to take responsibility for your own happiness.
• How to have empathy for others.
• How to surround yourself with people who add value to your life.
• How to live within a budget.
• How to have a good attitude.
• How to repair damaged trust.
• How to appropriately handle anger.
• How to forgive someone who breaks your heart.
• How to follow through with commitments.
• How to admit mistakes.
• How to let your passions shape your profession.
• How to find a stress-relieving outlet. 
• How to make new friends.
• How to pursue the truth.
• How to be a good sibling.
• How to choose the right spouse.
• How to have confidence.
• How to have age-appropriate style.
• How to find creative solutions to problems.
• How to have convictions and stay open to new ideas.

Whatever You Are, Be A Good One.

Girl,
You are sensational.
What you have to
say is important.
It is relevant.
You are undeniable.
You are capable.
Indescribable.
Revolutionary.
You are beautiful.

-Gala Darling

It’s Okay To Cry

It’s okay to cry when you feel overwhelmed with gratitude, when life gives you more than you think you deserve. 
It’s okay to cry when someone takes care of you and you can’t believe how honest their intentions are.
It’s okay to cry when you are standing in a crowd but still feel the dull ache of loneliness.
It’s okay to cry when you find someone who understands you, someone who stays when you push them away.
It’s okay to cry when you fall in love with someone who makes you see the world in brighter colors.
It’s okay to cry when a loved one gets sick, when you’re worried about things beyond your control.
It’s okay to cry when you realize that life is unexpectedly beautiful and poetic, when everything falls into place.
It’s okay to cry when you are laughing with a best friend, and when you learn to laugh until you cry at yourself.
It’s okay to cry on the phone with your mom, whether you are still a kid or old enough to have kids of your own.
It’s okay to cry when you talk to God, when you’re driving or kneeling or writing in a journal.
It’s okay to cry when you need someone more than they need you, and they don’t ask you to need them less.
It’s okay to cry when someone leaves and you don’t know how to fill that void in your schedule or your heart.
It’s okay to cry when you love someone who will never see you as anything more than a good friend.
It’s okay to cry when you read something that completely moves you and changes your perspective.
It’s okay to cry when you meet someone who restores your belief that people are inherently kind and good.

Darling, it’s okay to cry.

[photo reblogged via tumblr weheartit]

Twenty-four.

Twenty-four is a weird age because my friends and I are all in different places.

We are single, dating, engaged, or married. We are purchasing homes, renting tiny apartments, or living in our parents’ basement. We are pursuing degrees, realizing dreams, working at dead-end jobs, or unemployed. We are saving money, living paycheck to paycheck, or accumulating debt. We are walking with God or walking away from the religion our parents forced on us.

We are figuring ourselves out. We are making choices about relationships. We are deciding whether we’ll leave something good for the possibility of something great. We are battling fears of commitment, or fears of being alone. We are falling in love with others, or falling in love with who we are in the world as individuals.

We are deciding what the rest of our lives will look like.

And me? I’m reaching. I am reaching for the courage to dream a little bigger. I am reaching for friends who think that God is awesome and life is beautiful. I am letting go of relationships that make me feel like less than I am. I am shifting memories to the back of my mind and making room for better ones. I am embracing the parts of myself that I love and confronting the parts of myself that need improvement.

I am realizing that I don’t want the next few years to be easy. I want them to be filled with beauty and breaking and everything else it takes to have an extraordinary life. I want whatever it takes to become a woman whose life is centered on Jesus. I want whatever it takes to become a wife who never stops finding new ways to fall in love with her husband. I want whatever it takes to become a mom who sets up a tent in the backyard and stays up late roasting marshmallows with her kids so they look back at their childhood and see happy things. I want whatever it takes to become a friend that other people can count on, no matter what.

I love being twenty-four because it means that the days ahead will be filled with love and courage and growth… I’m ready for it.

I Never Grew Out Of My Princess Phase

I’m 24 today! What better way to celebrate a birthday than with a girly, pink, princess blog post?

 

[All photos reblogged via weheartit]

I hope you all get treated like the beautiful princesses that you are today! Wishing you lots of love, tiaras, & pink cupcakes. ♥

XO, Jaclyn Rae 

Thank You to the Beautiful, Unconventional Ladies of the Blogosphere

I don’t watch TV. I don’t flip through magazines. I read blogs.

When I entered the blogosphere I was surprised at the women I found. You don’t all fit the “blogger” stereotype. You don’t wear frilly vintage dresses and hang out at trendy coffee shops. You’re not tall, thin, and young. You’re not obsessed with celebrity gossip. You’re not angsty and attention-seeking.

You are women of all ages who inspire beauty (& not just the conventional/model/hipster kind of beauty). Women with witty, brilliant minds. Women who love passionately as sisters, mothers, daughters, and friends. Women with bold faith in themselves, humanity, or a higher power. Women who exude creativity, style, and integrity.

You have insecurities and apprehensions. You feel jaded by the world’s definition of beauty at times. You may want to change the world but, more likely, you just want the world to see you. You want to know that you’re doing everything you can with what you’ve been given. 

I want you to know that I see you. You make my heart come alive. You’ve changed the way I see beauty in myself and in others. I come here to find creativity and love, and I always find it in all of you. You make it okay for me to be unconventional and not want the same things as my peers. You helped me discover my voice. 

Thank you.

Ever Blessed

Yesterday I was reminded that circumstances constantly change.

I spent my volunteer shift at the hospital rocking a newborn baby to sleep. As I drove home, I received a text informing me that a friend had a miscarriage.

In the evening I had dinner with one of my best friends who is moving across the country this week. As she leaves, other friends are returning home to start their post-graduation lives.

Two of my dearest friends got engaged last night and cannot wait to start their lives together. At the same time, I know people enduring the devastation of divorce.

Even the best of circumstances change.

I’m reminded that there are some things this world can’t satisfy. Beauty, wealth, security, youth– it all fades eventually. Even if I’m blessed with a beautiful marriage and a dream job someday, I know I’ll face challenges that I can’t even imagine.

In the past, I pursued God because I wanted Him to change my circumstances… But, in that pursuit, I fell in love and His love lifted me above my circumstances. And even though it feels like everyone is moving on and doing great things with their lives while I’m standing still, I’ve never been more blessed.

Maybe happiness isn’t receiving all of God’s blessing on our terms. Maybe happiness is the result of being humbled in the light of who God is. Without Him, I am nothing. In Him, I have everything.

“God gives, God takes. God’s name be ever blessed.”  –Job 1: 21