I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really planned for setbacks. Well, let me not lie. I am very Type A, so I always have a plan for a plan, but for the most part, I never actually planned on using those backup plans.

Are you losing focus? Lately, the Lord has shown me that I've lost focus. I've forgotten His power. I've forgotten His promises. Instead, I've been focusing on my emotions and the severity of my situation. I've taken my focus off the cross and put it in my circumstances. Can you relate?

Overweight. Insecure. Low-self esteem. These words describe how I viewed myself during my high school days. Never pretty enough, never popular enough, and of course I wasn’t skinny enough.

Friendships have never been my strong suit. For the most part they have ebbed and flowed with the different seasons of my life. I guess you can say that most of my friendships have always been a convenience -- they served me well for that particular season, but when that season was up, so was the friendship. 

Unbeknownst to me, striving has always been a huge part of my life;  It’s like a birthmark that I never knew I had, but has always been with me. Because of this embedded character trait, I was never satisfied with normal. 

For the most part, I would say that I’ve always been a genuinely positive person. When I was younger, my sisters said that if they wanted to, they could’ve thrown me down the stairs and I would’ve still came back to them singing and smiling. 

The fear of failure is something that I've always personally struggled with. The idea of not being "successful" use to tear me up inside. "What if I don't pass my classes? What if I can't support myself and I have to move home? What if I put all this work in and have nothing to show for it?" These thoughts of failure would constantly plague my mind. 

So many of us are constantly going, never taking the time to slow down or come up for air. Our schedules are jammed pack with responsibilities and our to-do lists appear to be never ending. This constant striving to be everything to all people is causing us to burn out. 

One thing that I’ve noticed about us women is that we love to please! And because of that need to please, we have a hard time saying no. Our “yes man” spirit keeps us busy doing what we didn’t set out to do.