• About

Kayla's Only Heart

~ Always learning. Always progressing.

Kayla's Only Heart

Tag Archives: doubt

Book Review: Silencing Insecurity

12 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in books, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book review, Christian, Christian living, doubt, insecurity, mind, read, reflection, Revell Reads, truth

I received Silencing Insecurity: Believing God’s Truth about You by Donna Gibbs from Revell in exchange for a review.

The insecurity topic had me at first glance when this appeared as a review option. As someone who started fighting an inner negative and untrue voice years ago, I knew I needed as much guidance in my battle as I could get. This book made great armor in its knowledge, application, and truth. Accessible, it finds a great balance between enough information to gain a greater understanding an insight for reflection and application. I found myself yearning to sit down with my journal at the end of each chapter so I could write out my reflections on the questions. The content included a lot that I already knew, but I found it pertinent and appreciated that it added to my understanding. Gibbs gently reminded her readers that adjusting a mind involves a lot more than a simple flip of a switch. Renewing the mind requires daily work.

Meeting Autumn

03 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Poetry/Lyrics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

autumn, beauty, believe, cleanse, doubt, dream, fall, forward, hope, leaves, light, love, poem, poetry, rain, seasons, sun

autumn dream

 

The rain falls before

the trees set aflame

a fresh cleansing

for love’s claim

 

For sunlight’s ease

shortens like the days

but remains steady

through this phase

 

The light awoke up

made us believe dreams

fears retreated, doubts cleared

and reality ripped seams

 

As we shift seasons

taking a step forward

we shed a dead layer

knowing what we move toward

 

Lively green sets aflame

beauty before death crunches

a shedding, a preparing

for fruit’s new bunches

 

 

 

 

September 23/24, 2019

American Dream

14 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Poetry/Lyrics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American, American dream, choice, choices, connection, doubt, dream, honesty, hope, love, lover, poem, poetry, reality, romance, truth

Every day becomes

second chance at happiness

I choose you always

 

become what you make

the reality of your

American dream

 

Accepting the truth

honesty defeats the doubt

steadfast connection

Woman in Black

21 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Poetry/Lyrics, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

black, dance, dark, doubt, hope, Johnny Cash, love, Morrissey, music, poem, poetry, progress, relationships, rock, romance

Today I wear black

not to show darkness

but to mute the doubt

that I’ll see your back

 

For I stand solid strong

sure in your protective arms

even at a distance,

singing our song

 

Notes of hope advance

a comforting melody plays

inviting the next stride

of our love’s dance

 

a single step back

does not disconnect

but rocks you forward

leaning onto me dressed in black

 

 

September 17, 2019

Book Review: Shaken

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in books, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

book review, books, Christian living, doubt, ethics, love, Tim Tebow, truth, values

I recently read Tim Tebow’s Shaken, 2017’s Christian Book of the Year, with my friend Stacie.

After initially hesitating to read this book, I find myself glad for Stacie’s suggestion and interest in Tim Tebow. His stories may come across simple at times, but he shares a lot of his personal struggles along with his triumphs. I hear strong doubt in my head every day and that occurs mostly privately, so I can only imagine what it feels like to have your life broadcast and know the general public doubts your abilities. Yet Tebow stays focused on his mission and pushes forward. He sets a good example for making good choices.

In addition to generally modeling high ethics and the importance of prioritizing your values, Tebow demonstrates how seemingly small actions can reach a lot further than we imagine. So we can all follow his lead to listen to God telling us to take an extra step to show God’s love and truth even when it seems unlikely to help, unimportant in that situation or unpopular to the scrutinizing crowd. That gives me a nudge to follow through on sharing my gifts despite any doubt I face.

 

What can you do to share love and truth with someone this week?

Pathways to Purpose

15 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Journal, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

church, confidence, doubt, education, healing, hope, life, progress, purpose, school, volunteer

I do not stand where I would like in my life right now. My job does not progress my career path, my city leaves a lot desired, and I hold back on pursuing most my goals due to my own self doubt. Yet I can take small steps to guide me back to my purposeful path.

These days I spend a lot of my free time volunteer tutoring at a couple places in town. Those classroom hours boost my confidence that I do belong in such a setting and that I do in fact help others. It also gives me more experience in my field. Not having a job there at the moment need not stop me from getting that face time with students.

Neither this town nor this state fulfill what I imagine for where I would live long term. However, it has surprisingly offered places that fulfill some of my needs. Not only have I found several classrooms to assist, I have found ministries to aid in my own life. A local church offers free counseling, a service that helps me stay on track healing without putting me further in debt, and that same church has started a support group where I’ll meet other women in similar situations as me for the first time. Hope exists everywhere, and I can heal in this town as I plan and conquer my next step.

I have a long way to go in conquering my own self sabotage and doubt. This involves undoing walls I have put up nearly my whole life to keep others and myself out. Clearly it will take a long time to undo and rebuild. Yet it can happen. I can make the most of my situation, continue lifelong healing and progress as I grow.

My situation right now may not exist as I want or as it should. Yet each opportunity I have can get me there slowly. I must keep my eyes open for those chances and make the most of them. The majority of a situation may not fulfill needs or progress a path, but what we do with the parts within our control can make a difference in steering and following the right path.

Book Review: The Two of Us by Victoria Bylin

09 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in books, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authenticity, Bethany House Publishers, book review, books, Christian fiction, Christian living, disappointment, doubt, faith, sisters, The Two of Us, trust, Victoria Bylin

I received a copy of The Two of Us by Victoria Bylin from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for a review.

The Two of Us follows a modern, female centric story revolving around faith. While at times almost cliché, it does have a heart. Mia proves an admirable protagonist who struggles with finding direction in her life and trusting God to provide what she wants after she’s been burned a couple times. Yet, despite these troubles, she does hold to her faith as she honestly shares her disappointments, fears and doubts with God. She also stands on her faith and values even when doing so means losing a person or situation she wants. Specifically with sex outside marriage, this book shows multiple angles on how people struggle to uphold their value or who do fall but get back on track with grace. Mia and her sister Lucy show this balance in their lives; Mia starts off the story with a broken heart after her engagement breaks due to her standing her ground to maintain her virginity, and Mia’s younger sister Lucy starts out getting married because she got pregnant due to not waiting for marriage. Over the course of the story, the sisters support each other as each struggles to trust God for his provision and guidance as they choose careers and develop relationships.

I enjoyed this story that somehow felt lighthearted even though it held some weight in its content. I appreciated the characters and their authenticity in not only their struggles but their trust and hope to overcome them with faith and trust. The situations were realistic and relatable, making it easy to apply the sisters’ lessons to my own life, whether relating to choosing my next steps for career like Mia or trusting God to guide me in another area of my life. I liked that Bylin wrote imperfect characters who stood rooted in their faith, authentically shared their doubts and who gracefully failed yet continued on their paths.

Unwrapping the Fulfilling Life 

28 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Journal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

childhood, children, church, class, comfort, connected, connection, counseling, depression, despair, doubt, emotional hurt, environment, family, forgiveness, fulfilled, fulfilling, hope, hopeful, hopelessness, innocence, life, loss of innocence, opportunity, pain, protection, safe, shame, therapy, wounds

As I’ve been attending individual counseling therapy and a church class about the clinical side of emotional hurt, I’ve learned that I have layers of shame wrapped around me. More importantly, I am learning from where they stem and how I can start removing those layers so I am no longer trapped underneath them.

Some of this involves forgiveness, including myself as well as family members and people in my past. The main root of these layers comes from some painful childhood experiences as well as generally chaotic and sometimes unsafe environments in the past. Those events extended into loss of innocence and shame of having been harmed (and from not sharing) and thoughts of how life could have been or could be different “if only…”. My first main step is opening the door where I have locked away all the pain so I can finally let some of it go and become free. Then as I uncover specific details and wounds, I can break their hold of me. 

Ultimately, I will reach a point where I don’t believe the doubting voices in my head and will feel like I can confidently pursue my goals and feel worthy of myself, my efforts, my contributions to the world. I can also break the unconscious vows I made to myself in attempts of protecting myself from further pain. I have vowed not to make children experience what I did as a child, thus making it impossible for me to know if I even want children. Once I let that go, I can see that I can still have a fulfilling family and create a safe and happy home environment (the latter of which I have accomplished as I made my own home in college but have later realized it also includes self imposed isolation as a family of one). In turn, allowing myself to have what I block in the interest of protection gives me an opportunity to lead a more fulfilling and connected life, built up by being plugged in. 

Hopelessness may lead to more despair and self-pity, even self-hatred. Yet I have hope that as I unwrap those layers and leave them somewhere that’s not a shadowy party of my heart (as seemingly comforting as they can trick my mind into feeling with their familiarity), I can wrap myself in more positive life experiences and be better equipped to weather the difficult ones. 

Confession

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Poetry/Lyrics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

comfort, confession, darkness, depression, doubt, found, friend, lost, medication, perspective, poem, poetry

I confessed my love

I no longer hide

And cannot only blame

The stupor over me

 

You brought to light

The one good feeling

In this foggy horizon

A smile after the tears

 

Your ear drowned the sound

Of my heart chasing doubt

Your arms always caught me

Seeing me and keeping me

 

The pills brought me down

As I fell to a darker space

But you found me again

And showed me myself

 

You loved me at my lowest

Beautiful eyes behind the blues

You saw my originality, perspective

And treasured all hidden inside

Room For Faith

20 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Essay, Journal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

career, Christian, Christian living, Christianity, college, decisions, development, doubt, faith, God, growth, Holy Spirit, Lee Strobel, life, location, seasons, The Case For Faith, truth, uncertainty, youth

I have been reading The Case for Faith lately. In it, Lee Strobel, a journalist who used to be an atheist explores questions of faith relating to creation v evolution, suffering, and more. One of the last areas in which he delves involves doubts. Lynn Anderson, the man he interviews in the chapter “I Can’t Doubt and Be A Christian,” points out a common difficulty with time that influences people’s doubt when prompted to share influences on people’s doubt to which they may not usually be aware. He says,

 

’Seasons of life can make a big difference,’ he replied. ‘Sometimes people are great believers while in college, but when they’re young parents with their second baby and they’re working sixty or eighty hours a week and their wife’s sick all the time and the boss is on their back—they simply don’t have time to reflect. And I don’t think faith can develop without some contemplative time. If they don’t make room for that, their faith is not going to grow and doubts will creep in.’

 

It seems like this fits many season’s in people’s lives, including my own.

My stage in life does not include my own family yet, but I am young. My career is just beginning. I am deciding where I would like to live and what I would like to be doing. Yet I find it hard to find time to reflect or contemplate.

Routine has a high priority in my life. My specific routine has been tweaked to near perfection over the years. Exercise has profound importance for all the health benefits, and I made sure I woke up at 6am during my time at college so I could work out first thing. Then I finished preparing for the day, including having a devotional time before I got started on my other tasks like homework and cleaning. Throughout those years and now, the specific routine has been tweaked to fit my schedule, but the priorities have stayed the same. I know I want to take care of all areas of my health, especially spiritual. That includes having time to reflect on my faith as well as life in general.

A regular prayer time helps this a lot. As I mentioned before, I set aside time every day in college. This keeps my focus on God. Faith implies a perspective on the world shaped by God; regularly spending time with Him keeps my perspective closer to His. I also shared that I rely heavily on my routine to get all my needed and wanted daily tasks accomplished. It has been harder for me the last couple years because of my work schedule. I have enjoyed working two jobs and am relieved to work one now, but I still don’t have a regular work week or schedule. This probably shakes me more than it should. I continually adapt it to each day. In theory I have the same amount of time. Yet I haven’t found my good contemplative times. In college, I would spend a couple hours before each semester reflecting on my goals for the coming semester. First I would go through the more surface level items like the organizations in which I had a role and decided in which ones I would continue to play a part and which I would leave. Then I would make a second list of more broad ideas involving important concepts to me. This involved how I reflected God to other people, how I invested in my relationships, how I shaped my perspective, how I used my gifts. That always reminded me of the bigger picture of God’s purpose for my life during that period. It helped me maintain peace and progress my studies during that time so I could prepare for the next stage.

Here I am now in another busy season. Again, I don’t quite have all the same details as the example mentioned in The Case for Faith. Yet experiencing this uncertainty at all levels has made me organize my life in a way different than my preferred method. I just have to keep going back to what’s important to keep progressing. I want to progress my career and have to make some decisions regarding that because I want to keep developing. The same applies to my faith. Without that contemplation, neither will progress. As Anderson points out, if we don’t make room for it, it won’t happen.

40.194754 -92.583250

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 891 other followers

You can't make advances if you don't take chances. These posts share my perspectives of my journey as I step forward, walking in the Light.

Recent Posts

  • Book Review: Marilla of Green Gables
  • Book Review: Because of Winn-Dixie
  • Book Review: Keeper of the Lost Cities
  • Book Review: Love Lettering
  • Book Review: The Widow of Rose House

Categories

  • Beauty
  • books
  • Essay
  • Journal
  • Monday Motivation
  • Photography
  • Playlists
  • Poetry/Lyrics
  • Reading Recommendations
  • The Great American Reader
  • Uncategorized
  • Winsome Women Wednesday

RSS my weekly nail creations

  • Starlit Darkness 
              As it felt like I continued to fall deeper into darkness, I reminded myself to keep dreaming positively. My stars matched my pajamas to encourage my sleeping dreams as well.  The following weekend I ventured out with my friends to attend a Taking Back Sunday and The Used concert. Surrounding […]
    KaylasOnlyHeart
  • Falling
          These plain manicures go back to the fall. The season marked a time of change and a new look at my world. Perhaps the perspective in what I held in my hands stole some of the focus and expression I would normally have for my nail art.  I went from a bold […]
    KaylasOnlyHeart
  • Plain Sparkles
    After the Top Shelf plain manicure, I had another plain one with some sparkles added. I just didn’t feel spirited enough to enjoy my me time. I still made myself go through the motions though. I might not have been applying makeup regularly, but I kept my nails polished. The little touches kept me from […]
    KaylasOnlyHeart

Facebook

Facebook

Twitter Updates

  • 5 of 5 stars to Beartown by Fredrik Backman goodreads.com/review/show/20… 18 hours ago
  • On page 211 of 363 of Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry goodreads.com/user_status/sh… 2 days ago
  • "Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 days ago
  • Ann H. Gabhart's blog post: The Value of Perseverance goodreads.com/author_blog_po… via @goodreads @AnnHGabhart 3 days ago
  • @Weezer has a fun new song out today. Check it out below and head over to @ImperfectFifth for more music news. youtu.be/AGPdXYG1msg 3 days ago
Follow @KaylasOnlyHeart

Goodreads

No Instagram images were found.

RSS Pendey in Kensia

  • An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.

Blog Stats

  • 9,499 hits

Blog Stats

  • 9,499 hits

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy