We are blessed today to have encourager Carmen Horne share her wisdom. (She wouldn't want me to brag about her, but I'm going to anyway.) I know you will feel the sincerity of her heart when you read her words. Welcome Carmen!

2 Ways to Choose Trust

“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work. For as the sky soars high above earth so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.” Isaiah 55:8-9, MSG

Do you bounce back and forth between worry and trust? My word, I do. Recommitting to my decision to trust God in certain situations is not only a yearly thing for me, it’s often daily.

Please tell me you struggle with this too. We are firmly dedicated to letting go of the anxiety that comes with a situation, and before we realize it, our devotion begins to wane.

It’s not like God has abandoned us. It’s not like He has never answered our prayers. We fill journals with thankfulness.

For me, I think part of my distrust rests within my fear of the unknown. I heard one of my favorite Bible teachers say in reference to God answering prayers, “We don’t know if He will, but we always know He can.”

Oh, but we want to know He will. We want that assurance that His answer will always be yes. We know best, right?

How will we ever overcome this tug of war in our souls? Are there ways to make our choice to trust God in the midst of the unknown for real this time?

Here are a couple of things I am trying to remember when I begin to worry and fret. Hopefully you will find them helpful as well.

Remember who God is and what we know about His character -

Scripture is filled with affirmations of God’s love and care for us – Jeremiah 29:11, John 14:27, Proverbs 1:33 are some of my favorites. Not only scripture, but our lives testify to a loving God that is faithful. When I am feeling overwhelmed, I think back on the times God has met my needs, protected my family, and healed my body. I look for truth – not what I am feeling at the moment. Our feelings usually gravitate toward the negative during stressful times.

Understanding that choosing trust is powerful –

There is power in a choice. We decide. It’s an act of our will. Quoting Joyce Meyer, “In Deuteronomy 30:19 (AMP), God says, ‘…I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.’ ‘Every choice is a seed you sow, and those seeds produce fruit in your life – either for life or for death. And if we want to have the life Jesus died to give us – an abundant life full of real peace and joy – we need to make wise choices.”

Choosing trust is good seed sown for our peace.

Often, I choose trust with my knees knocking, my voice trembling, and tears flowing. I don’t think trust has to look pretty, I think it just needs to look sincere.

Living with abandon in Christ’s love and care can happen for us. Let’s choose life.

Wife, mom and Jesus girl best describes Carmen. She has been married to her fella, Lary, for 38 years and has one beautiful daughter.

She walks out her calling to women’s ministry as a writer, speaker and Christian Women’s Hope Coach, lending her ear and heart to those looking to find hope in the craziness of life.

Carmen is convinced her home in heaven will be beach-side with a chocolate filled closet, but until that glorious day, her family makes the Bayou State their home. Connect with Carmen here:

Visit my blog at Carmen Horne, Walking With Women, Embracing God's Truth.

As part of our For Real This Time series, special guest author Zohary Ross will be sharing with us on the blog today. Zohary has created the most fabulous resource! If you have children at home, you will love it. I know I do! I'm thankful to have her as our guest. Please welcome Zohary. You will be blessed by her words.

Have any of you ever woken up with a kink on your neck? Or turned the wrong way and felt a shooting pain in you back?

Yes? You know what I mean.

When I was in high school I experienced my first back spasm. It hurt so bad that I couldn’t move or breathe. Unfortunately it was only the beginning of my life long struggle with “back issues”; the spasms continued into my late teens and twenties and the pain eventually got worse.

I’ve had to live with the physical pain that comes from a misaligned body. When my hips and back are “off” or kiddywampus (as my MIL would say) and my body hurts, I go in for an adjustment to get realigned and I feel relief.

But I’ve realized the same thing happens when our lives get out of alignment.

Even worse than physical pain is the pain that comes from a life that is out of alignment.

Life hurts or at the very least can feel really uncomfortable or “off” when our time, habits, and actions do not align with our core values, passions and priorities. We just don’t feel “right” until we are truly living what we believe with purpose and passion.

There is a soul ache that comes from a misaligned life. And a misaligned life can become a misaligned family.

I had my first child when I was 18, and by the time I was 21 I was a single mom of two boys. During my early years of motherhood I rarely thought of the home culture that I wanted to create for my little family unit. Life then was about survival --I was going to college full-time, working full-time and being a mom. I thought I had to do it all and I thought I had to do all things at the same time.

This year my oldest child turned 19, and as I looked back I was saddened by what I consider to be the years of missed opportunity. Because we were in survival mode I was not intentional about what I wanted our family to be about. I only did what I thought I needed to do; I didn’t know at the time how to make motherhood my own.

Eventually, I decided there had to be another way. I was not a “victim” of motherhood, destined to go through the motions and raise my children according to what society deemed right. I was the designer of our home, and our values were its building blocks. .

Just like our bodies can ache when out of alignment, our families will suffer when our time, habits and actions are not aligned with our core values, passions and priorities. Yet I know from working with so many families that when life gets busy implementing a plan where our values are consistently implemented in our home culture can be tricky.

So I decided to create a resource that would help families get out of defense mode and instead get proactive about the home culture they wanted to live out.

Basically, I created what I wish I had had as a young mom. The Aligned Parenting Workbook is a product of my own journey to create a home culture where our actions, habits and family traditions are all aligned with our core values -- those things we believe to be most important but also as a result of the need for a guide to help families address the question “what do WE want to be about”?

It’s not a how-to book but more of a “what”?

· What do we value?

· What skills and practical experiences do we want our kids to one day leave home with?

· What meaningful traditions to we want to establish in our home?

· What boundaries need to be put into place in order to protect our family time?

It’s a practical tool that will help families get serious FOR REAL this time and move beyond good intentions and into action.

Because I truly believe there is a better way to lead your family: YOUR WAY. The Aligned Parenting Workbook will help you define what that looks like and design a plan to live it out.

Zohary Ross is a writer, speaker and life coach. She is passionate about living authentically and equipping and encouraging women to live “all in” with alignment of values, beliefs and actions and she tries to live out what she coaches. Her background is in counseling and education. She has a mild addiction to mint chocolate, office supplies (especially pens), and personality tests (she’s a Nine on the Enneagram and a ENFJ if you’re into that sort of thing). Zohary lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her awesome husband and four children.

Connect with her on her web site at zoharyross.com

or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.