Have you ever ran to your computer, and just typed a bunch of random thoughts? Yeah, me neither. Except, the other day, I did. I was in the zone, I had 345,000 things going on and I just felt like I had a heavy heart. These thoughts are incredibly random, in fact, I have been holding onto them for a while, hesitant if I should even post them. But, it was on my heart so I think it is important enough to share, and maybe you can relate to them too.

Thoughts on life right now:

-Being a student & a wife is not tough (It is what you make it).

-Living together before marriage is a sin.

-Jake and I chose to defeat sin & temptation because we serve an awesome, Mighty God. So we’re married and have never questioned it any other way.

– We are all still sinners, but God gives us grace.

-I want to travel the world, and I can still do that even though I am married. Don’t tell me otherwise.

-Communication is everything.

-I may be studying Interior Design, but who’s to say that won’t open opportunities for something greater away from Interior Design?

-Don’t measure my success by how much money I make.

-I feel like Jacob and I both are so incredibly successful where we are right now and we both have part-time jobs that are completely different from our fields of study. It’s not about money.

-If we go by “the books,” we are over $100 short every month with bills, and by God’s grace we usually have over $100 every month left in our bank accounts after everything is paid. He wins!

-Give your money to God & watch what He does with it. It’s His. You won’t run short and you sure as heck won’t be disappointed. Just do it.

-Those who have confessed and know in your heart that God has placed a special future spouse in your life, then don’t wait. What are you waiting for? Money? It’ll come. Blessings will pour. When you choose to live the life God has called you to live, you will be blessed. I am a firm witness of that. I am not perfect, but I do know God has a special plan for Jacob and I because we are trying with all our might to lead the lives we’ve been called to lead.

-Jacob is my best friend.

-We sleep on a king sized mattress on the floor because our bed frame doesn’t fit in our room, we huddle around our space heater and talk because we think it’s fun, we have a shed that we call our shop/garage because it sounds cooler, we go on road trips and pretend we’re on a huge vacation, we never clean our hardwood floors in our old 1920’s rented home because we think it’s annoying (sorry guests, it’s true), we have our favorite rocking chair that we bought for $9 at the flea market that we like to beat each other to for movie night. Our date nights consist of Lotus Chinese take-out and Redbox (those are my favorite). When we have friends over, some of us have to eat dinner in the living room and some of us at the table in the kitchen because we only have a table for two and a couple barstools. But, no big deal, our living room and kitchen is one room 🙂

-This feels like luxury to us because we have each other. At the end of the day, every day, I get to come home to my best friend and we get to talk about our day; The frustrations of Calculus II (Jacob), or the lack of motivation in school as a whole (Ashley). We get to talk about what we are excited about in our futures, we get to joke about these amazing vacations that we’re going to take when we are out in the “real” world with full time jobs. We talk about our friends, and how much we are blessed by them, we get to wrestle, we get to shower together, we get to cook food together and eat meals together under one roof that God has blessed us with.

-We get to go camping together. We get to spend money together that we have both worked hard to make. We clean house together, we stand by the space heater together.

-These are moments I never want to forget.

-This is luxury and this is success to us.

You can’t measure success by the clothes you wear, the money you make, the Whole Foods trips you take in a week, or the world travels you’ve experienced. This personally is SO tough for me. Because for days upon days I dream about those trips and the person I would become if I could just see the world. So, does this mean I am less of a person because I’m not on that plane to Europe with you?

Absolutely not. Because success is measured by happiness. My head tells me to go, go, go experience it all right now. My heart tells me to stop. Slow it down. What’s the rush? You will follow where I lead you. My heart tells me this because that’s where Jesus is. He’s in my heart, and that’s who I want to follow.

I’m starting to think this blog is going to turn into things that are on my heart and I’m excited because it’s real. It’s not being paid for by my sponsors telling me what to say and do on the side of my blog. This is me. This is going to be the place where I share what’s on my heart as a 21 year old, married, student, and part-time worker because my grandpa always told me “you have something special to share.”

-everything is what you make it.

-ash

Photo by: Erynn Christine Photography

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