5 Things For Prayer

I think one of the things I hear the most for both new and seasoned believers is, “I want to pray, but how?”

I certainly am no expert in this whole faith thing, and I never will be. I hope I never falsely believe I DO have it down. I am constantly being refined, broken down to be put back together, and it’s a beautiful process. To be honest, I have been in a really trying season of life. To be even more vulnerable, I have a hard time reading my Bible and being disciplined in my routine, but for some reason prayer has always been second nature to me. Ever since I was a little girl I have prayed long extravagant prayers, and if I fell asleep before (or, let’s be real, during my prayer time), I would wake up and immediately feel prompted to finish my prayer I had started. I truly believe that it is my prayer time as a child and into my teenage years that shaped me and showed me how real God is. The crazy things I just listed off and prayed and saw come to fruition later in life, things so specific, showed me God is real and he hears and he cares to show his children how real he is.

Prayer is a beautiful invitation to be in relationship with God of the universe- that’s pretty sweet. How you approach him in prayer will also reveal your heart’s view of how you can relate to him. Allow me to explain. When you pray, do you feel fearful or the need to come in low and ashamed? Or, do you approach a conversation with God, like a mentor or parent? I encourage you to seek the latter. When I was in high school, I would roll the windows down on the way to dance in the wee early hours of the morning, pitch black outside, and pray out loud. I would start off with “Hey God” or “Good morning, God!” It was such an incredibly intimate time, and I will never forget those crisp morning drives. I can quite literally still smell them. The more you see the Lord as a relationship, the greater your trust will grow and your prayer life will flourish. So what do I pray for? How do I start this? I have 5 tips and things I pray for daily that I hope will help you spark your own personal prayer life. Make it your own! This isn’t “the format” and it certainly isn’t the only way, I just hope sharing this will encourage you to pray big, constant, and personal prayers.

1. Make me more like you

Every morning as I roll out of bed, I have gotten into the habit of praying, “God make me more like you today. Help me to love more like you, speak more like you, and see things more like you.” This is simple, but is asking for the heart of God. With the heart of God comes the eyes and compassion of God.

2. God, give me creativity today

I ask God for creativity in my work and for a good work ethic. About two years ago, a creative told me that she prayed for creativity in her work every day, and I loved that. I know that ultimately, all good things come from above, and that all great ideas are really God’s grace and love for me coming out of me. I am working on lots of fun things right now, and I ask daily for the Lord to be in them, the process, and the outcome.

3. Pray the CRAZY prayers

Listen, when I say pray the crazy prayers… I mean the CRAZY ones. I have done this my whole life, and I promise God cares. He loves hearing you pray big. I pray lots of crazy prayers right now, but #1 on my list is a farm in McKinney that I wrote a letter to a couple months back and left in their gate. I  pray for it every single day and that it would one day be mine. A photo of it is on my refrigerator with the verse “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24. When I pass by it I say, “God please bring me the farm.” That’s all. So simple. Or I will recite Mark 11:24 to remind me how much he loves my crazy prayers.

4. God, heal

I won’t go into detail of this, because I want to protect people. But I ask for healing in relationships daily. I pray for a situation like the prodigal son that one day there will be a return with celebration. It’s a beautiful picture, and I love resting in that. I can’t wait to throw an extravagant party for these friends of mine at their return.

5. Speak What Is True

My current jam is ‘Here’s My Heart’ Lord by Lauren Daigle. I love how real and simple it is, it’s honestly a lot like my prayer time. “Here’s my heart lord, speak what is true.” It goes on to say all the characteristics of God, a reminder that he is so good. I am my own worst critic and enemy, and I can be in my head a lot. I hear the words “you’re mediocre at everything” a lot, and I ask for God to speak what is true. “I am found, I am yours, I am loved, I’m made pure.” When we ask for the Lord to speak what is true to us, we will find confidence and assurance. It’s asking to be reminded of who we truly are, not want the enemy wants us to believe we are.

I hope this helps you with your prayer time. Don’t be afraid to approach prayer. It’s an easy place to start a deep love and relationship with Jesus. You don’t have to wait to be a “good believer” (newsflash- there’s no such thing) before you can pray. PRAY- especially if you’re unsure if you even believe in this crazy God thing.

Happy Friday. I love y’all!

xoxo- Han

 

Hydrogen Peroxide

I shared about a month ago that life as I know it was changing drastically, and basically at the snap of my doctor’s fingers. I went to a crazy scientist doctor who made sense of my entire life in about an hour, and he also made me cut out everything good in life in exchange for a diet of meat and veggies.

Listen here, my blog is called The Cake, I have a massive sweet tooth. Cutting out sweets cold turkey has been anything but easy. I have cheated twice, all in the first week, and haven’t since. I indulged in Pacuigo gelato and queso. It was bad news bears and I swore to not do that again, because both the guilt and the stomach ache accompanied with these decisions just wasn’t worth it. Cutting out carbs, pastas (even the gluten free I have been on for 4 years!!), not easy. I have been on this “diet” for about a month, and I thought I would share an update mostly because you have asked for one. First off, I want to say  THANk YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, and I wish I could hug and kiss each and every one of you. The emails, comments, support, and questions I have received over the last month have been overwhelming. To the ladies in my church community who have loved on me so closely, asked me how I am so genuinely, and sent me home with bags of vitamins and supplements, you are all such gifts. The best part about sharing my story has been the numerous people I have been able to send to my crazy scientist doctor! I always share my stories and details about Paul’s and my life, because I know it can help SOMEBODY. What I wasn’t expecting was for so many of you to be in a situation, like mine, of not knowing what kind of doctor to see and feeling hopeless. It has been the greatest joy to respond to your emails and comments, helping you find doctors in your own cities with similar practices as my crazy scientist doctor, or sending you to my own.

For an update,

Warning: I think actually when you start a detox, you get sicker before you get better. My first month has been extremely hard on my body. I have experienced more fatigue and more overall pain than before this detox. And, I have experienced fits of insomnia again, which I don’t understand considering the fatigue I have. (I woke up at 4:45 today, wiiiide awake so I got up to take on my day rather than just laying there in bed.) I often feel as though I am on the verge of the flu, you know that overall achey feeling you get when you’re sick? I have also experienced some vertigo. I have told people that it must be like when you put hydrogen peroxide on a wound. Before the wound gets better, the hydrogen peroxide burns and stings, but it’s for your own good. I am waiting for the “hydrogen peroxide” stage to be over. But, mind you, we have 24 years worth of reversing to do, so progress will be slow, things will take a long time. But, like the bubbling of the peroxide on the cut, I know something is changing, something is healing.

You have asked me what I am eating…

and some days I would like to know the answer to this question myself. HA. I think some of you fear I will wither away to nothing before this is all over, but I can assure you I am eating. And a lot of it, just whatever I can get my hands on. The Morrison household has taken to A LOT OF MEAT. As if we didn’t eat meat for each meal already, I mean literally, we cook whole massive steaks, and I am eating large portions of them. I eat a lot of chicken, a lot of broccoli, a lot of cucumbers with avocado oil and onion. I eat coconut butter straight from the jar, and I have allowed myself to eat a little coconut almond butter daily. (I don’t know if I am supposed to technically, but I needed SOMETHING.) The first week was the worst. I was hangry, frustrated, and never full no matter how much I ate. Prepare yourself for week one, drink lots of water, and pray a whole lot. Overall, our meals don’t look a whole lot different than they were before, but the portions are larger because my snacking options have dwindled. Because I can’t eat toast, I can’t eat pasta, I can’t eat any filler foods in my meals, I rely solely on a whooooole lot of veggies and meat to fill me.

The best part about this,

this past month has been one of the most spiritually filling months I have had in a long time. It’s funny how our prayer life and awareness of how much we truly need to rely on the Lord for absolutely everything in our lives comes about when we are in seasons like my “hydrogen peroxide” one. Every morning I pray for the Lord to give me energy and to help me be aware and present in my day. I pray for joy. I pray for my relationships that have been put on the back burner the last few years. I pray for the little things, I pray for the big. Constant dialogue is what my prayer life is like lately, and I don’t hate it one bit. I feel like my faith was refreshed, and like I am in high school again. My prayer life is constant and crisp, like my morning drives to school when I was 17. Talking out loud, windows down, rolling through the back roads of the hill country to dance practice in the pitch black morning chatting with Jesus, telling him the deepest desires of my heart. I feel that sense of need and longing I did when I was a teenager, learning what it meant to be in a relationship with God (don’t hear me say that like the weird “I am dating Jesus” thing), I mean like father daughter. Like leaning on a crutch with a broken foot, I have had to lean on God for absolutely everything when I would usually have a tendency of straying or figuring it out for myself. I am thankful for this season of life, and I am expectant for what I will learn next.

I am so grateful for ALL OF YOU. I love sharing life and walking alongside you in it (as best the internet allows us). I love hearing from you. I love being part of your mornings. I love helping in any way I can. Thanks for following The Cake.

Infinite x’s + o’s- Han

The Girls of 6a

When I was in college I went through 11 roommates over the course of 3 years. Seven of those 11 were in the town home 6a my final semester in college. We lived in the green town home at DBU, perfectly in the middle of the row, the kitchen was tiny, we had to use one of the tiny Harry Potter-esque closet downstairs to have enough space for all of us to have our clothes hung, we had to label each of our items in the pantry in our own little section, and I was in the room of 3 girls in a room hardly large enough for one person to live comfortably. Town home 6a quickly became a space that holds some of my best memories from college with some of the sweetest girls. There was me, two Alyssas, a Caitie, a Katie, a Paige, and a Caitlin AKA Smoochie. (Werk it Smoochie!)

We fondly named ourselves the #girlsof6a which we still use today when any of us are together, and even when some of us would move, graduate or get married, we continued to fill the spots with girls who were welcomed with open arms into the 6a family. We have married off one another, cheered one another on in new endeavors and jobs, we have mourned with one another, we have fought for one another in times of controversy or heart ache, and experienced just about everything you can imagine with one another. Many of us traveled to London together for a dance team trip where we danced our way across the city and to the country side at over 20 schools, and we danced in the snow at Piccadilly Square. We also performed a flashmob in the middle of the tube one busy work morning, which we still die laughing about. We used to gather in the living room together to snuggle with one another after a long work day, often half of us in our sequins and the other half in their professional business attire. We would stumble around one another early in the morning, trying not to wake the house while we would make our breakfast and fill our coffee mugs. We would leave each other funny notes or ‘I Owe You’s’ (usually for eggs) around the house, and we had revolving closet doors. We truly were like sisters.

On Saturday, some of us got together once again for dinner and a bittersweet goodbye. Alyssa C.  packed her bags again to move back over to East Asia for mission work. The first time was hard enough for a year long mission, but this time we said goodbye for two years. Though my insides ache at the thought of knowing she is so far away in a foreign country doing what is truly dangerous work, I can’t help but scream with excitement thinking of all she is doing for a far greater work than what we can even grasp. This is the hardest part about friendships rooted in love. And I mean love that is Jesus. Love that comes from something so much deeper. Because, love stemmed from our own desires is selfish. It doesn’t want to let go, it wants only what it can see and grasp right in front of it. Gospel rooted friendship is knowing the fact we have to go through heart wrenching goodbyes for the sake of doing what we are called to. We HAVE to. We are called to multiply, expand, and cover the earth. If we hold tight comfortably to what we want to selfishly keep by our our side, then the world will not, and would not, know Jesus. We have to let go of those we love if they are called to leave. Paul and I experienced this heartache when we moved from Dallas to Mckinney. When we moved we also left a community of about 20 twenty-something year olds who we had met with every single week in our apartment for over a year and a half. It was bittersweet.

Acts 20 talks about this. The Apostle Paul lived with the Ephesians for 3 years, preaching the gospel and helping to form their church. He was a cornerstone to their city, and then there came a time he had to leave to head out to the next city. They grieved because he was leaving them and because they would likely never see his face again. I am sure even Paul felt the sting of heartbreak leaving people he grew to love so deeply, but he had a conviction and calling.

“You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all;they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.” (v. 34-38)

I know I will see Alyssa again. But, it is the same idea of Paul leaving the Ephesians. As the girls of 6a who love her so deeply, we have to live openhandedly. We have to share her, as well as the rest of us, with the rest of the world so that the love of Christ can spread beyond our comfort zones and inner circle of deeply rooted friendship. This is what love is, this is what Christianity calls us to. It says go be, go do, go love lavishly and wholeheartedly, but live by all these truths openhandedly.

I am forever grateful for the girls of 6a, and I look forward to the next time we get sit around a table to dine and laugh with each other again. Half of us are married now, so who knows, the next time we all get to be together, one of us might have a baby bump, a new home, or perhaps another one will have a husband! So much can happen in the next two years, and we excitedly and expectantly cheer each other on until we gather together once again as a unit.

Happy Monday, beauties. Go be kindness and love to a world that desperately needs it.

xoxo- Han

Worth It

After years of searching for answers, a crazy mad scientist looking doctor was finally able to help me. Today I am sharing my story of diagnosis and the beginning of a journey to recovery.

This past Monday, I got an unexpected phone call from a doctor’s office I have been on the “waitlist” to get into for months. We called in May to finally make me an appointment after months of talking about doing it, and it turns out they didn’t have a spot for me until November. So we said to please put me down for November, but if by any chance you can get me in before then, keep me in mind. And for some reason, they called me and said they had an opening that evening and wanted me to come in. I was referred to this doctor by a family at our church, and they swore that he was this crazy scientist with all kinds of off the beaten path methods, and he would surely be able to help me with all my crazy symptoms and unknowns I have lived with for years now with no real answers. 

I have spoken about my health lightly on here in the past, but to fill you in, I have been sick for almost ten years with really no answers. I am always tired, always a little groggy, I have had swollen lymph nodes all over my head, purple fingers, and I have had increasingly bad anxiety and a list of other things that just didn’t make sense for me. I don’t tell you this as a sob story, honestly, it’s just reality and what I have come to consider normal over the years. I knew at 14 years old that something was not right, but every doctor my parents took me to told us there was nothing the matter. I had every kind of test and saw every kind of doctor you can think of. Eventually, I got scared to talk about any of the weird things I experienced anymore and felt ashamed. The doctors basically led us to believe I was a hypochondriac, a child who believed they were sick when they weren’t and often because they wanted attention. Though I knew deep down this wasn’t true, I gave up fighting. I gave up the fight for my health, the fight to be heard, and the fight to be better. By my senior year of high school, I couldn’t keep my eyes open at school and I would come home to sleep about 3 more hours on the couch until my parents came home from work. I finally saw a doctor that got me on the right track in college when my health was so bad that I began forgetting where I was when I was driving. I was convinced I was a 20 year old with Alzheimer’s disease. Finally a friend tipped me off to seeing a doctor about gluten, because my symptoms sounded strangely similar to her own. Turned out I am in fact allergic to gluten and my Adrenal Glands were burnt out. I had never even heard of Adrenal Glands before, and gluten was something I had eaten my whole life. I was shocked, angry, and a little selfishly skeptical. You’re telling me I have to give up my favorite foods?

I battled the diagnosis for another year, slowly changing my diet to gluten free. I would cheat here and there, and pay the consequences for how it made me feel. I would say “it’s worth it, I swear.” That cheesecake, so worth it. The cupcake, I will be fine. But, nine times out of ten, it wasn’t actually worth it. I convinced myself that eating something I am not able to was just an innocent cheat, and it wasn’t doing longterm damage or dishonoring my body. I realized foods with gluten weren’t just something I liked, but I was refusing to do what my body needed because I was stubborn and unwilling to let it go. After I learned my brain was swelling from eating food I cannot process, I ate fully gluten free for about a year and a half and changed up a lot of what I did, but even still, my body felt it was only getting worse. Random spots on my body hurt, my skull felt swollen, I bruise easily, and my eye sight in recent months has began to take a shot. I literally have kept an ongoing massive list of weird, random symptoms I have that have no explanation, but must somehow be connected to all the others. They are kind of funny, honestly. And it is crazy to me that I was told for so long with this list I was just dehydrated or tired. I am serious- I was told that! 

So, I find myself in this crazy Einstein looking doctor’s office that looked straight out of Bill Nye The Science Guy Monday. He had hundreds of viles lined up along the wall with different ingredients inside of them, and electric balls and magnets hanging from old filing cabinets, and on the wall an outdated poster of an ear with different markings and body parts on top of different parts of the ear. Paul and I sat in the chairs below the big ear posters, one the American version the other the Chinese, and stared at this doctor as he smirked at me and said, ‘alright, how can I help you?’ I stared at him for a few seconds, because I didn’t know what to say. I have been in this seat multiple times, tested and pat on the head to be told I was okay. Everything in me would scream, “No I am not! I wouldn’t be here if my body was telling me I am fine.” So, I began spitting out in a really informal manner and illformed sentences what all I have experienced the last ten years. I explained what different doctors have told me, what I had studied myself and felt it might be, and that my most recent trip to the doctor was a couple years ago where they told me I am allergic to gluten and my adrenals are shot. The man literally stared at me and giggled a very delayed giggle, and I awkwardly shifted in my seat, slumping over a little with defeat. I was convinced I would find no answer yet again, and this was a waste of my time. 

Then, Doctor Von Bergen grabbed me by the hand and stood me up to stare at the odd ear poster above me. He explained to me that our ears tell us what our body is trying to. He began touching my ear digging inside of it, around it, pulling on my left arm all the while. He found a weak spot, and my arm dropped. And he giggled. He said, know what that spot tells us? It tells us your gut is in trouble. He proceeded to have me hold my arm up as he pushed down on it, and then if he covered my right ear, my arm would drop. But, if he covered my left ear, my arm remained strong. This had something to do with the sides of the brain, and my right arm was my weaker arm because it is commanded by the left side of my brain, and my left side of the brain is the side that is affected by all these other things. (Laymen’s terms, clearly, but you follow me, right?) This would also explain why it’s my left eye ball that has dropped in vision significantly the last month. 

FASCINATING, y’all! My jaw was on the ground half my appointment. 

The next thirty minutes I held a magnet in my right hand while he put vile after vile of ingredients up to my left side with a magnet. Anything my body is sensitive to, my arm would drop. It was truly fascinating. He is the first doctor who ever made me feel like, wow, I am not crazy. So then the diagnosis. Basically, right now, I am allergic to everything. My body is so shot from so many years of going undiagnosed that my body is literally unable to process just about everything. He literally looked at me and said, “I could cry for you, because this will not be easy.” That’s encouraging… but actually, in a weird way, it sort of was. It was the first time I felt fully acknowledged for all that I had experienced for so many years. What he came to the conclusion of is that I have been allergic to yeast my entire life. Allergy to yeast causes your immune system to take a shot, and then, because I was sick as a kid so much, I was put on antibiotics that only knocked my immune system out more and made my yeast allergy more intense. I would spend the next 15+ years of my life battling tonsillitis, strep, mono, and all kinds of other sicknesses for which I was put on antibiotics, and it was a downward spiral for my body. I literally had strep 9 times in the 4th grade, and my doctor just told my parents I was a “carrier of strep.” What the heck does that even mean?! Month after month I was on amoxicillin or penicillin, and my body was becoming more and more weak. This is why I became allergic to gluten later in life. And over the last couple years, even though I have been gluten free, I have been piling yeast into my body still, thus no recovery. Yes, all my gluten free items- packed full with yeast. We did some serious pantry cleaning Monday night. 

So, why am I telling you this?

WELL, first off, because I hope that if any of you are going through similar experiences, you can know you’re not alone and perhaps you are allergic to yeast or a random ingredient like me. Second, because I am now on a journey to recovery and am actually excited about it. I am on a diet that consists of meat and vegetables. I cannot even eat fruit, because I have leaky gut and cannot eat sugar of any kind. My Adrenal Glands are so swollen, that when he was testing them, even water made them react negatively, so I have to prioritize sleep and dwindle down the coffee intake. Say WHAT? Yes, so I am on a journey that will be tough. But, I am so hopeful and so ready. I am all in for this one. The Lord responded to prayers by way of a mad scientist, and I am so grateful. Now, it is time to heal and honor my body in a way that it hasn’t been for majority of my life. I am ready to take on this journey, grabbing the bull by the horns, if you will. 😉

I am excited to share with you along the way what all I learn, what I find, and how I am feeling. And, truly, I know that I am meant to write about this to help others. If you are my age, you are the product of a generation that was on meds left and right. It wasn’t our parent’s faults, it was just where medicine was at the time. I know I cannot be the only one who suffers now because of what was put in my body then. Chances are, there might be quite a few of you who struggle with similar things in a more mild form that you just have counted off as normal. Don’t call it normal! I promise, you don’t want to, or you’ll find yourself where I am. 

I hope this encourages you, and I hope that it spurs you on to take care of your body. We get only one, and it truly is a temple. To put anything in it that we know is bad for us is to poison our temple. It’s so funny that a couple years ago, had I been told this, I would have wept and been so angry. But, I left smiling and affirmed Monday night. I felt like I actually had all the answers I have wanted for so long. I didn’t even care that it was drastic and life changing for Paul and me. I am just thankful to be heard. I feel like I just took off from the start line, and I feel equipped for the race. God cares, y’all. He really does.

Happy Wednesday, friends! I love you so much. Thanks for being part of my life. 

xoxo- Han

The N Sale: Fall Ready!

You guys, if you haven’t checked out the N Sale yet, you are not living.

That was dramatic… but let’s just say, you are SERIOUSLY missing out. Last week when the sale launched early access to card holders, I shared all the items I have my eye on to stock up my closet for the fall -easy & ready to shop- on The Cake. Following suit, some of the items are already sold out (I told you they would go fast!), but today I am separating some of my favorites, and sharing some new pieces, into the perfect fall outfits. As I am shopping, I am imagining myself nestled up in one of these jackets with tall riding boots in the bleachers of a football game while sipping on hot cocoa. 

My. Absolute. Favorite. 

Below you will find what I deem the fall basics. You need some cozy tops, the perfect layering cardis and vests, some good denim, and the perfect boots. You can then pretty much rotate all of your items together to create completely different looks. Put the nikes with some denim and a quilted jacket, or layer the riding boots with the same denim and a loose top and a scarf. You can create so many different looks with just a minimal amount in your closet, if you buy smart. 

This sale won’t last forever. Early access card holders, you have just two more days until this sale is available to the world! Then, I can guarantee this stuff will be g-o-n-e. 

Happy shopping, pretties!

xo- Hannah 

The Shirts:

The Pants:

The Jackets:

The Layers:

The Shoes:

LET’S GET SOCIAL