Becoming Virtuous

A blog sharing my thoughts on life and what God is teaching me

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  • A Personal Manifesto

    A Personal Manifesto

    I’m done waiting. This life is too precious to be spent pining for a “someday it could be.” There’s too much at stake for me to stay on the sidelines—hesitating because life looks different than I thought it would, with the weight of my expectations causing me to lag behind reality. I’m done with the bondage of “what if”s.

    I want to be free. Free from temporal distraction so I can focus on knowing and serving God, living “Coram Deo.” I want to be free to focus on how I can love and serve others, seeing in them the “Imago Dei.”

    I want to start living now, fully alive and sold out for God. I want to follow His leading, be faithful where I am, and join Him in making disciples. I want to hope only in God. I want the only thing on my radar to be asking how God is calling me to be faithful with the task/situation in front of me right now. I want to be fully trusting that God has me where I am for a reason that displays His marvelous glory and goodness, and that means He has given me a mission and purpose, right here right now.

    This is my manifesto. And may God in His grace give me the strength, grit, and heart to see it through.

    “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah” ~ Psalm‬ ‭62:5-8‬ ‭ESV

  • 2021 Recap

    2021 Recap

    Wow, what a crazy year! Two siblings got married, I spent more time housesitting and traveling in the last half of the year than I spent at home, I made so many new friends and deepened relationships with old ones, got a puppy (and spent many, many hours watching her), hung out with some cool little girls at church, and grew closer to my family.

    This year has been one crazy rollercoaster, with amazing highs and incredibly deep lows. But I’m thankful for God’s faithfulness through it all. And for the friends and family He has given me to walk alongside in this journey.

    Being born near the beginning of the year makes this time of year super extra reflective for me. Hence, some random ponderings from this past year, in no particular order.

    • God is incredibly patient with me. And I don’t know why, except that He is very good and very kind.♥️
    • Idolatry destroys relationships.
    • Pride also destroys. It leads you to think you can do everything, or that you’re the only one who can do things right. It’s the precursor to burnout.
    • Wanting to help is good, but saying yes all the time leads to overcommitting and not completing anything well. (Also, see point on pride.)
    • Weddings can either tear a family apart, or bring them together. We were blessed that both of our family’s weddings last year did the latter.☺️
    • I’m so grateful for God’s goodness in bringing us such awesome families for my siblings to marry into, and for us to be related to.💯
    • Friends are for supporting you when you’re having a rough time. And it’s silly to think you’re too much of a burden to even ask them to pray for you. And you might be surprised if you give them the chance to show up.
    • Past trauma is no small thing. But it doesn’t have to rule you forever. God can bring healing.
    • It’s good to set goals. But sometimes priorities change, and that doesn’t make you a failure.
    • Half marathons are easier to run than to train for. Triathlons are easier to train for than to do. (At least in my experience.)
    • Extended times alone are not good for me. I start to go a bit crazy and turn into a blob. 😝
    • Knowing yourself really well doesn’t always bring clarity. But knowing God more almost always does.
    • I am what I think about. Do I dwell on anxious, depressing, or angry thoughts? Or do I dwell on God’s character, things I’m thankful for, and what is true, lovely, and pure, etc?
    • Not everything is about me.
    • Kindness and gentleness speak a louder word than all the platforms in the world. Especially if it’s to someone you disagree with.
    • People who always have to be right are draining. They also cause a lot of conflict.
    • I’m more creative than I thought I was.
    • Choir is basically the best thing ever.
  • A Thankful Wedding Recap

    A Thankful Wedding Recap

    This is our last selfie of the Vaughan ladies as Vaughan ladies. :’)

    As I look back on my sister’s wedding, I want to share some things I was grateful to God for this past weekend.

    • A hilariously fun rehearsal dinner. I sat at the “fun” table, and there were so many good memories made, and it was good to begin the weekend on a lighter note.
    • My family who put sooo much time into my sister’s wedding
    • My grandma and aunt who drove 9 hrs to celebrate, and even helped clean up
    • The awesome family that we just “married in to,” that already felt like family after being best friends with them for 20 years
    • The sound guy/DJ/MC who volunteered his time and did such a good job overseeing the reception
    • Relationships that make it hard to say goodbye
    • The photographer, who also helped a ton with cleanup @toby_pior 
    • So many friends coming to support us and celebrate with us
    • The friends who gave of themselves to help prepare and serve the food
    • The beautiful weather for outdoor pictures after the ceremony (it was cold and crazy windy beforehand, but God brought the sun 🙂
    • God’s grace to sustain me throughout the day when I woke up at 2:30 worrying about things
    • God’s kindness that none of my worryings came true 
    • Dancing with friends (always a favorite for me)
    • The wedding cake turned out!
    • I finished all of my projects for the wedding
    • Everyone’s servant heart as we helped each other get ready Saturday morning
    • God’s grace to take a sibling relationship where they wanted each other dead, and redeemed it so that one was the bridesmaid for the other. God is so kind!
  • Am I Teachable?

    Am I Teachable?

    Growing up, I never understood the stereotype that when women had a problem they only wanted someone to listen, they didn’t want solutions. Why would someone not want help when facing a problem? 🤷🏼‍♀️ Thus, I would never bring up anything to anyone unless I respected them and wanted their input.

    Then I started to see a shift in myself the last couple of years. More and more, I wanted people to just commiserate with me rather than offer up advice. This was so antithetical to the first nearly three decades of my life. What changed? After weeks of half-hearted, occasional pondering, this morning it hit me—like a sucker punch to the stomach.

    For me, the issue is humility. My posture has changed, and right now I find myself wanting people to only validate my emotions in a difficult situation. I don’t want to be under the scalpel of godly wisdom, to hear what I’ve done to contribute to the problem, how I’ve sinned against God and others. I don’t want solutions, because then that makes me responsible to make changes instead of wallowing in self-pity. Basically, I’ve been avoiding responsibility. How pathetic, right? 😝

    But more importantly, this posture of pride and self-absorbed pity has hindered my relationship with God.

    It takes massive amounts of humility to accept correction, from God or people. Today I’m praying that God would give me that humility and courage to submit to that scalpel and to face that rebuke, instead of cowardly hiding and seeking pity.

    And I’m sharing in case this peek into how God is convicting me might encourage someone else.

  • A Wedding Recap

    A Wedding Recap

    After months of planning, the day of my brother’s wedding finally came. And everything couldn’t have been more lovely. ☺️

    The weatherman was predicting flash floods and pouring rain all day, and attendees from all around said they drove through pouring rain to get to the venue. But God, while providing cloud cover that kept it cool and gave perfect lighting for pictures, made that rain skirt us on either side all day, only hitting us three seconds after we sent the newly married couple off. God was so gracious! ☺️

    And it was so odd to be at a wedding where I knew the majority of the people attending. But it was such a blessing to see and catch up with so many people we knew, and for them to come and enter into our joy. ☺️

    Special thanks to everyone who worked behind the scenes, from the wedding coordinator, and the decorators and food preppers and servers, to our families who all put so much time into making everything just right. It was a beautiful celebration of the powerful mystery of marriage that God created and ordained. ☺️🎉#godisgood#thetwobecomevaughan

  • Grieve With Hope

    Grieve With Hope

    If I’m honest, I didn’t really feel like celebrating Christmas this year. The last month has been emotionally rough, culminating with our dog dying last week. In light of it all, I just didn’t feel like I had the energy to celebrate, and doing so in the wake of so much pain seemed wrong.

    But God brought to mind a passage from a book I’m reading right now, that said that grief and joy can exist in the same heart. Both are legitimate right now, and both are okay. I shouldn’t feel guilt for either.

    He also gently reminded me that the true purpose of Christmas is not me anyway. Ultimately, it’s a time to praise Him for sending Christ to save us from our sins.

    So in faith, I put up our tree. And God graciously responded by bringing joy. I’m still grieving, but I can also have joy, because this life is not all there is. Because of Christ, there will be a future without pain or tears.

    So I do not grieve as one without hope. The best is yet to come.

  • Who Am I?

    Who Am I?

    Identity. Who am I? Does anyone else catch themselves asking this question on a regular basis?

    Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I wonder how much of what I do, and who I perceive myself to be, is me trying to appease the people around me? Or how much of what I do is learned behavior, instead of what I would naturally do? It can be an interesting philosophical exercise.

    And yet, while it’s important to determine which of my actions stem simply from people pleasing, it hit me this morning that there are more important questions I should be focusing on.

    First, Whose am I? Am I a child of God, and do I have evidence to believe so because I see His work in my life? And second, who is He calling and reworking me to be?

    Don’t get me wrong, I think personality tests can be helpful in understanding myself and others, and I can geek out over them with the best of them (just ask me about cognitive functions or strengths finders sometime ). But I realized, that at least for myself, focusing only on my Myers Briggs acronym (or other test results) is focusing too much on who I am right now. It honestly is also just focusing too much on *me* period.

    So what? Will I give up personality tests? Probably not soon. But I do want to be asking myself some different questions more regularly. Like, who does God want me to be? Am I walking in pride or humility? Am I intentionally loving others, and seeking to do so in the way(s) that nourish their souls? Am I dying to self? And, since people become like who they spend the most time with, am I seeking to gaze more at Christ? Am I seeking to know and love Him more? Because ultimately, that is Who I want to become like more and more.

    P.S. I know that, in the end, it is God who changes my sinful responses to godly ones. But I know that I’m not called to be passive in this work. So, in faith, instead of focusing on who I am now, I want to focus on who God is creating me to be.

  • Choosing Joy

    Choosing Joy

    This time of year is when I typically will post a fall un-appreciation post. But this year is different.

    God has been working on me hardcore this year. (Honestly, He probably has been for many years, I’m only just now starting to be more receptive to it. 😝) At the beginning of this year, He convicted me of my tendency to despair and melancholy. It felt like He was inviting me—reminding me—to find my peace and hope in Him alone, and to seek out and celebrate the daily mercies He was showing me. So I chose “joy” as my word of the year, and prayed that God would cause me to walk in that.

    And then 2020 happened. 😳

    But you know what? God has been faithful. There have certainly been times I’ve been discouraged, angry, fretful, etc. But God has been working a peace and joy in my heart that I don’t believe I have experienced before.

    Instead of focusing on how everything is going wrong or not the way I’d like it to, He has given me eyes to see the “bright spots” of His beauty and mercy in the midst of the mundane or trials alike.

    So this fall, instead of getting depressed (because I hate watching the trees and flowers die), God has helped me to see (and dare I admit, enjoy?) the beauty of the changing colors.

    I know this has been a hard year for many of us. But my hope is that by sharing what God is doing in my life, it may encourage you. Because you can be certain that He is willing and able to work in your hearts and lives as well.

  • Redemption

    Redemption

    “Anxiety is the belief that God’s going to get it wrong. Bitterness is the belief that God did get it wrong. And regret is the belief that what I’ve done is so bad that God can’t make it right.

    God can always make it right, He can always redeem.”

    ~Mike Donehey

  • His Yoke is Easy…

    His Yoke is Easy…

    “Remember, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If it doesn’t feel that way, maybe you’re carrying something you shouldn’t be carrying.”

    A nugget of wisdom from my boss after my coworker and I shared how stressed we’ve been recently. Let me tell you, it convicted and encouraged me. I hope it can be a good reminder for someone else too.