Jesus Saves

Hi! Welcome!

It's been a while, so buckle up because this is going to be a bumpy and honest blog!

It's been a few years since I've written on here, and I wanted to start off by sharing potentially my most meaningful story yet. My last blog, I shared my journey of renovating an old farmhouse and making it my forever home. Boy did God ever shake up my world and change what I had planned. He is all knowing, but gosh I was blind for quite some time. So what could I do? I walked by faith even when I could not see. That sounds powerful and so meaningful, and it is, but it is incredibly challenging to say "God my life is in your hands, I trust you and where you're taking me."

That will forever be my favorite house, but I no longer call it home. That statement hurt me for so long, and for multiple reasons. I often refer to my life through college and until 2022 my past life. Truthfully because I am not the person I was then. Of course parts of me have come through each season of life, but I have changed so much in my habits, thoughts, and day to day life that I don't recognize myself (and truthfully I'm so glad I don't). My past life didn't glorify God or who He made me to be, and I now strive to do that each day. He saved me.

Let's go back to 2020. That was one of my toughest years, ever. In the fall of that year, I found out I was expecting my first child with my then husband. I was very scared, because it wasn't something I expected to happen in my life, and I didn't feel supported the ways a wife and mother would hope to be. I want to preface by saying that my ex is not a someone I have ill feelings towards, at least not anymore. There were times through healing that I felt a lot of pain and anger towards him, but I feel I have done the work and God has given me peace with everything that's happened. It has taken a lot of work to forgive and let God take care of it. Sometimes every time I would remember something I would have to forgive again, but that's the thing about forgiveness... It isn't a one-time transaction of deciding to forgive. Sometimes you'll feel you have forgiven and the next day you start all over again. There are no intentions to send a bad message of him or anything in that regard. I am only here to share my side of story and my experiences.

Sadly my pregnancy ended early with an ectopic pregnancy at only 10 weeks... and I was forced to lose my baby and say goodbye. My last day with my little Peapod (my name for baby since I didn't want to know gender) was October 30th. A day that will never be forgotten. Being the artist I am, I drew a pea pod and have it tattooed on my left shoulder. So if you've seen me and wondered what that tattoo represents, you now know it's for my child that's up with God.

I have never experienced loss and pain like that before. It was the most gut wrenching feeling and turned my world upside down. I lost something I didn't even know I wanted, and I wasn't sure how I would ever recover. I was a mother without her child, even though I didn't feel like one and sometimes still struggle with that. It sent me into the most all consuming depression for close to a year. I had left my town job a couple months after the loss, and decided I wanted to be at the farm. On days I didn't have to milk in the morning, I couldn't get myself out of bed until sometimes 11am, which if you know me you know how distraught I must have been. I've been a 5 to 6am girly all my life, but I was so deep in a fog I could barely function. It got to the point I felt myself becoming suicidal. Another feeling I had never understood until then. Truthfully, what kept me going was Otto, my dog. He never left my side during those months, and I just could never leave him. I also never wanted to hurt my ex that way either, but sadly I didn't feel the support, love, and help I so desperately needed.

It was after that I forced myself to get help, and I have a wonderful therapist to thank for helping me get through some of the darkest moments of my life. But the biggest thank you I owe is to Jesus.

He saved me.

The Beginning of the End

The next couple years weren't as foggy, but were the beginning of the end of everything I knew. In the fall of 2022, my ex and I officially split. While I could write another blog on that experience, I'm won't. At the end of the day, I'm sad that we both had to hurt each other that way, but I'm not here to share details on why things ended. God saw everything that happened and I've found peace knowing Jesus fights my battles. What I will share are some important lessons I've learned.

If it doesn't start with faith, it won't be sustainable.
It's going to hurt but it gets better with time. Allow yourself to feel the pain, but don't get too comfortable there.
Grief is a very living thing. It will visit you at random. You can't schedule it. You can't work it away, drink it away, or make yourself so busy to avoid it. All it will do is wait for you to finish. So when it shows it, however it shows up, let it.
Everything I lost, God replaced.
Hard times will show you who your real friends are.
You can't beg someone to love you.
When they show you who they are, believe it. Don't paint their red flags green.
Communication is important, but so is comprehension.
You can love someone, and still know you need to say goodbye and that it was the right choice.
Someone shouldn't have to lose you to see your worth.
I can't punish myself for decisions I made in the past, with revaluations I didn't have at the time.

That's a lot. As I say to people when I've shared bits of my past with them "it's like chopping open an onion, there's a lot of layers and they usually make you cry!"

Sometimes it's hard to share those lessons, but I've found people that God has used my story to help. It's been a long broken road to get here, but I am forever thankful.

Otto and I have moved three times in two years now, and that has been hard and stressful. I felt I had to start over in every aspect of life. I had little to no money, needed to find anther job off the farm, and my heart was crushed. Everything I thought I always wanted, and where I saw my life going suddenly took a completely different direction. I felt I was in another fog again, but this time I knew God was with me.

The hard times were tough I'm not going to lie, but I wasn't alone like I felt I was before. When I was struggling to find a job I repeated to myself daily, that whatever God has in store for me won't pass me by. But each day was a battle. Otto and I would go on our nightly walk just before sunset, and if I could make it to then I knew I'd made it another day. It was how we made it through those months of grieving and healing.

There were many months of disassociating from people, places, and even family. I felt so ashamed that the word divorced was now associated with me, and I was given a lot of judgement from people I thought were in my corner. God really weeded out the bad apples in my life, and boy did that sting. I felt I'd lost someone I thought was one of my best friends. I felt I lost friends I'd known for years, and even new friends I grew to come close to and shared so many meals and laughs with. I never heard from most of them again, and that's a very heartbreaking and lonely feeling I wish on no one. I knew God was moving me forward with the people who were for me and in the direction He knew was for me. My two girls, Rosie and Erica, kept me going and God showed me love of friendship I'd also never known. They heard the tears I wanted to hide, and pointed me towards Jesus every time my faith wavered. They are my soul sisters. Just like what Jesus prayed over Peter when times were tough,"I pray your faith does not fail you." With faith you can lose everything, and with faith you can overcome and you will get back those things that you felt were lost.

And now, the Beginning

Truthfully I was so reluctant to begin a new life. It was the last thing I wanted, but I knew God was calling me to move forward. I knew I needed to take care of myself, because I wasn't in a good place. Even though it was hard and terrifying, I also had such comfort and peace knowing who was guiding me.

I found a wonderful church and fellowship at the Cowboy Church in Mineral Point, WI. While I now regularly go to church in my hometown, it is always a delight to visit up there and hear Pastor Roger preach, and catch up with people that helped me find Jesus. The church and community will always hold a special place in my heart. They never judged me for my past and welcomed with with open arms. I was baptized June, 11 2023 at this church. June is a month full of emotion for me, with my baby's birthday and also when my divorce was final. A month prior to my baptism, I got to witness three men at three different stages of life commit their lives to Christ. It was the most moving church service I had ever been to. I had chills and was holding back tears, and I knew He was calling me to get baptized, too. I was baptized three days after my divorce was final. I'll share my baptism testimony.

"I came to this church after Thanksgiving last year. I hadn't been apart of a church in a long time. I've never quite felt God's presence in church, and I struggled to know Him and myself. I slowly found Him in college. I heard His word for the first time and felt His hand working in my life. But I didn't immerse myself in His will for me, and my relationship with Him was stagnant.

I believe you can't know Jesus as provider, until you know what it's like to have nothing. Every aspect of my life has changed drastically in the last three years. And I've learned firsthand, that His timing is perfect. Never early. Never late. Sometimes God closes doors because it's time for you to move forward, and He knows you won't move unless your circumstances force you to.

I know faith isn't a feeling, it's a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain. I've had to trust His word and it's what's gotten me here today.

I am very blessed to be here today. To have found a community here, and friends and family to support me. And I am ready to commit my life to Christ."

Sometimes I struggle to leave my past in the past, and I can elaborate that in a second... I felt the word divorce was the only thing people saw about me, and I felt ashamed. I've come to learn that it's never as black and white as it may appear to some people, and they can only meet you where they've met themselves. We all have a lens through which we see the world. Some people will understand your story with just a few words, and others will never understand it with thousands of words. Jesus knows and saw all, and I've had to come to peace with that and let it be.

I was blessed with a great job at RBS Activewear, and I've made great friendships within my coworkers. I'm now the embroidery technician and love my daily tasks getting to be creative and also moving around all day. While my ultimate life goal is to take over the family farm, this job has been such a blessing until my time comes to return to the farm.

I've continued my photography and actually reentered wedding photography again, but my first love will always be my farm photography and creating art with those images.

One of my life's biggest blessings is my boyfriend, Marcus. After my heartbreak, I promised myself I wouldn't date anyone who essentially wasn't perfect. I dated to marry. Maybe that sounds crazy considering all I had been through, but I wasn't going to associate myself with someone that couldn't love me how I deserved. There were three pillars I started with.

Gratiot. I wasn't leaving this area, and I knew this is where home would always be for me and always had been.
Farming. This goes hand in hand with the first pillar, but I knew the next person I was involved with had to be in agriculture to some capacity. I couldn't have my farm life be something that was misunderstood and not shared in.
God. The next person I was going to be involved with needed to know and love God above all else. End of story.

I have known Marcus since I was a kid actually, which I just know God had his hand on. We went to vacation bible school together, at the same church we go to now every Sunday. We've essentially been in each other's back yards our entire lives and never really knew it.

Marcus ironically checks every box, and then some! A farmer from Gratiot who knows and loves the Lord... OK. With just that alone, when we started to develop feelings, we knew that God had his hand on our relationship.

I was so scared to start dating. I was scared to get hurt again, to potentially be abandoned, and be vulnerable with someone. For a long time, I didn't feel deserving of his love and struggled to let go of my past in order to move forward.

Honestly Marcus deserves his own blog with how much he has changed my life. He was a light for me when things were dark, and he is a light for me still every day pointing me towards the most important things in life and always leading me back to Jesus. I've never met a kinder soul, caring spirit, friendlier person (besides Otto) and I've never known a love like this.

He helps me continue to grow my relationship with Jesus and keeps Him the center of my life.

He's helped me over come fears I was too scared to take the next step towards. Never once hurrying me or pushing me, but always gently guiding me forward.

He helped heal a heart he didn't break.

He loves Otto as if he had known him since he was a puppy.

He never saw me as having too much "baggage," he just simply helped me unpack.

He looks at me as if I give all the color to the world... that always gets me.

The peace he gives me, I've only ever found within Jesus. I can only thank Him for all the closed doors, and the broken road that led me to Marcus.

And tomorrow we celebrate ONE YEAR of dating! Love you, Mac!

He Saves.

I stumbled across Riley Green's song "Jesus Saves" and it has been on repeat. It was so relatable to my experiences.

The loss of Peapod was absolutely devastating, but I've come to find it's been my saving grace. God knew all along what He was doing, and He saved me.

He saved me from living a life that wouldn't glorify Him.

He saved me from a life that was never going to bring me to Him or to my potential.

At the end of the day, the most truthful thing I can share from my life's most painful times to the most high moments is Jesus saves.

-Livi