There is a Problem If Your Friend Isn't Good Enough To Date Someone You Care About

People say all the time that they wouldn't want their friend to date so and so. They like hanging out with the person, but they aren't good enough for....Whether it be their daughter, their sister, their friend. The person just is not good enough. I have never understood that line of thinking and believe that it is incredibly flawed.

Now, I am not saying we should pimp out our relatives and friends. I am not saying that we should ignore obvious age or personality differences here. I am saying that we have lost some moral fabric especially when it comes to these situations. Our standards have decreased on who we spend time around. We don't want to challenge each other anymore. We simply do not care what anyone does it seems, that is unless it directly effects us.

That thinking is so wrong. We are called to love. We are called to seek the truth! We are not called to sit wringing our fingers and hope that it does not come to personally affect us. Those we spend our time with, say a lot about us! The people we surround ourselves with reflect us and as a result we should be spending time with quality people. You should certainly hold your friends to the same standard you hold strangers. We should expect our friends to be excellent, to be moral, and to be good. Our friends should be absolutely superb.

If people are not morally upright, we don't have to treat them like dirt. Treating people poorly would be immoral of us. We must not be the problem ourselves. We should expect more out of ourselves as well. However, there is a way to show respect and courtesy for people without constantly surrounding ourselves with them. There are ways to challenge people while being nice to them and there are ways to lead by example. We should seek out these ways to lead by example. We should challenge others to be better in a courteous manner. Most importantly though, we should surround ourselves with good virtuous people as often as possible. Good behavior is contagious and we should let that behavior rub off on us. Our loved ones should be able to trust those that we bring into our lives. We should be able to trust those that we bring into our lives.

I sometimes hear things like "oh he/she seemed like a pretty good person. You can never really know about someone."
That line is a bunch of crap. You absolutely can know about some people. Sure unexpected stuff sometimes happens with some people and that can cause you to change how you see that person. However, you absolutely know about most people. If you are constantly challenging people and constantly seeking moral behavior, than you should know about people. You should know how truly moral those around you are. You should know how good people are. You should know if those around you are good enough.

So tying this back into dating our loved ones.....

You need to have standards with your friends. We should expect them to be good moral people. If they are a good moral person and the cream of the crop, then it makes sense for them to be able to date our loved ones. If we are hanging out with the best people, does it not make sense for us to embrace them being with those we care about?

Again, assuming there isn't some weird age gap, some relationship flaw or obvious personality difference, we should be embracing this. Don't we want the best people for our loved ones? Don't we want the best people as our friends?

If we do not want that, we should change our priorities on one end of the spectrum.

So again!
1) Be a great person
2) Surround yourself with great people
3) Have high standards for our friends, sons, daughters, and everyone we spend time with
4) Don't have different standards for different people
5) Treat your spouse like you want your daughter's or sister's spouse to treat them
6) Make sure you model that ideal behavior (be a great dad, spouse, and friend)
7) Just be consistent

It seems easy, but what I hear often contradicts that. Be good and surround yourself with good. If you are surrounding yourself with wonderful people, there shouldn't be any worry here. Love and let it happen. The whole world would be better if we embraced this concept.

Everyone deserves to be a happy loving family and we need to try to contribute to that.

-Noland

No! You Should Not Do Whatever Makes You Happy

This day and age, it is so cliche to say that a person should do whatever makes them happy. You hear it everyday from almost every medium and it is starting to drive me crazy. It is driving me crazy because I think it is a categorically false statement. Even worse than this are the people who say why can't you just be happy for me. All of these statements are well intended. After all, we all can and should strive to be happy. This post is not about wanting people to be miserable. Quite the contrary. My family wants to bring joy to your life and we in no ways want to cause pain. That being said, the statements about happiness I am frustrated with are just messages that should cease to exist. After reading this, I hope that you will agree with me.

The main reason those statements are false is that they seem to be an excuse for whatever bad decisions a person wishes to make. I actually had a person insult my entire family, tell me I didn't know what I was doing as a parent and then still say "why can't you just be happy for me." I'm sorry, but if my family is treated poorly I cannot just be happy for you and support how you are treating us. I can be happy that you found happiness, but I cannot accept your behavior or agree with it because it makes you happy. To be more specific, I will bring up several examples of times where the right thing trumps being happy. I will also include instances that people think will make them happy that actually brings them a great deal of pain.

Obviously, a mentally disturbed person wanting to kill a person claiming "why can't you just be happy for me" seems outrageously absurd. However, I am sure there are actually people like this. Some people claim that they want to kill their boss, a cheating spouse, some other person that has wronged them. They just want their revenge and want someone gone. While most of us can't fathom this behavior or thinking, it happens. Just being happy cannot and will not ever be an excuse for this. Sure, this is an extreme example, but it goes to show the idiocy of the statement. There are plenty of other instances in which the just be happy mantra fails...

To go along further with the law, let's talk about stealing. If someone has something that you want, you cannot just take it from them. If you take something from someone or force them to share that is theft. Theft is a crime and it is wrong. You can want it, taking it may make you happy, but you just cannot do it. Stealing is wrong and it doesn't matter if said item will make you happy, it just can't be done. Sure, major crimes like murder, theft, rape, and battery might be extreme examples, but they just show the issues with the original statement. The just be happy for me movement uses this phrase as a means to justify their horrible decisions and it is just wrong. It doesn't have to be a major crime either....

Not taking responsibility for your kids so you can be "happy" is wrong. Never taking care of them and caring more about yourself than your kids is not okay. You see when you have kids your focus needs to shift to helping them become positive hardworking citizens as adults. It needs to shift towards their happiness. Neglecting them and going out partying every night is not doing that. Cheating on your spouse is not doing that. God forbid it doesn't work out with your partner don't completely shut the kids out. They are still your kids. It is not your kids fault. You must always remember your kids. Forgetting about them will ultimately leave you feeling empty inside. The kids are your responsibility from conception until natural death.

Notice how I said from conception. It is important to know that your rights end where mine begin. Well the unborn baby has rights too. They might not have entered the world, but they are living beings. They have heartbeats. The fetus is still our responsibility as parents. Intentionally ending their life or any life is wrong. Abortion is wrong. Your future and your happiness are not a means to end that life. Ending that life will make you feel a whole lot worse than you do currently. While the baby will bring you joy. The decision to end an innocent person's life is not a burden you want to carry and not a choice any person should ever want to make.

To go further, most of us would rather spend time with our families and could find something more enjoyable than work. I quite like my job, but it doesn't compare to family time for me. However, none of us can just skip work everyday in order to chase our happiness of being with family all day or doing other things that will make us happier. We have to have responsibility. We have to pay the bills. We have to do what is right which isn't always what will make us happiest.

Now, we should still aim to be happy. You cannot go through life feeling miserable and alone. Every person has the right to be happy. I do not disagree. My argument is that your happiness should not come at the expense of someone else. Your happiness needs to come from finding a job you are passionate in and being a great person along the way. Being a Godly person. Everything in this world is fleeting and you will only want more and more. By that I mean that everything on Earth is finite, so it is difficult to put everything into finite things. The only thing that is infinite is God. You have to give it up to God for true eternal happiness.

So, I will never say "do what makes you happy" if someone asks me for advice. Instead, I will say, find some line of work that you can do and live comfortable on, treat others the way you want to be treated, and try to be the best at everything you do. I also aim to be a positive example of God's love and tell people about God when they seek it out of me. Hopefully, others will know I am Christian by how I act and conduct myself and more and more people will come into the church to seek that eternal happiness. "For they will know we are Christians by our love." Love others, trust God, respect life, respect law, and then you will be happy. Don't just blindly chase happiness, because what you want isn't always what you need.

-Noland

her wedding day is here.

Hi, all Spicy readers! It's Victoria from Marie Tea and just in case you didn't know, today is Jenna's wedding day! The day she's been planning for and dreaming of is finally here! I'm so honored to stand by her side as she says her vows and gives Noland her hand, while entrusting her heart to the care and protection of his, forever. Marrying the man of your dreams is a pretty amazing way to end one year and ring in the next {no pun intended}. Well, as one of Jenna's bestest friends, I have temporarily hijacked It's just called Spicy {with her permission, of course} to gush on the beautiful bride on the day she walks down the aisle.

Princess Jenna, it's YOUR day!

Sometime last month, during one of our usual weekly conversations, Jenna shared that with her wedding day quickly approaching, she found herself thinking back, flipping through the precious memories, filled with family and friends, that have helped lead her here. As a married lady, having worn those sentimental wedding preparation shoes before, I totally acknowledged that reflections of both the heart and mind are not only healthy and normal, pre-wedding, but they're just as necessary as they are precious, especially since the key to fully appreciating where you're going, is by first cherishing where you've been. And I cannot stress enough, how blessed and privileged I am to share our friendship and be one of the active observers that have helped you beautifully dance your way here.

While digging through old pictures, I was reminded of all our crazy shenanigans. I thought of how we used to drive all around college town, dressed really ridiculously, singing our favorite songs, feeling on top of the world. I remembered all of our midnight dance parties, all our silly-face photo booth sessions, all our movie nights accompanied by chocolate chip cookies, all our mornings when I'd wake you up for school by bribing you with chocolate chip pancakes, and all our countless moments of being there for the other, whether to mend a broken heart or simply cut the other's bangs.

Friendship is one of life's greatest, greatest blessings. Friends build us up when we're feeling down, give us a shoulder to cry on, show us a mirror to see ourselves through better light, and teach us how life and love is better when shared with another.

Last night at Jenna and Noland's rehearsal dinner, we watched a slideshow of pictures of the two lovebirds that captured the years before they found each other, along with snapshots of all the times since. As a fairly new mama, I thought I would instantly cry as soon as baby Jenna lit up the projection screen, but surprisingly enough, the tears began to flow at the first picture of the happy couple. It was then when it hit me, wow, this beautiful friend who has blessed me with her laughter, her smile, her secrets, and her love is getting married. The lifetime of joy she has dreamt of and talked about with all of her closest friends, is about to begin...and not only am I blessed to share in her happiness, but I am beyond excited to watch her marry her bestest friend of all.

Jenna and I have a friendship theme song...cheezy? Maybe. But it's Taylor Swift's, "I'm only me when I'm with you,"and as she walks down the aisle today, I know deep in my heart that Noland will take care of her, honor her, and bring out the best in her. Jenna, I hope you enjoy some of these silly snapshots of our crazy beautiful friendship, but know it's Noland's love that truly lights up your life.

All my love, Victoria

My friend, Marie Tea

So, I know I've shared before that the blog, Marie Tea is one of my dear friends, Victoria!

She has an AMAZING give away going on right now over at her blog- You should check it out!

Here's a picture of the 2 of us back in the college days when we would go to the park and having modeling shoots..haha:

I wanted to share a poem that she wrote me back in October. She is such an amazing writer. She came to Panama City, FL for one of my bridal showers... With the gift she gave me, she wrote a poem about them. See if you can guess what she gifted me with, Here is the poem: 

The bottom is firm, It's foundation is strong,

It provides you with a bright surface, 

in the kitchen, you can't go wrong. 

Even though this foundation may be threatened by knives,

remember what it represents in both of your lives. 

just like your faith, it is grounded with care

it will survive any trials

that your lives may bear

Now the top gift is light but its depth is clear,

it highlights the great source that guided you here.

without its precious image, we'd have no bride to shower,

your shared love means everything in your hears, lie the power.

these 2 gifts, although small,

can help you remember what's true,

your maker created your strong grounded love,

the true gift made specifically for you.

Do you know what she got me?

She got me a red cutting board that I had registered for and a framed picture of Noland & I. My favorite picture of us.. which is actually from her wedding:

As my wedding approaches, I am definitely becoming more sentimental. I'm so thankful for all of my friends, bridesmaids, and family.. 21 days to go! Wow, on that note, I have to go, I have so much to do! 

Love you blogger world! Promise to have some crafty, delicious recipe or something soon! :)

Don't forget to go check out the giveaway going on at Marie Tea!

Thanks for stoppin by, 

xoxo Jen.