hey there & happy tuesday morning! I hope you had a very happy week full of love & memories. thank you for being here! if you enjoy my content, please make sure that you are subscribed to get weekly updates straight to your inbox:
the week recap! week of: 1/20/25 - 1/26/25
⛅️ something to celebrate: dear God, pretty please help me be perfect this is not an idol pinky promise! this week of January officially began my second semester of sophomore year of college! aka, “the Proverbs 31 hostess extraordinaire hands + feet of the Lord with a cute wardrobe & perfect grades plus a brand new job alongside of maintaining friendships with loved ones & learning how to cook + go to the gym consistently period of my life.” oh boy, what a mouthful. ever since I was a little girl attending her little, private school, I’ve had a teensy (but the literal opposite of teensy!) issue with longing to always have control over what occurs in my life & to also be the “best version of myself”/who everyone else says I should be (as seen in trends & all over Pinterest). over breaks, I always try to be honest with myself & escape from this silly habit I have of trying to constantly regain control when I start to get busy & amass extra stress by trying to be the perfect ___ *fill in title here: daughter, student, friend, Christian, employee, partner!* I say I’ll try to do better, but as soon as a new semester rolls around I fall victim to holding myself to some kind of impossible standard all over again, a standard that God never called me to hold myself to because He doesn’t hold me there Himself. this may include: wanting to achieve perfection, which I #literallycan’tbe, or even wanting to be a better person by trying to pull myself out of these thought patterns, which I #literallycan’tdo on my own.
anyways!!! now that a new semester has rolled around, guess where I’ve found myself once again? omg how did you guess it? panicking about how little control I have over my life, how many classes have already given me work, trying to create the perfect Proverbs 31 woman schedule, & also trying to maintain my walk with the Lord. (let’s be honest with ansley claire here, the list she typed out is totally in priority order even if she didn’t realize it…her walk with the Lord unknowingly & unfortunately gets pushed to the side when she feels her control slipping. poor girl, who’s gonna tell her)!
the Lord used my morning quiet time the other day to open my eyes to how this was a form of idolatry. the tribe mentioned in this story saw the wonders of the Lord & started to worship Him, while also still worshipping their gods & manmade idols. this is exactly what I have been doing concerning my control issues & perfectionism during the school-year! I’m not worshipping at a literal alter of a golden calf, but I am not hallowing the Lord’s name fully in favor of my want to be comfortable. 2nd Kings 17:28&29 says, “so one of the priests whom they carried away from Samaria came & lived in Bethel & taught them how they should fear the Lord. but every nation still made gods of its own & put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities which they lived.” I mean, whenever I read this I was like, “what! omg how could they do such a thing?” & then the Lord was like, “daughter, you are doing such a thing by not surrendering your stress & busy days to me!”
are you prostrating yourself on other shrines? true saturation & rest & peace comes from time with the Lord. we must seek Him daily & ask Him to teach us to hallow His name - this will not be accomplished if we keep camping out in our stress & at the altar of our idols because that is where we feel most safe/comfortable.
I just really want to honor Him with my time & goals & grades this semester. I’m tired of being silly!!! & need to rely on Him concerning how to let Him into my stress - time to ask Him over & over again to reign over it. I need to host His presence! all of my life is to minister to Him - He is my intimate friend & wondrous Savior. I must be stripped of what doesn’t glorify Jesus in order to be His propper vessel. my silly ego tends to get in the way!
may I be stripped & broken before the throne - humble & naked & willing to be be Yours & Yours alone. You hold me gently, Your eyes gaze upon me tenderly. oh behold the lamb!!!!!
so, my sweet friend, I just want to leave you with one question that I’m meditating on: what can the world give you? take from you?
⛅️ something out of my comfort zone: I have been praying, but losing heart! last year, I went on a journey to discover how to truly go deeper in prayer, allowing the Lord to show me more of what He has to offer me, & one of my takeaways from this little side quest was that learning how to pray is a lifelong journey, passion, & practice, not a craft that I could’ve perfected in 365 days (even thought this is what I wanted/expected to happen). as I’ve entered a brand new season of my prayer life in the new year, I’ve already hit a drought in it (image me sighing & rolling my eyes in despair). honestly, it has been very discouraging to me to realize that learning how to pray is a lifelong process & that, even with months of working on my prayer life under my belt, I still get overwhelmed with all I feel like I have to pray for & how much I know I still have to learn. recently, & I pinky promise I am thankful for this, the Lord has really been calling me out during my quiet times & Scripture readings! it is how He speaks to us with His Words, afterall! there is a whole chunk of Luke where Jesus discusses how to truly pray, not get discouraged, & possess the faith that He will be looking for when He comes again.
Luke 18:1-14 says, (big passage! hang in here with me! it’s sooooo good), “he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray & not lose heart. He said, ‘in a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him & saying, ‘give me justice against my adversary.’ for a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’’ & the Lord said, “hear what the unrighteous judge says. will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? will he delay long over them? I tell you, He will give justice to them speedily. nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
we need to be taught & encouraged to pray & embodied constantly the spirit of prayer! the devil hates a woman who prays. God cares for those who petition Him - here, Jesus is emphasizing how our Lord is opposite of the judge in His parable: God loves to answer the prayers of His people.
…He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ‘two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee & the other a tax collector. the Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ but the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.’”
as we should long to embody the spirit of prayer, we must be cleansed of the spirit of the Pharisee. I am very guilty of holding myself higher than I should when I am talking to the literal God of the universe who knows me better than I know myself! this man’s prayer is taking complete credit for his walk with the Lord. in prayer, focus on God, not speaking with yourself. on the flip side, the poor man, so aware of his sin, beat at his heart to punish it.
can I let you in on a little secret? doration is the thread that holds our prayers together. do you remember the ACTS prayer format? adoration, confession, thanksgiving, & supplication! there’s a reason it starts with A! (I often use this prayer tactic when I’m struggling to want to pray before bed - it helps)!
when you remember who He says you are, you will be more likely to praise Him!!!!!!
whatever we bind on Earth, we bind in Heaven. in order to have revival on this Earth, what we are aching for, we need to ask Him to start by reviving our dedication & prayer life.
⛅️ something I’ve learned: asdf! recently, I’ve been meditating on 1st Samuel 1&2, it has been very heavy on my heart for a while, & we just started a semester-long study for Wesley on 1st & 2nd Samuel; He is a personal, intentional Father! at our first Wesly back, Thomas covered 1st Samuel 1, & gave me a brand new perspective on what it means - how cool is it that we get to constantly learn new meanings, purposes, & facts about Scripture because it is living & active. because God tabernacles among His people, He grants us a different way of living in a new Kingdom that is completely unlike the way that the kingdom of the world operates. Hannah found her value in encountering the living God!!!! is that where you too find yours?
pretty please enjoy this video of me ziplining in Costa Rica!!!!!!!!!
personally, I constantly carry the need to preform & strive. this is how the world has conditioned me to operate. this is not where my value is found in the Lord!!!! He frees me from this, clear as day, but why do I not feel free? it is because I must see myself how the Lord does & I fail at this often - Hannah shows us the importance of depending in prayer to achieve eternal thoughts/perspective, which is not generally our default nature,, btw. the world tells us to compare ourselves to those around us & strive to be extraordinary or else we don’t matter in the grand scheme of this life. this limits our Kingdom purpose because we are looking away from the Lord, but being enticed & consumed by the schemes of the enemy in this world.
when giving the sermon on this, Thomas said, “do you really think you’re not pretty? or are you giving into comparison being your currency?” & I really felt that in my soul (I even think I gasped).
1st Samuel 27&28, “for this child I prayed, & the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to Him. therefore, I have lent him to the Lord. as long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.” keep praying! & consecrate yourself, your gifts, & your blessings unto the Lord just has Hannah has given her greatest blessing & answered prayer request, her son, unto the Lord. even if you have nothing to give except for failures, come to God.
consecrated: (of a church or land) having been made or declared sacred! (of bread & wine in Christian belief) declared to be or represent the body & blood of Christ.
God just wants us to come to Him always because that is where we are to find our everything! including our worth & strength!
until next time & with love,
ansley claire
a prayer request: the new school year!!!!!!!!
the prayer mailbox (in progress!) is a quiet place for you to leave a prayer. I’ll be reading each one of them & holding them in prayer with you. some prayers are meant to be shared & held. if you feel lead, the mailbox is open (for now, you can leave a prayer in the comments or email me 💌 strongansleyclaire@gmail.com).
tuesday mornings is like the weekly news, but the news of an ordinary girl who writes about what the extraordinary God of the universe has done in her life!
I hope each of you has a very happy rest of the week! praying for you! peace! thank you for being here & I hope to see you again soon! 🕊️ I love you so much & so does Jesus Christ!
make sure to check out the blog’s Instagram & TikTok (@tuesdaymorningsblog - linked on the blog’s homepage)! I have so much fun on my socials!
also, pretty please tell me your thoughts about this post, what you’re learning in your faith walk, or just whatever is on your mind - I pinky promise I want to know!
“therefore, encourage one another & build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” - 1st Thessalonians 5:11
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