A lot of people aren’t aware but grass fed simply means that the cattle are raised on grass for a portion of their lives but are fed grains (which is still good) or most likely other supplements.

Grass finished means they are fed grass and forage for their entire lives, without any grain supplementation.

All cattle are grass fed, where they vary is in how they are finished.

Look for grass fed + grass finished quality meats.

What is it?: a Christian self-care challenge started by Ashley Hetherington (Christian lifestyle YouTuber and author) to grow closer to Christ and become stronger in our faith and in Him. For 40 days we curate our discipline to most importantly grow in God, but also to invest in ourselves.

What happens during it?: This challenge places a large emphasis on growing in God and creating great habits to become the man or woman in Christ that He wants us to become. Every time I have done this before, I have become far more committed and disciplined, learned how to be on fire for the Lord, pushed myself to new heights that I didn’t know I could reach, and have changed so much that people quite literally did not recognize the woman of God I’d become. If you stick to it, working on yourself and your goals every day, God will grow you and everything that you learn will stick and you will become more committed to Him.

What do you do?: a set of 7 required* habits you want to do, and a list of ones that I have added that you can mix and match to suit what areas you want to grow in.

Official Challenge:

💖 Wake up early

Get up at 6 AM each morning, and be in bed by 10 PM each night. By going to bed and waking up at the same time each day no matter what will lead to a much better sleep schedule and leave you rested and refreshed. And by waking up early, you have so much more time in the day to achieve your goals!

💖 Bible Time

For the first hour of the day, have your phone and any other distractions put away and spend time with Jesus. Spend this time to read the Bible and pray, and worship the Lord.

💖 Move your body for 30 minutes

Workout for half an hour each day. From walking and yoga to hiking and weight lifting, build a workout routine that gets you moving your body every day.

💖 Dedicate time to a dream

Pick a God-sized dream or goal that has been on your heart and commit to it. Set aside time every day to work on it and to accomplish your dreams.

💖 Nourish your body

Eat healthy, whole seasonal foods that nourish your body and taste good. Limit sweets and cut out junk food, and focus on meals rather than snacks

💖 Journal what God teaches you

Spend a few minutes at the end of each day either writing about your day or following a prompt to talk about how you want to grow and change, and what you are learning right now.

And now these are add-ons that I either have done in the past or will be doing this challenge that I think are also great things to focus on. 🎀 Establish Christian community

Make Christian friends IRL (I know I know, having them on here is awesome as well, but they should not be the only people who fill your cup) who push you to become more like Jesus. Go to church every Sunday, hang out with like-minded believers and make new friends and grow closer to old ones, with Jesus at the center of it all. Cut out the toxic people in your life and choose to pursue relationships that make you feel good and spur you to worship Jesus

🎀 Fill Your Mind with Things Above

Take a break from secular music, limit social media to 1 hour a day, consume mainly Christian media in all forms, memorize scripture, and speak biblical affirmations over your struggles.

🎀 Build Routines

Create a morning routine and a night routine, as well as any extras (like study routine, workout routine, cleaning routine, etc).

🎀 Physical Self Care

Focus on physical health with your hair, skincare, appearance, and things that make you feel good and beautiful.

🎀 Be Creative

do any creative hobbies you enjoy often and relish doing the things you love for both the process and the finished product.

🎀 Study Hard

if you’re doing school right now, focus on it and becoming a better student and learning lots

🎀 Learn a skill

whether it’s a instrument, language, idea, passion, or anything else, learn something new and grow a skill you haven’t had before!

Where can I learn more?: my favorite video of her doing this challenge is right here, but if you search up ‘Holy 40’ on YouTube you will find more! If you’d like, I can curate a list of my favorite videos of hers. I also could talk about each one of these things and everything about this challenge a lot more, so if you have specific questions about it, please ask me to elaborate! Every one of my goal points could be a whole deep-dive post if you wish. I will be talking more about each specific area and other advice and what I’m doing, as well as prompts for anyone who wants to join me to answer!

When is it?: it starts August 1st, and will go until September 9th. So that gives you a few days to set your goals and reflect and to put everything into motion! If you would like to join, please comment or reblog that you’re in! I’m so excited to grow with you guys 🥰

*please note that I know we all have different lives and different schedules, and not all of this is easily attainable for all of us. The purpose of me having these high standards in this challenge is for myself, and everyone else can tweak a few things to be at wherever their highest standard for themself is. Please feel free to adjust this challenge to the extent that you will be able to follow it, but still allow enough stretch room so that you grow and leave your comfort zone!

"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them."

"Compliment recklessly! Say the nice things 5that come to your mind! We've got better things to do than resist the urge to be kind."

"Her world was the colour of perles: White, pink, and softly glowing."

"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different."

"I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living."

"My goal in life is just to be a very warm person. I want to be as loving and kind as I possibly can be."

"Sometimes you have to create your own sunshine."

"It's part of her beauty, this quality of being not quite there, dreamlike."

"A girl should be two things: who she wants and what she wants.

"They say love is the best investment; the more you give, the more you get in return."

"Elegance is the only beauty that never fades. A woman can be beautiful as well as intellectual."

"Imagination is everything. It's the preview of life's coming attractions."

"Treat yourself like the princess you are and make Aphrodite proud."

"I Love soft-spoken and loving. There is so much power in femininity; don't ever look at it as being weak."

"Luxury must be comfortable; otherwise, it's not luxury."

As always, please feel free to share your own favourite quotes in the comments!! ♡*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛

here is the thing

*sits on the floor*

One of the most toxic things we've managed to do as a generation is indoctrinate ourselves (yes, us. It's us) with the idea that it's only as good as it's being seen. You're only as good as who you're better than. Your blog is only useful when it gets 133k notes. Your pictures are only worthy when you get 400k likes or you delete it. You dropped piano because you can't make a career out of it it's not like you'll beat Elton John. You can write, yes, but you're no Jane Austen so you never post your work and when you do and all it gets is 500 reads and not an entire Fandom like that 13 year old who gets 500m reads for a book that's only good for toxic relationships and the worst sex scenes ever written so you give up. Yeah sure you could make a great singer but man you're no Ariana Grande and only 60 listeners on Spotify (friends and family) is embarrassing so you just don't anymore. Because we've managed to indoctrinate ourselves with the idea idea a thing is only as good as its being seen and we scroll all day on Instagram past 20 year Olds with 30M $ net worth from making tiktok videos and that one guy that plays piano like an actual God but he's from Old Money and will definitely get sponsored into a career and God what's even the point.

Your sign to free yourself from the idea that only massive external validation makes a thing worth it and you validating things makes them worthy, more so than countless people you don't know. Play that piano because you want to. Try for a career and fail and get one for your kids and cat to listen. If you have none play for you. You deserve to listen to those tunes and goddammit start doing things for the mere pleasure of doing them. You like art so you painted. Yes it sucks. No ma'am you are no Da Vinci that's for sure. But it made you happy. It's yours. You see it. You like it. That counts. And screw you if you don't think your own opinion counts. Genuinely. Screw you.

Next time you look at your B- in that subject you stayed up all night studying and there's ms smartkid that doesn't even come to class walking out with a 99 and the only reason it's not 100 is there's always room for improvement take yourself out to brunch and have the time of your life. It's no A but it's yours. And its your best. You're no Gordon Ramsay but that dish, oversalted and burnt, was fun to make so you pour yourself juice into your wine glass and eat it up, savoring every bite and wash it down with milk for the salt. You can't sing and honestly those notes could go unheard but it's YOUR bathroom one thing you'll do is scream Lana del effing Rey. You Paid to get into that club you'll dance .

Free yourself from the human gaze and chronic performance, unlearn the idea that you must be groundbreakingly talented or intelligent to do something or you must be unexplainably beautiful or ridiculously wealthy to be a success. If you're going to be on this planet, paying tax and dealing with unnecessary trauma the least you can do is live for yourself.