When your mind says yes, but your heart says no

It has been just over three weeks since my dear friend Sharra passed from this life into the next. Her memorial service was filled with joy, light, and Jesus. Since then, there have been several times I wanted to sit down and write. My mind says: hey, you have time to go write now... but my heart has been saying no a lot.

I wouldn't say that all of my lack of drive for writing is because of grief, because while I miss Sharra a lot, I know she was received into the arms of Jesus and she would want me to be celebrating for her, and with her. I am. 

Something else I have been doing is asking God to give me direction for what to write about Sharra's influence on my life and how God used her to draw me into an even deeper relationship with Himself. Friendships like that are rare. 

I want to treasure the memories of our time together, while still looking forward to what God has planned for my life. It's not that I'm uninspired - I have a lot of things on my list to write about that I want to share with you, it's just that right now my heart is saying no to writing. 

I'm hoping you'll stick around and see what God does with this time of reflection I'm going through. Hopefully by next week my heart will stop saying no, and start saying yes again. It can be a challenging thing, when your heart and mind don't agree. Have you ever been there? I'm waiting for the release that I know the Holy Spirit will give in His timing, for the joy that comes in the morning and stays. In the meantime, would you join me in prayer for Sharra's family?

There will still be hand-lettered Scripture verses on Sundays, Wednesdays, snd Saturdays, and hand-lettered song verses by Arlene on Thursdays. Hopefully I'll be back next week with some joy, and writing, to share!

Ephesians 1:7

Acts 1:7

Try

Today's Five Minute Friday writing prompt is: try

Do or do not, there is no try. 
-Yoda

What comes to mind when you hear the word try? For me, this quote from Yoda from a Star Wars movie popped into my head. Why? Maybe I was just in a strange mood this morning, or maybe, it's because it is true.

We often hear about trying harder to achieve a goal, or trying something new. But the reality is, more often we need to decide to do something well, or not do it at all. 

When our children are little it makes sense to encourage them to try again. To continue to work at a skill, like tying their shoes or riding a bicycle. But as adults, we might need to just buckle down and do something. Maybe we do not do it as wells we would like, thus we might say we tried to do it. Let's just be keepers of our word and do the things we say we will. If we really do not expect to get something done, we should just say "no," not... "I'll try."

We cannot make God love us more then He already does. We do not need to try to win His favor. What we need to do is simply follow Him. Some days we will do a good job of it, and some days we will mess up. But we will be doing something. We will not try to read His word, we will read His word. We will decide to give up the world for Jesus - at least that is my hope for each one of us!

Streams of mercy

1 John 5:13

Jarro-Dophilus Women ~ A Moms Meet Review

I received this product for free from Moms Meet (momsmeet.com) to use and post my honest opinions. 

Compensation for this post was provided and this post may contain affiliate links.

Good digestive health is not just helpful, it is necessary for our bodies to function correctly. For women, that need for a healthy balance goes beyond our digestive tract. Let's face it ladies, we also need to take care of our urinary tract and our reproductive tract health. Whether you are 20 or 50, Jarrow Formulas has a probiotic formula that can help you keep your body working well.

For this Moms Meet review, Jarrow shipped their Jarro-Dophilus Women formula, plus a few extras. The Women's formula is based upon years of clinical research. The four strains of probiotics used in this formula are strains found in the vaginal tract of healthy women. To read more about these, visit Jarrow's website.

After reading some of the research on Jarrow's site, I wanted to try this women's formula out for myself. I've taken regular probiotics for digestive health for years...and I can tell if I've missed them for more than one day. But this was the first time I had tried a formula to help the rest of me - something specifically designed to help my reproductive tract health. I was not disappointed! This formula has a food-grade enteric coating, something I knew was important because I wanted the probiotics to stay potent until they reached my small intestines. 

The first thing that impressed me was the way Jarrow Formulas sends their products. They use a cool ship packaging that helps the probiotics arrive still in their optimal temperature range so they stay effective.  If you order online you can have them cool shipped to your home. I looked at our local Fresh Thyme Market for the Jarrow Formulas line. They keep it in the cooler case so they all stay fresh and effective. You can also get them from other local health food stores like: Whole Foods Market or Sprouts Farmers Market.

Once I got into the box to the products that Jarrow sent, I saw that they had sent us four different products. The Jarro-Dophilus Women, Fem-dophilus (designed for vaginal and urinary tract health support,) Yum-Yum Dophilus (a chewable probiotic formula for children that needs refrigeration,) and Jarrow-Dophilus Infant (probiotic drops for babies.) 

While I have been trying out the Women's formula, Arlene (age 17) has been trying out the Yum-Yum Dophilus chews. While Arlene is above the originally intended age for the Yum-Yum Dophilus chews, she found that taking them daily during the past month has helped her digestive tract stay regular, and she has been sleeping better as well. As a teen with an activity packed summer, I was thankful yo be able to provide her system an extra boost for the month of July which is usually her busiest month of the year. 

More about Jarro-Dophilus Women

Why is vaginal health a key component that we often overlook? I really don't know except that maybe we just get so busy being women: wives, mothers, daughters, employees and employers that we only think about it if something goes wrong. What if we started taking one extra minute a day to keep our reproductive tracts healthy so we wouldn't be slowed down by something going awry? I think it is time to take that minute! Jarro-Dophilus Women uses the patented Astarte strains that have been researched multiple times. If you're going to choose a supplement, make sure it is a quality one like this one from Jarrow Formulas!

I've been taking the Jarro-Dophilus Women for four weeks now. The very first night I started sleeping more soundly. By the end of the first week I could tell my digestive tract was back where it needed to be. Since then I have seen a gradual increase in my energy level. Being completely honest here: this past month has been one of the mentally toughest I've been through in recent years. Having my gut and reproductive tract in excellent health has gone a long way to help combat the stress!

Overall, I have been duly impressed with the quality and scientific research behind the Probiotic supplements from Jarrow Formulas. I can highly recommend them for you and your family. Take the time to get educated about which probiotic strains are recommended for the issues you are facing and then take action - take that one minute a day towards better health!

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