THE Blog
I don't always have enough room in my Instagram posts to write all I want sooo over here I'll be writing
longer articles (but let's be real they won't all be long).
longer articles (but let's be real they won't all be long).
Hi, I'm Lauren (my friends call me Bean because that's my last name and some also call me Laur so feel free to call me either of those if ya want)! I will be a senior in high school this fall and I am 17. I really love flowers (as you can tell by the picture), coffee, cats, and Jesus! I started up my Christian instagram account (@walking_by_his_side) the summer before my freshman year of high school which is CRAZY to think that I've had it for 3 years!!!!! A little more about me- I just started working at Chick-fil-A as a cashier and I'm LOVIN it far!! I also like to be super organized and love my Michael's planner and use it like no other. My family says I drink too much water but I just like to be hydrated so what's the big deal right??? Oh, I'm also really tall- 6'1 (yes i actually grew for those who know me IRL) and it's such a struggle to find clothes and shoes that fit me because I have long legs and big feet. Target is probably my favorite store because what can you NOT find there, am I right?!!?!?!?!?! One of my favorite verses is Philippians 2:14- "Do all things without grumbling or complaining" and it definitely helps when I'm in a funky mood and just want to mope around all day.
One of my goals with the restart of this blog is to connect with y'all more. Feel free to email or DM me at any time to ask questions or leave a comment. I'm super uber excited about this!! I also wanted to just go beyond devotions and post some other random tidbits on here about me or what I'm liking or any randomness I come up with! I'm a pretty timid, shy, keep to herself kind of gal IRL but when I want to be, I can crack a few jokes here and there (thanks dad) and I tend to be quite sarcastic at times and that will DEF show through my blog. Lastly, I want to end each blog post with a few things I'm grateful for. It's easy for us to focus on the negative but I think its important, especially in the rough patches, to look at the positives of every day. 1. SOO super grateful for summer! I love the longer days and sleeping in! 2. I am grateful to have a family that loves and supports me. Even though we can drive each other a lil nuts sometimes. 3. I'm grateful for planners. I honestly do not know what I would do without them!!!! They keep my life in order even when I'm feeling overwhelmed. love, Laur
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Hello!! It's been a while since I posted, right? Have no fear though, I am going to try and start posting more (like actually this time lol) and I thought to kick it off I would talk about my tips I have for making a Christian account! I'll be sharing how I got started, how I edit my pictures, and everything in between!
I made my account @/walking_by_his_side in June 2014 and, ever since, I have tried to post (fairly) consistently! I try to mix it up with posting my own edits, Bible journaling entries, and pictures with quotes or Bible verses on them I find from Pinterest (life hack right there). Overall, the concept is fairly simple, I feel like anyone can do it. You really do not have to be super gifted in writing super inspirational captions (as I am definitely not gifted in this area) so don't feel like you have to have anything to "qualify" to run an account. For me, I found my little niche with Bible journaling and I've tried to stick with it as much as possible. For just starting out however, I would recommend making some edits with my all-time favorite app "Phonto" (it's free!) and finding cute pictures from Pinterest to put the words on. Also- dafont.com has AMAZING fonts you can download for free to Phonto and get a better variety of designs and fonts for your edits. Now, I get asked CONSTANTLY about shoutouts, followers, likes, etc. I won't lie, in the beginning of my account I definitely am guilty of doing shoutouts for other accounts to get followers. However, for the last 8-10 months, I stopped doing shoutouts, completely. I learned that a number on a screen really isn't what it is all about so i stopped caring about followers and likes. Yes, it is INCREDIBLE that i have almost 18,000 people seeing my posts, but that is not the reason I run my account. Remember, it is all for God and sharing His truth and promises through a social media platform. Now I'll share my top tips for running a Christian account! 1. It is all about God. Never lose sight of the ONLY reason you should be doing this. It is for the glory of God and sharing His Word. 2. Look at other Christian accounts to get a broad idea of what it's all about, their general content of what they like to post, and what you want to post. Some of my favorite Christian accounts are: @/shiningforchrist, @/christiangirls, @/godquotesforgirls @/my_savior_moves_mountains, @/teenagechristiangirl, @/god_girl, @/illuminatingjesus, @/soulscripts, @/ilyjesus, @/cheesingforjesus, and @/reflectinghislight. I love all of these girls and have gotten to know almost all of them personally! 3. Reach out to people! Talk to other accounts and form friendships! Friendships happen online too y'all. (as weird as that may be) 4. When I started out I posted 3 times a day! Now, I post once or twice a week. Find a balance. If you can, I recommend posting 4-5 times a WEEK and put effort into it! 5. Have a theme! As you can probably see in my posts, I have been trying (somewhat) to post more fall-ish pictures and backgrounds. (my feed is not looking too great BUT you get the point) I love to do themes depending on the season. It just makes it look prettier and more put together, in my opinion. 6. Remember to have fun with it! Often times we question God and what He's doing in our lives. We stress out and worry that God won't work all things for our good. I've had much experience in this area as I'm sure you have as well. We can question God when a loved one dies, when a friend betrays us, or parents are fighting. Then there's the "God's not fair" thing. I've heard it as well as said it many times before. It's hard to trust God when life just does not seem fair.
I am extremely blessed and thankful to be going to a Christian school now. Hear me out though, it was not always like this. I'm going to go wayyyy back to 5th grade. This was the worst school year I ever had, by far. I was constantly bullied for a number of things, my so called "friends" turned against me, and I was constantly made fun of for going to church and believing in God. I would come home most days crying because of what people said to me and I absolutely hated going to school. It was a down part of my life and I really could not see why God would allow this to happen to me. I do tend to be more of a fragile person when it comes to things people say to me so words REALLY do hurt. After that year, my parents started looking at other schooling options and found a local Christian school pretty close to home. They called and turns out, the 6th grade class was full. My parents kept praying though for a miracle and then, we got a call... they were opening up another class for all the new students! It was seriously a major blessing because that year was by far my favorite year of school. I only had about 6 kids in my class and everyone was so kind. This is one of many experiences that cause me to thank God for that 5th grade year. The worst year of school led me to the best year of school, and the one I currently attend, 5 years later. The school is NOT perfect and by no means has every step been easy (homework is CRAY 99% of the time), but it IS where God has me right now. By no means did I experience the worst things possible and I realize many of you probably still deal with what I went through. Know this though: God's not done with you yet. Not until you take your last breath is He done. He is still working on you, right at this moment, every single day. Keep your faith rooted in Jesus because He is working all things for your good (Romans 8:28). I love this quote from Jeffrey R. Holland- "Keep your chin up, trust in God, and believe in good things to come". Keep on keeping on, God know's what He's doing. Lately I've been feeling like I don't know who is talking to me. God or Satan. I soon realized Satan was starting to get a hold of me. I've been told this many times before "you know you're following God when Satan tries to invade". If I didn't have Jesus in my life Satan would have won, he wouldn't care about testing me, trying to control me, etc. because he already won. This isn't the case for me. Especially this last summer I've gotten closer to God than ever before. I'm in the Word more, my family found a great church with a pretty amazing youth group, I've been praying, listening to Christian music over other types. This makes me even more appealing to the enemy. He wants to do whatever he can to get me away from God. I've been having such a spiritual battle and I now know why. It's not because of what I've been doing wrong, it's what I've been doing right. Satan is testing me and doing whatever he can to make me get away from God. Only recently have I figured this out. For a while I thought it was because I was the one causing the problems, something like this had never happened to me this intensely before. Satan was getting to me. He was starting to control me, get what he wanted. I went through I little period in my life where I was just not in to mood to read the Bible, pray, etc. even my attitude was changing greatly "what have I become." I started to think. This was not the godly person God wants me to be. So I turned my life around. I got back into my daily bible readings, etc. Satan can't control me. He can tempt me all he wants but he can never make me do anything, I am in control of the choices I make.
I've been loving the song "That Was Then, This Is Now" by Josh Wilson it talks about God making us new and how our past is just that, the past. We are made new in Christ. I really encourage you to give it a listen, it's been a great reminder to me everyday. Now ill be honest, when it comes to being thankful I don't always do such a great job at it. Yea sure at times I can be extremely thankful...when I get something I want but a lot of the times it's hard for me to be thankful for what I have when all I want is something else. Usually this happens when I compare my life to someone else's. Whether it be that one of my friends is going on an amazing vacation or even something small. I'll admit it, I am a jealous person. [personal story time] This can also apply to me when it comes to my height as weird as that may be to you. I've always wanted to be shorter. Being almost 6'1 has its perks but I mostly just wanted to blend in. I've always been taller then everyone since kindergarten (although being in high school it's a little different) Though it is an insecurity I'm learning to love it. Because I'm tall I got into playing volleyball when I was 8 and have been playing ever since. Volleyball has been such a huge part of my life and I cant imagine what I would be doing without it.
More, more, more I (we) always want more,everyone always wants more. It's our human nature. Ever wonder why it seems 'rich' people aren't happy. They have all the money and all the things they could ever want but they are never satisfied. We don't need anything but God. In Psalm 73:25 it says "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you" Now i'm going to challenge all of you (and me of course) to write down 3 things you are thankful for today. Write it down on paper and as much as you remember write 3 more things down each day. I'm sure some of you are like me and get jealous easily so when you do have those feelings of jealousy, go back to your notebook and remember all the wonderful blessings in your life. Read: Jonah 4 & Matthew 5:7 Jonah was angry at the Lord's mercy. He completely forgot that it was that SAME mercy that prevented the whale from having him for dinner! Look in the very first verse in this chapter! Verse 1 says "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry." Jonah saw his mission as pointless but we of course know this wasn't the case. I can definitely see and understand Jonah's perspective though, especaiy from the position of getting annoyed when people are abusing the grace of God. But this is NO reason for it to affect our obedience to God's instructions. Jonah was being very dramatic in this chapter...look at verses 3-4, this makes me laugh I mean how could Jonah want to die and request to God to die!! God's grace transcends our human understanding. I really like the way the message bible puts verses 4-11. God is saying to Jonah and to us; don't get angry at what you didn't work for! Jonah didn't look after all the plants and allow them to die! God used this metaphor of the plants to describe the city of Nineveh. He is saying that he wants to see that plant (the city of Nineveh) grow, live, and flourish. Not die. I think this chapter is a real wake up call to 'Christians' who consider other people unworthy of God's grace. Remember that same amazing grace that saved YOU. Anyone can be saved no matter what they have done. Rejoice when people turn to God because it means you have gained another brother or sister in Christ and are helping to fufill the Great Commission. Be careful not to look down from a position of pride. Be careful not to be selfish with your saved status. We all as Christians should desire one another to be saved. God didn't have to explain himself to Jonah, but he did anyways! He wants us to all understand his grace. God is sovereign in any decision He makes. Read: Jonah 3, Micah 7:19, James 2:14, & Romans 10:13-14 "Actions speak louder....faith without works is dead." (James 2:14) The people of Ninevah 'believed' in God (v. 5) but that belief just wasn't enough. The KING of the city of Ninevah fasted and used his authority to instruct everyone in the land to fast and call out to God. They humbled themselves before God by physically showing their repentance. Contrary to popular belief God's grace and mercy existed all throughout the Bible, not just the New Testament. Grace is receiving something you don't deserve and mercy is the witholding of what you do deserve! (I talked about this in a recent post) In chapter 3 of Jonah, God's mercy is evident. Your obedience and repentance can save a nation How will they hear without a preacher? How will people hear about God if you do or tell them? How will people hear about God if we don't support our missionaries and evangelists? How will people hear about God and be saved if you don't grow in the faith, obey God, and speak up? See how a city was saved because Jonah FINALLY headed to God's instructions. If he contributed to resist...the blood of this city would be on his hands, he would have been held accountable. The people of Ninevah would have perished for theiri lack of knowledge but thank God that wasn't the case here. Understand the things that God tells us to do, the thing He considers to be our purpose has a greater impact. The purpose isn't just for you! It's for others to benefit from. You accomplishing your purpose is you being a point of provision for someone else in 'need'! You accomplishing your purpose and God-given assignment is allowing someone else to hear God's word and get a chance to be saved! This was exactly the case with Jonah, and it is the same for us. Our obedience to God is so key. If you don't want to obey God for yourself, please at least obey Him for others that will benefit from your obedience. Remember: obedience is key, obedience is key, obedience is key Read: Jonah 2, Psalm 119:71, & John 1:1 Afflictions and storms cause us to be totally dependent on the only ANCHOR that can fight waves- God. I'm sure a lot of you know the song 'Cornerstone' by Hillsong along with many other artists and in one of the lines it says 'my anchor holds within the veil'. This is the hope every one of us as believers has that no matter what, our Anchor being God will hold! Having Faith in the Prayers made During the Storm Jonah had faith that God heard his prayer and delivered him from his situation (you know that one where he was in the whale for 3 days) In verses 1&2 I think Jonah really did believe that God 'actually' delivered his prayers! This is the kind of faith we should have, storm or no storm! We need to believe that God hears our prayers and will answer according to His sovereign will! After all, Jonah did spend 3 days inside a giant fish!!! Most of us (including me) would have given up after day one but Jonah was different. He persevered through it all and turned to God instead of losing hope. Weeds of the Mind and the Importanve of FELLOWSHIP! Jonah said the weeds entangled his head. In this case head = mind...look at the features of weeds: they are quite annoying plants, anyone with a garden would know. Weeds can grow just about anywhere in your yard and without weed killer, it seems like you can't get rid of them! Those 'weeds' Jonah was talking about are the negative thoughts that are there in the absence of 'weed killer'–The Word of God (John 1:1), God, and Fellowship. Fellowship is so important. Lack of fellowship with others leaves you in a way lost on a spiritual level. We need others to tell us what we are doing wrong and people to be here for us in celebration. In the Bible there are numerous accounts of Jesus and fellowship. When He first started His ministry, what did he do? He went and found himself disciples! When God created the world, who was with Him? The Holy Spirit and wisdom. Adam was given to Eve. Need I say more...FELLOWSHIP is key! The examples are just endless! Lesson Learned: Have faith in God with your prayers, trust He hears them no matter what, and fellowship is key. So I've been doing a Jonah devotion lately on the Bible app and this series is inspired by that devotion series! This will be a 4 part series covering the story of Jonah!
Read: Jonah 1 & 1 Samuel 15:22 Meet Jonah, a prophet to a place called 'Nineveh', a city in Northern Israel. Nineveh was a sin-filled gross city BUT that was not what God intended for that city, God gave Jonah the special instructions to go to the city of Nineveh to bring it into repentance. We don’t know how Jonah received these instructions from God, whether it was verbal, in a dream or vision, writing on a wall or through another prophet, but we know Jonah didn’t respond well, he just ran and rebelled against God’s command. When God calls us to do something, He really means for us to do it! (duh) Down is never good when God is up! Notice that verses 3-4 say that Jonah went ‘down’ to Tarshish and ‘down’ to Joppa (which means beautiful) Eventually he ended up DOWN in the belly of a whale, which Jonah himself describes as ‘sheol’ which is another name for hell. While this storm is going on, Jonah was sleeping (Jonah 1:5). This shows his ignorance and just disobedience to God and everyone else on the ship with him. A trap many of us fall into! We sleep when we need to "wake up" and obey God's Word, To obey is better than sacrifice, OBEDIENCE IS BETTER THAN ENDING UP IN A WHALE! (1 SAMUEL 15:22) Don’t deny God in the midst of your storm. Simple as that. In verse 9 we read about Jonah as he states his identity and who he believes in, even in the midst of the storm… what can we learn from that? Even in our mess, don't deny the God that you serve. For this is the one reason why in verse 16 we see that these men who served other gods now feared the Lord God Almighty and made sacrifices & vows unto Him. Without Jonah telling them this, they wouldn’t have known. Jonah took responsibility for his disobedience (Jonah 1:12). In psychology there is something we call ‘Diffusion of Responsibility’ where everybody shares in the blame or the glory of a situation. There was none of that there because Jonah stepped forward and said “cast me out for the sea to calm down.” Very noble of him I would say. Lesson Learned: if you would only get one thing out of this devotion it would be to OBEY God when He calls you to do something. Don't be like Jonah and run away from His commandment, instead run TOWARD it and fulfill it. AHHH YES I AM A BLOGGER IM SO EXCITED FOR THIS!!! One of my main goals for this blog is for y'all to connect with me more personally than on my Instagram account, and I thought for the grand opening of this blog and for this first blog post, I would just talk about my experiences with making my instagram account! Today is actually the day where one whole year ago I entered into the world of Christian instagramming.
On June 8th, 2014 I first created my Christian account. It was really just something to do for fun and I didn't take it too seriously. I never knew I would be here today making a blog, and posting to the possibility of 10,000 people seeing my posts on my instagram account. That is just mind blowing. When I first was starting out, I posted about 3 times a day with edits that literally took a minute to make and a caption that was all over the place lol [I'm different now PROMISE] I saw it as something to occupy me during the summer but then I started taking it a little more seriously and taking my time on edits and posts. People started to respond. I have been told multiple times how much my account has helped them and that just makes my day. God is working through my account and I know that sounds kinda weird like "what, God working through an INSTAGRAM account??" But because of my account God has healed people from depression and I've even helped someone recommit their lives to Christ. All because of my Instagram account. It's just amazing to see God working in people's lives. I've been told of so many places where my posts reach to. A majority is all around the U.S. but there's some people from the UK, Brazil, India, Norway, Ireland, Africa, and even Greenland. THATS CRAZY!! To think my posts are reaching that far around the world and touching people's hearts is insane. I've had many ups and downs with this account but overall it's been such an amazing experience and I can't wait to see what God has in store for this account next. In 5-10 years who knows what will happen! This could be the start of something big. xoxo Lauren |
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July 2017
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