Love Out Loud And Mean It

New Year's resolutions, most of us have them, and are very much committed to them until the excitement of it all is over. I have made a resolution this year, which I intend to keep, and it happens to be about a very important thing we were all commanded to do: Love. Love is a beautiful, amazing, hard, thing to execute. It's obviously very easy to love the people we like, the people who like us back, but what about our haters, our enemies? We are to love them too (Mark 12:31). And so, I am giving my all this year to become more Christ-like, but taking baby steps and starting with the area of love.

I received a very interesting book for Christmas this year titled: Love Out Loud by Joyce Meyer, and in this book are short, little devotions for the 365 days of the year that teach us, and help us to love God, love ourselves, and love others.



And to add to that list, I think it would be great if I added Crazy Love by Francis Chan because it talks about the love God has for us and how crazy, and out of this world His love is for us. For anyone whose goal it is to be Christ-like, I think this would be an incredible book; as children immitate their father, so should we immitate our heavenly Father, Christ.



Lastly, I would like to leave you with a song I had known about for some time, but hadn't really paid attention to the lyrics, "Love Out Loud"- Jaci Velázquez

Closing of A Chapter

Tough years, there are many, and at last 2011 is about to end. Every year has its ups and downs,  for some more ups and for others more downs. We can say that we made it, whether it was running across the finish line of this chapter in our lives, dragging ourselves through the pavement, or holding on to someone else for the strength you were lacking. The year may have seem to have gone by incredibly fast, but when I look back now, there was definately a long road we marathoned through to get to 2012. Personally for myself there were a lot of events that played out; graduation, friend's wedding, and car crash included. Many things were learned, many things were let go, and many things added to the person I currently am. 2011 was one of the many chapters in a person's life, and we were all so lucky and blessed to get through another one!