Welcome to week one of the series, Women of Intention! Over the next fifteen weeks, Maple Alps will feature a woman who will talk about intentionality in specific areas in her life. We are all so glad you've decided to stop by! For more information, and a list of topics, visit our introduction post HERE.
This Week's Intentional Woman:
It was so fun and inspiring getting to know Kayla from The Accidental Nomad Life! As you will soon find out, she is an open and honest, sincere and serving soul who seeks (with a lot of enthusiasm!) to encourage and inspire others.
I am so excited to share her interview with all of you today! She will be sharing her thoughts and experience living and maintaining a life of intentional growing faith.
Once you're done reading, be sure to not only check out her blog, but share your thoughts (and if you want, the post too!).
Tell us a bit about yourself: What are you passions, work and interests?
Well I'll start with work since I don't "work" haha! I have the privilege of being at home full time with my three boys so I guess a big passion of mine is naturally to raise my children, but even more to raise them up to be men of God. My heart's prayer is that they would be men like Paul - wise, passionate, relentless men that stand up for all the things of Christ. Outside of that, my passions and interests always criss-cross a little. I have a passion for missions but no calling to go so I often find myself supporting missions through my design work. I love designing!! I love artsy things, scrapbooking, stamping, rearranging my house (seriously this is one of my biggest hobbies! haha!), gardening is a new one for me - I'm planting a really big garden this spring and I am sooooooooooo excited for it!!! I also have a passion for people in general. I have the gift of encouragement and I ADORE using it, it works well with my love language of giving.
How do you intentionally live a faith-filled life? Did you always live this way, or was it/is it a process?
It's kind of a process. My heart always wanted to but I had to do a lot of searching. I don’t know that I can say confidently that, "Yes, I am intentionally living a faith-filled life…" I have a lot of flaws and roadblocks that I am still working through, but I feel like my heart is in the right place. I think the main thing is to keep your focus heaven-ward. Focus on living for the end and for the work for Christ. I'm still not good at spending time each and every day in the Word, but the things that I do outside of that, I look for Christ in. I try to measure what I'm doing to what the Scriptures say. If it doesn't line up, it's really not important. It is hard to check everything every day, but that is also a process.
What is the hardest part about living your faith? The easiest?
For me, the hardest part of my faith has been working through my identity process; finding out who I was in Christ all over again as a young adult. This had a hand in my anger which is what I struggle with the greatest. There is definitely a place for anger as a Christ follower, but I have a tendency to react out of my anger which makes it wrong.
The easiest part, I would probably have to say, is my love language and spiritual gift. I love encouraging people and offering hospitality out of that and my love language criss-crosses that through gifting in hospitality; opening our home regularly for game nights or youth group kids or whatever it might be. My favourite part about this is that my husband is gifted in the same way so we can work together side-by-side to host and serve together!
I love how you have a creative journalling Bible and how you make your experiences in God’s Word so personal and creative. How does this tie into your intentional faith?
It has freed me to be who my Heavenly Father created me to be. I can spend time in His Word and hear Him speak to me while connecting with a passion that He put in my heart which I think is so very beautiful. I just love that our generation has found ways to do just that: connect with the Father in ways that He gifted us and instilled in us. What a fun God we serve!!!
What practical advice would you give someone who is struggling in this area of their life?
Keep working! Search your heart, find the things one by one that you are struggling with and give them to Him one by one. Jesus took on everyone's sin all at once but since we are merely finite humans, we can only do things bit by bit. Baby steps. I want you to know that THAT'S OK!!!! Rome wasn't built in a day - (haha - so cliché but I love it!) maybe you have a lot to work through. Jesus is still there, He's still proud of you and he's NOT going to leave you. So just keep your heart in the direction of serving Him and focused on Him and bit by bit you will make it through.
What about you? Do you live, or strive to live, a faith-filled life? Why don't you tell us about it in the comments, or connect with us on social media?
(Don't forget to use the hashtag #WomenOfIntention16 so no one misses it!)
