Lady Lovestead

Good morning sweet friends, Today is a typical winter day here in Iowa. The past few years, I feel like God has been peeling away layers of myself that do not represent who He created me to be. He is also allowing the truest parts of myself I've hidden away in a dark part of my soul to tip-toe out into the open and breath fresh air, feel the sunshine. One of these parts of myself is the way I identify as a hyper-feminine woman. There are a lot of questions about how I define my femininity and how it fits into a larger conversation on gender identity. I do have a background in women's and gender studies so I'm not without some substantive ideas on the topic.  For the purpose of this post, I want to focus on how I define my own femininity. This isn't reflective of how others identify their own femininity nor is it an assumption about what femininity or masculinity is or should be at large. This me and how I identify.  The cornerstones of my femininity are gentl...

( Image Source ) Good morning, sweet friends! Today I've been thinking a lot about one of the most important lessons I've learned in the past few years: stewardship. Shortly after I became a Christian, God did what God does--he started pruning. In Christianity we call this sanctification . It's when God begins to work on you, to form you into someone who is more like Christ.  There is a misconception about sanctification. Some people claim that sanctification happens when we receive the holy spirit and are saved. This implies that it is a one time deal and :: poof :: we're made new. The reality for a lot of us (if  not the majority of us) is that sanctification is a process ongoing for our lifetime. ↠↞   My first big lesson in sanctification was about how I wasn't being a good steward, in so many ways. The holy spirit convicted me that I wasn't being a good steward of my time, my home, my body, my mind, or my relationships. I use the word ...