Being A Biblical Wife in a Modern World

Is It Okay to Be Proud?

"The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished."

~Proverbs 16:5~

"When pride comes then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."

~Proverbs 11:2~

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."

~Proverbs 16:18~

"But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: 'God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble' "

~James 4:6~

"People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,"

~2 Timothy 3:2~

The subject of pride or being proud is brought up several times throughout the Bible. It is a feeling that is important that we women of the Word take seriously so that this sin does not slowly creep into our lives. I've read and re-read numerous Bible verses that speak of being proud, including those listed above, but I was also curious how the dictionary defined pride. Here is what I read:

noun- a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements

After reading this definition, I went to the thesaurus to find out what other words were similar to pride:

honor, self-respect, self-worth, fulfillment, arrogance, vanity, self-love, haughtiness, glory

No wonder pride is considered a sin! As a dance instructor and coach I have said, " I'm so proud of you!" countless times but as I dug deeper and learned more about the harmful effects of pride and being proud of our own accomplishments, I have decided to make the commitment to not use the word proud or pride in my vocabulary. Seriously!

I never ever want to come across as a woman or wife who is boastful, arrogant, or finds her fulfillment in mine or my husband's accomplishments. Our accomplishments are God's accomplishments. When I wake up in the morning that is God's accomplishment. I never want to take satisfaction in my own accomplishments. Anything that I accomplish in life, whether it be an award, completing an awesome workout, making it through a long work day, or creating a new recipe, comes from God. It is because He gave me the motivation, encouragement, and guidance to such things. All the glory belongs to Him and I never want to be mistaken for someone who tried to take credit for something I honestly did not do.

Pride is sin. Pride is self-worship. Pride is something that I never really understood until recently and it is something that I hope to carve out of my life. When my hubby was offered his new job I so badly wanted to run and jump and tell him how proud I was of him. It was difficult to not use the word but I found other ways to congratulate this wonderful happening in our lives:

"I am overwhelmed by your hard work and dedication. Thank you for all that you do!"

"Thank you Jesus for leading us to this new job and location."

"God is so good."

You may think that I have lost my marbles and that saying that you're proud of someone isn't a big deal but as I read these verses and continued deeper into what His Word says about being prideful, I just can't have anything to do with it. I want to be humble and I want to be a woman and wife who is quick to give credit to her Provider. I never want anyone to think that I am arrogant and that I believe my accomplishments were all because of me. I am a daughter of Christ and because of Him I am confident and because of Him I am encouraged to make goals and motivated to accomplish them.

Book Review!

"Maine"

By: J. Courtney Sullivan

Background of the story: Three generations of women and their secrets, fears, lies, and betrayal all revolve around a summer house in Maine. Juicy and delicious... after some time.

I literally started this book a month ago and just finished it yesterday. That is soooo unlike me. I usually tear through a book within just a few days but for some reason I just could not get into this story. I read about 100 pages or so and set the book down for a couple weeks. There are a lot of characters and a large family tree to learn and each chapter changes the point of view that the story is told from so maybe it was the constant changing that I just couldn't get used to. I really don't know why I had such a hard time diving right in because when I picked up the book again yesterday, I finished it and I really enjoyed it.

I did not find this book really juicy until yesterday when secrets started to unravel and the characters were mingling with one another a little more. Sullivan does a great job describing each woman and I especially fell in love with the character Maggie and the journey she was on. I think there is a woman for each of us in this book. A character we can somehow relate to on some level and I believe that makes this story captivating for women of various ages.

The ending left a little to be desired. I felt like all the characters had closure except one and I wished we weren't dangling at the very end but in a way, it allows the reader to create their own ending based upon their opinion of that particular character.

I wouldn't say that this was an "easy" read as I clearly had to take a break from it early on but when I cracked it open yesterday, I couldn't put it down. If anyone has read this or plans to read this, I would love to hear your thoughts as well!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

xoxo

Summer Shape Up + Meals

We've had some awesome weather this week so I have definitely taken advantage of being outside and taking some long walks. Here are my workouts from this past week:

Monday

10 minutes elliptical

2 sets of 25 side bends with 15 lb weight, right and left

4 sets of 25 crunches on stability ball

4 sets of 25 side twists on stability ball

2 sets of 25 standing twists with 15 lb weight

2 minute walk/run intervals on treadmill for 10 minutes

3 sets of 15 tricep extensions with 10 lb weight

3 sets of 15 bicep curls with plie

3 sets of 12 booty blast squats

Tuesday

25 minute elliptical

Wednesday

4 mile walk (may have been more!)

Thursday

Killer Card Workout

Friday

3.5 mile walk

All in all, a pretty successful week when it comes to working out! I also made a few yummy meals. Beginning with Easter:

Baked ham with a Brown Sugar and Spice glaze

Roasted Parmesan Green Beans

Homemade Mac n' Cheese

Roasted Chicken

Peas

Leftover Mac n' Cheese

Caesar Salad

Spicy Angel Hair Pasta

(made with EVOO, garlic, red pepper flakes, basil, parsley, parmesan cheese)

I love fixing some yummy homemade meals for me and my hubby and I have learned that a ramekin is a great tool to help with portion control. I was totally wanting some creamy mac n' cheese but I didn't want the guilt. With some tweaks in the recipe which swapped out heavy cream for skim milk and only having a small portion, my craving was satisfied and I didn't consume a ton of calories.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend ladies!

xoxo

Birthday Shout Out!

Happy Birthday to my Hubby!!

I'm so excited that today is a day for celebration! Since B has to work his entire birthday weekend, we started the b-day festivities a little early last night by going to get some fro-yo... yum! Birthday or not, this gal is always up for taking a trip down the road for a sweet treat. We got up super early this morning and enjoyed a homemade breakfast and I surprised my love with a big ol' cupcake at work. He is on call pretty late tonight but I may or may not have a little something up my sleeve for when he gets home ;)

I love my hubby and am so happy to make this day all about him... he deserves it!

Have a great Friday y'all

xoxo

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Happy Wednesday lovelies! My day started off with a long walk with a sweet friend. It felt so great to get up early, get some exercise in, and get my day started on such a positive note! What I'm loving today is pretty awesome and I am soooo excited to finally share!

We are moving!

As you know, we moved up here to Connecticut last July so B could do a one year fellowship. He completed his residency last summer but wanted another year so he could have more specialized training. Our year has been absolutely awesome but we knew we would most likely be moving again this summer.

The job search began almost as soon as we got up here. Exploring areas of the country where we wanted to be, getting CV's sent out in a competitive market, and my hubby making a gazillion phone calls and sending a gazillion emails to find out about job opportunities. Now... I am a southern girl so I knew getting back south would be ideal but I was open to the possibility of staying in Connecticut and we even toyed with the idea of moving out west to the Seattle area. Throughout the past months B went on a few interviews but he fell in love with a position in Florida. Florida wasn't initially on our radar but this job seemed too good to pass up an interview. And y'all... I am SO glad God led us to this interview and to this opportunity. Isn't it funny when you plan something and God opens your eyes to something else... something so much better than you could have ever imagined?!?!

B accepted the interview, he loved everything about the group, and within a couple weeks an offer was made! We have been sitting on this info for about a month but we just wanted to make sure we had a good start on paperwork before we officially announced that we are headed to the Sunshine State!

We could not be happier and we could not be more excited about this move! We have loved our time up north and we have made so many friends that we will miss but we can not wait to be closer to family and to be back down South! We are overwhelmed with this blessing and in exactly 3 months our move begins!

I can not wait for the sunshine, palm trees, and a year long tan ;) We will be about an hour from the Gulf and less than an hour from the Atlantic Ocean... hello beach trips!

{via}

As always, I am loving my sweet, sweet hubby and I am so happy for him. He has worked incredibly hard the past several years and his dedication absolutely amazes me! I am so blessed to be on this journey with him!

Have a fabulous day!

xoxo

Hello World!

Well hello there!

This gal has been MIA the past week or so and for that I do apologize but there has been a lot going on and blogging fell to the back burner... oops. So, since I last wrote ya, here's what has happened:

The hubby and I got to have an impromptu dinner date with a good friend. I love fun surprises and I love that one of my best friends was in town for work and we got to use it as an excuse to go eat at The Cheesecake Factory. Fun times!

I have been on the hunt for some new sheets and look what B and I found! Bright colors and Kate Spade. Always good!

You may have heard that UK won the NCAA National Championship. I definitely watched and yes... I cried. No shame! I love my school, I love my hometown, and I love UK basketball.

{via}

This past Wednesday, B and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary! I cannot believe that it has been 3 whole years since we said, "I Do". Time flies when you're having fun! I seriously love this man of mine and thank God everyday for bringing him into my life. I am so thankful to be wife!

To celebrate, we took a little day trip to NYC. A lot of walking, a little shopping, a great meal, and a Broadway show made for a pretty awesome day!

When we got back late last night, my new kicks were waiting for me! Thanks to my hubby for getting me some new running/workout shoes :) I love, love, love that they're pink.

Despite a busy schedule this past week, I still found a few moments to get on Pinterest. Here's some fun finds:

You can follow my boards here!

Hope y'all have had a great week and cheers to a fun filled Easter weekend! Time to catch up on everyone's blogs!

xoxo

Fun, New Workout...thanks to Miss Carrie Underwood!

I found an awesome new workout thanks to this post over at Southern Curls and Pearls. Carrie Underwood is in this month's Self magazine and she shares a workout that she does when she's not with her trainer. Read the post here to get the idea of the workout.

The workout involves a deck of cards. I used my Lilly Pulitzer playing cards, of course ;)

So here's what I did. It's a little different from Miss Underwood's regiment but that is what is so great about this. You can change it up and really make it what you want! Okay...

1) Take a deck of cards and shuffle them really well.

2) Use the whole deck or split them up. I'm using half the deck right now and hoping to work my way up to the whole deck by the end of the month. Baby steps y'all!

3) Make sure there is a Joker in the deck.

4) Assign each type of card an area of the body. For example, I use the following:

Clubs= Arms

Spades= Legs

Hearts= Cardio

Diamonds= Abs

Aces= 1 minute plank

Joker= 10 minute cardio

5) Go through the deck and write out your workout. For example, let's say you flip over the first card and it's the 6 of spades. You could do 6 squats or 6 lunges or 6 reps on your favorite machine. Your next card may be 9 of diamonds so you'll go do 9 regular crunches or 9 reps on an ab machine. Just continue this until you're through the deck.

Starting with a 15 minute warmup on the elliptical, my workouts have taken a little over an hour and that's with me including a 10 minute stretch at the end. Seriously y'all... this workout is the bomb.com! It kicks your booty but it's fun because you're constantly doing something different and each time you do the workout, it's new because you never know what the cards have in store for you. My card workout from last week is listed below in my Friday workout. I'm anxious to know what y'all think if you try it!

Summer Shape Up

(workouts from last week)

Monday

31 minutes on elliptical

3 sets of 12 lat pull downs at 40 lbs

5 sets of 12 pec fly at 25 lbs

2 sets of 25 standing twists with 10 lb medicine ball

4 sets of 25 crunches on stability ball

Tuesday

25 minutes on treadmill

Thursday

30 minutes on elliptical

2 sets of 10 lunges, Right and Left

3 sets of 25 calf raises

3 sets of 25 standing twists with 10 lb medicine ball

50 crunches on stability ball

3 sets of 12 bicep curls with 10 lb weight

3 sets of 12 reverse tricep extension with 10 lb weight

3 sets of 10 tricep dips

Friday

"Card Workout"

15 minute warmup on elliptical

15 reps pec fly

15 crunches on stability ball

5 bicep curls

1 minute plank

13 lat pulldowns

10 standing twists with 10 lb medicine ball

2 minute run on treadmill

10 jumping jacks

4 lat deltoid raises

7 tricep dips

5 minutes on elliptical

13 calf raises

6 squats

9 ab twists on stability ball

8 lunges, Right and Left

2 squats with stability ball

10 reverse tricep extensions

3 bicycles (abs), Right and Left

10 minute walk on treadmill

13 jumping jacks

1 minute plank

10 second wall sit

3 bicep curls on stability ball

6 lat deltoid raises on stability ball

3 crunches on stability ball

4 squats

9 reps pec fly

10 minute stretch

(I told y'all....the "card workout" is a booty kicker!)

Saturday

40 minutes yoga

5 minutes "Booty Blast"

Have an awesome night, ladies!