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Categories: Faith

Building A Christ Centered Life – And She Knew It

Hi Friends! Happy Sunday.

Earlier today my sister sent me a Snapchat saying that she wanted to start studying the talks from General Conference that took place a few weeks ago. I asked her if I could join and then decided to make a schedule so I could pace myself + be able to really study all of the talks given before our next conference in April.

As I was thinking about studying and then as I listened to this talk, The Message, the meaning, and the Multitude, I was reminded of the impression I had during General Conference that I wanted to talk about today.

I want to live a Christ-centered life.

As Christians, don’t we all?

I want Him to be at the center of all that I do but for the past several years, He’s been in my life but not at the center of it.

When I originally started this blog a year ago I wanted it to be 100% faith-related and share things that would help other women and myself grow in our faith. I became quickly overwhelmed though, what content did I share? What should I be talking about? It was all a little too much and this quickly became more of a lifestyle blog where I talked about faith occasionally instead of solely a faith blog.

But that’s okay. The ideas and thoughts still grew in my heart.

If I was struggling as a new mom, as a woman, as a wife, to really dig deep into the scriptures and the words of the modern prophets, I couldn’t be the only one, right?

I wanted to create a space where I could join with women like me and we could grow our faith together, in simple ways.

I didn’t want to make my gospel study hard or something that felt like just another thing on my crazy to-do list. I wanted it to be meaningful, but do-able.

I said to myself “I can study for 10 minutes a day.” Which is exactly where I started. I grabbed my Come, Follow Me manual, my scriptures, and a half-empty notebook and started studying. When my 10 minutes were up I was free to continue if I wanted (and sometimes I did) or I could stop (which I also did) but day by day, little by little I was beginning to see my faith grow.

I created a group on Facebook and invited some friends to join and I posted a few times but again, felt completely overwhelmed. I didn’t know how to run a Facebook group. I didn’t know how to lead women to strengthen our faith when I felt like I was only barely above floundering myself.

So I started to pray. Please, God. I love You. I love Thy word. I want to grow my faith, and I want to help women do the same.

I kept showing up to read the scriptures. I wasn’t perfect, I still miss a lot of days, but my faith kept growing, but I felt like God wasn’t giving me any direction.

General Conference came around the first weekend in October and again, I was praying and wondering what I could do, how I could make this vision in my head come to life.

I didn’t want to do it for me. I wanted to do it for you. To find ways that can help all of us grow closer to God and to build a Christ-centered life.

I felt a prompting and decided to follow it.

I was driving in my car before the Women’s session and I was praying, asking God what I should call this endeavor. I remembered the story in the Book of Mormon in Alma when Moroni is leading 1000 young men into battle. These young men have such great faith even though they are going into war and have never fought before. When Moroni asks where their faith came from they told him that they “did not doubt because our mothers knew it.”

I LOVE this story. But I also knew that I wanted to encourage all women, mothers included, but also women who aren’t mothers. And almost immediately after I had that thought these words came to my mind “call it And She Knew It.”

And She Knew It is a community of women who want to strengthen their faith in Christ through gospel study.

Together we’ll study the gospel as we read and ponder on scriptures and conference talks.

Starting tomorrow we’ll be reading 1-2 conference talks each week and talking about them over on Instagram. I’ll probably also share a lot of my own thoughts here on my blog as well.

I’d love for you to join me and my sister as we study the teachings of modern prophets together. You can grab a copy of our study schedule below.

I’ve had a lot of thoughts, promptings, and impressions about things that will come in the future, but we needed a place to start and this is it.

I want to build a Christ-centered life. I want my daughter Von to know that I know of Christ and that I know Him. I’m doing this for me, I’m doing this for her, and I hope you’ll join me.

Categories: Faith, Mental Health

You Matter

The other day I was having one of those days when my anxiety starts to tell me all sorts of lies.

You know the ones, the lies where my own brain starts to tell me that life isn’t worth it, that none of this matters, that no one actually needs me around. The lies that say there’s never gonna be a better day, that the anxiety is never going to go away.

Then I got a text from my sister. Every night for a few years now we’ text each other one thing we’re grateful for. She said “I’m grateful for you.”

It was simple. It’s something we often say, especially on days when we FaceTime each other, but this time it hit me hard.

I am needed. I am loved. I do need to be here.

Life is hard. So so hard. With God, life is good, but still hard.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that we aren’t wanted or needed or that we don’t matter.

But we do matter.

You matter.

You matter. Your voice matters. Your story matters. Your art matters. Stay. Go create things. Go be you, because the world needs it ❤️

In that same thought, have you told the people in your life that you’re grateful for that you appreciate them? That you need them? This is your daily reminder to check in on your friends and family. Because not everyone is fine, and sometimes they need that reminder.

As someone who struggles a lot with anxiety and sometimes these scary thoughts, I’m not always good at reaching out to people when I need it. Sometimes I need them to reach out to me. And when I’m in a good place, I try to be that person, the one who reaches out because I know how much they need it.

We all matter because we are God’s. Not because of how many followers we have or because of the things that we accomplish. You matter because you are literally a child of God. He loves you. I love you. You matter.

If you or someone you know is struggling with a mental illness, reach out, get the help you need. The suicide help number is 1-800-273-8255 and the Crisis line (for any crisis) you can text CONNECT to 741741 to get immediate support. <3

Categories: Faith

The Calm in the Storm

Yesterday we got the news that we’ve been hoping and praying for.

Instantly I felt relief and peace. I hit my knees and prayed to God saying “thank you thank you thank you” over and over again until Von came over to me concerned and I got up to play with her.

And then a little later, after the initial rush of peace and excitement started to settle, I started to feel overwhelmed and stressed.

There are still quite a few unknowns in our future. There are so many things that we need to do this week to prepare for the coming weeks. I looked around at our apartment where the dishes have been piling up because I’ve been too stressed to think about them let alone do them. I felt overwhelmed by the clutter I started clearing this weekend but haven’t been able to drop off at the thrift store yet.

And just like that my mind started to race and my heart rate rose and I felt like an anxiety attack was coming.

I started to pray.

This time, instead of thanking God for this beautiful miracle that’s happening, I prayed for calm, for a quiet mind, for clarity to know what to focus on and what to do this week so we could get it all done.

Immediately I felt relief. I was reminded of the story of Christ, when he’s fast asleep on the boat while the storm is raging around them. The disciples were afraid. “Carest thou not that we perish?” They asked him when he finally woke up.

But the waters knew His voice. The sea was calmed. All because of Christ.

Christ can also be the calm spot in our personal storms. If I’ve learned anything this past month it’s that I need to have a foundation in Him. I need to keep myself centered in Him so that I can feel that peace when the waves of life keep coming at full force.

He is the calm in the storm. Always.

Categories: Faith, The Faith Project

The Power of Hope

Do you ever have those moments where you just throw your hands up in the air and look up and yell at God?

You scream “why? Why God? Why this? Why now?”

It’s easier to yell and scream and ask why when things don’t make sense. Our first instinct isn’t to trust God and trust that everything will work out. At least, it’s not my first instinct. My first emotion is usually fear.

The past few weeks have been a wild roller coaster of emotions. I’m not going to get into to much detail right now, because we’re in the thick of it, but I’ll share another day. Today though, I keep thinking about hope.

I started thinking about this because of Eva Love. She’s the daughter of Lindsay from Lindsay Letters. She had a fluke accident and has been in the hospital with a bad brain injury. So many people have come together to pray for her, to ask and beg God for a miracle. I am constantly inspired by the hope and faith that her parents have.

I started asking myself, if that was us, would I have that faith? Would I have that hope that everything would work out? That it really is in God’s hand?

Image from @lindsayletters.co on Instagram

Right now we’re going through our own family challenge.

We don’t have anyone in the hospital, and for that I am so grateful. But we’re still shaking our fists and asking why. We’re still so stressed that Griffin and I have both been in tears multiple times. We don’t have any answers. We don’t know why this is happening. We also don’t know what is going to happen in the next few months.

It’s scary, the unknown. Especially when it involves more than just you. It’s terrifying, not knowing what the future holds. Not knowing where we’ll be a month from now or two months from now.

It’s hard to have hope and faith when there are so many questions.

But isn’t that what faith is? Trusting in the unknown? Trusting in God when there aren’t answers?

Isn’t hope leaning in God and in His goodness even though you’re questioning whether He really is watching out for you in that moment?

From my past experiences, I know that God is there. That God delivers, that God is watching out for us.

I also know that He can see the whole picture, He knows exactly what’s down the road for us, even though we feel like we’re surrounded by a fog so thick all we can do is trust that He’s up ahead of us and He’ll give direction when He’s ready + when we need it.

Right now we’re trusting, we’re hoping, we’re living with faith because we don’t have the answers.

There’s also this part of me that feels like something even greater than what we had is right around the corner, that because God loves us and is such an abundant giver, we will receive that soon, we just have to wait and trust and not be fearful.

Which is really hard for us. For me.

I guess I’m writing all of this because I needed my own reminder that God is good and that there is power when we have hope. I’m also writing this because I would love your prayers during this hard time, we have already felt the prayers of so many of you and I am so grateful for the strength that comes when we pray together.

God is good. God is watching out for us because we are His children. And I’m learning to trust in that.

Categories: Faith, Family

Where You Lead, I Will Follow

Do you ever have those days where you wake up motivated and ready to chase your dreams and accomplish your goals?

I had that kind of morning today.

Even though I got to sleep in a bit today, Von was still sleeping when I woke up and I was able to write for almost an hour and a half! I was feeling pumped and excited about my novel and about my future as a writer.

Von woke up and we had breakfast and played until it was her nap time.

In the middle of her nap I was hit with so many feelings.

that I wasn’t good enough (so why try to be a writer)

that I wasn’t writing the “right” story (because I have so many ideas)

and on and on.

My thoughts started to spiral.

When Von woke up we had to head up to the leasing office to pick up a package that was delivered there. We were out for maybe 10 minutes but it gave me fresh perspective.

On our way back to our apartment, Von wanted to take every path we passed. I held her hand and gently guided her to stay on the path that was the easiest and would get us hope the fastest.

Some of the paths she wanted to go down would have gotten us home just fine. And sometimes she wanted to walk through flowers.

As we were walking I wondered “I wonder if this is how God feels about us sometimes. He knows the best way for us to get home. There are other ways we can go, different things we can do (that are also good) and there are some paths we shouldn’t take. But He’s always there, holding our hands, ready to lead us.”

It was a simple yet profound thought.

I want to be better at listening to God’s voice. We talked about Hearing God’s Voice yesterday at church and how sometimes we just need to keep walking and doing good and trust that direction will come (when it doesn’t come right away.)

Today I was reminded of that. That I don’t need to worry or freak out because I know that He is up there listening to my prayers, and ready to take me by the hand and lead me along.

I want to live a Christ-centered life.

I wanted to create a space where I could join with women like me and we could grow our faith together, in simple ways.

I felt a prompting and decided to follow it.

From my past experiences, I know that God is there. That God delivers, that God is watching out for us.

Follow @tayloreppersonwrites