What I Learned From Frozen

I'm sure many of you have seen the new Disney movie Frozen. It has been raved about since it hit theaters back in November, and for good reason. This Disney movie has to be one of the best movies that I have seen in a while. It's easy to look at movies like this as just fun kid movies with no real meaning behind them, but Frozen's message really stuck out to me.

The biggest theme that I saw throughout the movie was fear. Elsa was terrified. She didn't understand how to use her powers, and there was nobody to really help her learn. That's why she was so angry; everything that she did that was "harmful" was because she was scared. But as soon as Anna sacrificed herself to save Elsa, it made sense. Love thaws a frozen heart. Love is how to control the powers. Love casts out fear.

It's easy to skip over this detail, but to me it sticks out clearly throughout the whole movie. And I have to amend Disney for putting such a great and powerful message into the movie. I loved it and I will love it forever.

xx, Shiloh

A Month of Instas: March

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Happy April 1st everyone!

It's finally time to say goodbye to March and welcome in a new month and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. 

The month of March was really great to me. A lot of really fun things happened as you can see in all of the instagram posts from above. I've been actively continuing on my #100happydays throughout the month and also posting some random things here or there. I have some throwbacks and some amazing quotes that I just fell in love with over the month. 

For me March was:

♠ A new start. (I said the same thing in January, but really God worked on my heart so very much this month that it felt like a fresh start.)

♠ One month closer to graduating. (56 days left!!!)

♠ New experiences. What with going to Lexington for Winter Jam for the first time ever to beginning a lot of new things in my life. 

♠ It meant hope.

I just really loved March and I am loving April already. 

Here's to a great month, and many more adventures.

xx, Shiloh. 

Publishing My Book?

SAY WHAT?

Okay, guys. I need some serious advice from you all today. I am strongly, and I mean strongly considering self-publishing Coffee Colored as an e-book. It's the first book that I've written (as you all probably know) and I thought, hey, why not test the waters and publish it through an e-book before getting any actual publishers involved. I just want to get some opinions on this before I actually do it.

I still have a bit more editing to do before I would do it anyway, but what do you think? Would you consider buying this on your kindle or other e-reader? Please let me know what you think, and also what prices you think would be good to sell it at!

Thanks much!

xx, Shiloh.

I Found My Purpose In Jesus

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We all have had those times in life when we've felt absolutely worthless.
Scared, broken, alone, and tired.

I know that I have. Plenty of times. 

But I have found my purpose. In Jesus.

I lost my way earlier this year. It started around December, probably.
It was when I first realized how broken I truly was. There were scars from my past that kept coming back to haunt me and nothing that I was doing at the time felt good enough. Not for anyone; my parents, my friends, my teachers, not even God. It felt like I was slipping into this dark hole and that there was nobody who would be able to bring me out of it, because it just felt so hopeless.

I guess you could say that I stopped participating in life. I would go to school and hardly talk to anyone and come home and hardly talk to anyone. I was sad and breaking and I felt like no one saw that. I felt like no one could see the way my heart was shattering, or the way that I struggled to breathe sometimes. And that only made it hurt worse. It hurt that no one seemed to care enough to see through the walls that I'd built up. It hurt that no one just came up to me and said "hey, Shiloh. I know you're not okay. What's going on?" I just wanted someone to understand, to see how hard I was trying to make it through. But nobody was doing that.

I didn't start to feel better until this month, not really anyway. I'm good at pretending now, to be honest. But then Jesus got my heart again. He got my attention. I was at Winter Jam in Lexington, and Tenth Avenue North was doing their set; singing their song "The Struggle" and these were the words I was hearing:

there's a wreckage, there's a fire
there's a weakness in my love
there's a hunger i can't control
Lord, i falter and i fall down
and i hold on to the chains you broke 
when you came and saved my soul
...
hallelujah we are free to struggle
we're not struggling to be free
your blood bought and it makes us children
children drop your chains and sing
...
hallelujah death is overcome
and we are breathing
hallelujah our stone hearts become
flesh that's beating
hallelujah chains have been undone
and we are singing
hallelujah the fire has begun

And it was during that song that I just felt Jesus telling me that he's been there. He was there the entire time, even though I didn't realize it. He was there when I was in my room crying until three a.m. He was there when people made off-handed comments that stung more than they should have. He was there when I didn't want to wake up, and when I even thought about giving into the temptation to hurt myself. He was there through all of it; the good days and the bad ones and He continues to just be there.

He was the person I was looking for; the one who said: "Shiloh, I know your not okay. I know that you're hurting. I'm here for you and I love you." And I can't tell you how much that alone healed my heart. He's taking the broken pieces of my life and constructing them back together in a way that has started to change me. And I'm not so afraid anymore. His perfect love is casting out my fear. The fear that I had constantly had for the past few months.

I have a purpose. I'm not too far broken. I can be fixed and I am being fixed.
Because of Jesus.
I found myself there,
in the arms of a savior who wants nothing more than to love me.
In the arms of a savior who gave up his life for me.
To save me from myself.
I found my purpose in Jesus.
And I'm getting better and better every day.

xx, Shiloh.