BFF's

So it's been a long time! Honestly I could give a lot of excuses as to why I haven't been on here, but the truth is that I just haven't made time for my blog. Tragic, I know. Anyway...moving on. 

In the last month and a half, a lot has happened. I have been eating better and exercising a lot! I've lost almost 12 lbs! I gotta say that I am pretty proud of myself. It's not an easy task to change your whole life; to go from mostly sedentary to 2 hour workouts every other day, but I did it! Well, I should say we did it. My cousin and I have been on this journey together and honestly I wouldn't have made it to where I am at without her. There were so many times that I just wanted to give up, but I would just talk to her and she'd talk me down from the ledge and help me get back on track. Thanks Liso (not that's not a typo)! We push each other and that's exactly what I needed; a partner in crime :-) If you are looking to change your life, I suggest to find someone with a like-minded goal and do it together. We text each other almost every day to make sure we stick to the plan. When we do get off track, which is inevitable, we encourage each other to not give up, with no judgement at all. I think that we all need that in our lives, don't we? Someone who you can count on to always try to encourage you to do the right thing? Someone who never judges you. Someone who doesn't tear you down, but instead builds you up. If you don't already have that in your life, you need it. It can be family members or friends, but you need people in your life who will not only be there to pick you up when things fall apart, but also encourage you to make better choices in your life. That reminds me of a bible verse. 

Hebrews 10:24-25

"24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

This verse says it all. You and only you can make the decision of who you are going to allow access to your life. Choose correctly. There is an old saying, "Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future". That isn't just some cool thing that some old person said...it has a very biblical concept.

Proverbs 13:20 says, “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”

Be careful who you hang around. Don't allow just anyone to pour into your life. Don't take advice from just anyone. Guard your heart. Guard your mind. Guard your soul. Surround yourself with people that have your best interests at heart and will spur you on toward good deeds. Maybe that means that you need to add more people to your life...and maybe that also means that you need eradicate some people from your life. They are toxic! You will never get to where you need and want to be, if you have toxic people in your life. Love yourself enough to walk away from people who no longer add any value to your life. Again, "Show me your friends and I'll show you your future". Until next time.

In Christ,
Summer

Conscious Eating

    I had to put that on here LOL. That quote basically says it all. If I'm bored or stressed, I eat. I'm usually not hungry, but that doesn't stop me. I try and mask my problems with food. Does that help? NO! No it does not. What it does is make me feel stressed and completely terrible about myself and then the whole cycle starts again. I have decided that I need to start eating consciously. What does it mean to “eat consciously”? Think about the last time you had a really great meal. Even though you were trying to satisfy hunger, you savored each taste, and you knew how much to eat in order to feel content, not overly full. You eat a normal sized portion of food until you are content...not bloated. That is eating consciously. Now compare that to a time when you were overly hungry. You chewed and swallowed, without really being aware of it, or of your surroundings. You may have wound up feeling uncomfortably full and lethargic. That is eating unconsciously.
     Does that sound familiar? We've all done it. Some of you are saying, "I never do that!". Really? Thanksgiving? Christmas? I rest my case. It may start out with a conscious choice. It may taste great, but doesn't lead to any sense of satisfaction, only discomfort (and maybe a little nauseousness?). The emotions that come with this type of eating are very unhealthy and usually lead to more unconscious eating. If you listen to your inner dialogue and you hear justifying or rationalizing your food choices and portions, it’s a good sign you are drifting toward unconscious eating. Unconscious eating may also be a symptom of deeper emotional issues. When we use food to calm our emotional hurts, to numb the experience of the emotion, we are focused on finding a distraction. Some of us, sometimes without even being aware of it, depend on food to take the edge off all kinds of discomforts.
     Having such an unhealthy relationship with food can only cause bigger problems. More self-hatred. More Self-Doubt. More stress which leads to more eating. We need to change our mind before we can ever change our body. Maybe you're thinking, "If I can just reach my goal weight, then I'll be happy". Let me tell you that's not the way it works. If you don't like yourself now, you won't like yourself then. So let's make this our year. The year that we start loving ourselves and being healthier. Learning to recognize this behavior is the first step towards that goal. So let's start changing from the inside...out. This verse feels appropriate...at least for me. 

Romans 12:1-2-
"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

In Christ,
Summer

Defeated

     I'm feeling kind of down today...hence my late post. I haven't really felt like blogging about how much I feel like a failure at this whole weight loss thing. I feel like I have so much weight to lose that it will NEVER happen. Since I'm being completely honest on this blog, I have steadily been gaining weight over the last 8 years since my kids were born, but in the last year I have gained...30.4 lbs!!! It's not like I have changed much. I have always eaten terrible, but I guess my age is catching up with me. It could have something to do with my hysterectomy this year, I know my hormones have been crazy every since but I'm not sure. Bottom line is that it doesn't matter how it happened, what matters is that I'm beyond unhealthy and unless I change something quick, I'm not going to live a long life. Why is this so difficult? For all the already skinny people who would say, "just stop eating unhealthy things" I say it's SO much more than that. If I could change my mind and the way I handle stress, it would be much easier to stop eating the things that are not good for me.
     So why then sudden despair? It's simple. For the first time in months, I looked at my reflection in the mirror last night. Don't get me wrong I have looked in the mirror, but it was always a quick look...usually trying only to look at my face, and I was always sucking in. I have mastered the skill of sucking in over the years, so much so that I always do it...even when 'm alone :-/ However I'm not going to let the Devil win. I'm not going to give up. It might take me years, but I will eventually get to my goal weight. I have decided to hold myself more accountable I'm going to post my weight loss once a week...no not my actually weight, just how much I've lost. So far it's nothing so I will post again next Weds. That's all for now, just a short post today. Thanks to everyone who is and has been supporting me on this journey, may God bless you all.

Isaiah 40:29He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Good News

     Could it be that I'm actually writing another post already? "Two in a row, beat that!" Ok I'm done with being Dory. Here's the real deal, I am going to try to do a post every morning as part of my quiet time with God. You see I have realized that if I don't plan out quiet time...it doesn't happen. Other things push it aside and  then I "run out of time". So I'm going to make spending time with God a priority. So here we go. Let's start off with a bible verse.

Psalm 8:4

"What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?" 

     That verse keeps going trough my head today. Who am I God that you even give thought to me? I have done so much and have at times strayed so far away from Him...I guess it's just hard for me to fathom that God would still want me back. I'm spiritually lazy, and I seem to be in a constant battle; getting close to God, then wandering away,then repeat. I feel very unworthy to allow God to use me, but I just need to realize that no matter how "good" I am, my greatest efforts, compared to what Christ did for us, doesn't really amount to much of anything. I have to realize that I am just the messenger. My Job is to allow God to use me. I haven't been doing that...at least not consistently. I should be sharing the Good News of Christ. How can I be so lazy and selfish to not tell others about God? That's like being in a plane that's crashing, and not sharing the extra parachute. There is always at least a small percentage of us that does things for a selfish motive because of our sin nature, but God still uses us in spite of our selfishness. So I will start ...again today.

Here's the truth of the Gospel that I learned how to explain on a mission trip:

The Bible has some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is something about us.

The Good new is something about God.

Let's talk about the bad news first.

1. We are all sinners-

Romans 3:23- "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

The bad news get worse...

2. The penalty for sin is death-

Romans 6:23- "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"

BUT HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS...

1. Christ died for you-

Romans 5:8- " But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Just like the bad news got worse, the Good news gets better...

2. You can be saved!-

Ephesians 2:8-9-, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Is there anything that is holding you back from trusting in Jesus as your Savior today? Please contact me if you want to pursue a relationship with Christ.

There it is the Good news of the Gospel. We all have sinned and have earned Hell and no matter how many "good deeds" you do, you can never come close to meeting God's perfect holiness without Christ. It's like if you and I picked up a couple rocks and tried to throw them to the North Pole, You might get closer than me, but you still fall short of the goal. Christ is the only way. So I'll leave you with this verse:

John 14:6- "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."

Never Give Up

So...wow...it's almost been a month since I've written a post.  I could give you a long list of excuses as to why, but I'm committed to being honest on here so the bottom line is...I messed up. Not sure who reads this, but for those of you who do, I'm sorry. Something I have realized in the last month is that you can get to a very bad place in a hurry. One minute you can be right where you know God wants you to be, and the next...BAM...you are right back where you started. Why is that? Well it happens when you take your eyes off of the Lord. You focus on the problems instead of God. Let's take Peter for example in Matthew 14:28-31.

"28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?' "

Peter was walking on the water! But notice in verse 30 where it says, but when he saw the wind he was afraid. He took his eyes off of Jesus. He saw the wind and waves and focused on that instead of Jesus. That's what I did. I took my eyes off of God. I started looking at my circumstances. Just the stress of the day to day. My kids. My marriage. My lack of self control. The overwhelming task of losing weight. Why do we focus on all of the craziness of life? I have a God that is SO powerful! We need to lift up our eyes and focus on God because the moment we take our eyes off of Him, chaos and despair will soon follow. For me I need to focus on the bigger picture. Being a Christian should mean that we have something that non-Christians don't. When people look at me, they should see a difference...if they don't then I'm doing something wrong. There are SO many people that say that they are Christians, but they don't have any joy and they are filled with so much hate. They are acting the same way that everyone else does. There is no difference and that's a big reason why people say that they want nothing to do with God. It's the hypocrisy of it all. People now associate Christians with bigotry, hatred, and judgement. This is not how it should be! We should be treating others(especially non-Christians) with love. We claim to love God, but what do our actions say? We need to live our lives in a salty way. Here's what I mean by that. Matthew 5:13 says

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet."

Salt makes people thirsty. So we need to salt our speech and our actions...make people thirsty for God. Otherwise everything we do is in vain. If the salt loses it's taste, it isn't good for anything. If we are going to claim to be a Christian then we need to be authentic. It's hard, but being authentic is the only way to live your life in a way that draws people TO God, not away from Him. So I'll leave you with the mission statement I learned on my first mission trip and may we strive to adhere to it.

"Today I will live honorably through my thoughts, actions, and speech. I choose to be full of faith; I will not only be a hearer, but a doer of the word of God. I will serve before I demand, I will love and not hate, I will give before I take. Today, I choose to make a difference in this world & be a part of something bigger than myself. I choose to dedicate my life to prayer and ask God for His miraculous power and the courage to do the impossible. I will make Godly relationships a priority in my life as I esteem others higher than myself. Today I will live my life in such a way that I WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!"

In Christ,

Summer

Finding a Purpose

I think for the better part of my life, I have just been going through the motions. No purpose. No direction. When I was younger I would go to school, come home and do homework, watch TV, go to my friends, go to bed and do it all over again the next day. Even now my days consist of homeschooling my kids, watching TV (though now the shows are far less interesting), playing games, and then going to bed just to do it all over again. Sometimes I feel like I'm in that movie "Groundhog's Day". Do you remember that movie? In case you don't, the premise of the movie is: a self-centered TV meteorologist who gets stuck repeating the same day over an over again. These are 2 of my favorite quotes from the movie:

1. "What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today." 

and the BEST one...

2. "What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?"

That last quote really hits home. Does anyone else feel like no matter how hard they try to change, everyday is the same and nothing you do matters? Or is it just me? I feel like this a lot and I think the reason is because I really don't try and find God's direction for me. So today, I am trying to see what God has to say about His purpose for my life. 

Jeremiah 29:11"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope"

This verse tells me that:
1. God has a plan for my life...and your life.
2. God's plan is to give us a future and hope.

So many times we go through life bogged down with no direction, and we try and find our purpose in other things besides God. We all have a void in us; a God shaped hole and no amount of money or possessions will ever fill that void. I believe God will reveal His plan and purpose for us, but we have to be willing to listen and follow Him. Some people; some of my friends used to be close to God, but didn't think God saw them in their struggle. I used to think the same thing; that God must have not heard my cry. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me assure of something...God sees you. He knows what you are going through. He sees every tear you cry. He knows everything there is to know about us...and He still loves us. In spite of our failures and shortcomings. That's the beauty of grace; that no matter what you've done, no matter how far away from God you are, you can still turn back to Him and He will be there. His plans for us don't change just because we refuse to listen. Let me share with you one of my favorite passages.

Psalm 34:17-20
"17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.20 He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken."

Don't think that life has passed you by or that your best days are behind you. Don't think for one second that God can't use you. Don't think that He doesn't have something great for you to do. You just need to get to that place where you can hear Him. Where there are no distractions. Just you and God. Ask Him to show you His purpose for your life...He won't disappoint you. His plan for my life? I am going back to South Africa. That is where He is calling me to. What's His plan for your life? Ask Him.

Psalm 138:8
"The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands"

Change is Difficult

     Day two of my new life and I am already posting about how difficult it is. Lol. It's the truth, though, and the truth shall set you free, right? I'm not going to pretend that I do not crave fast food, and other things that will "help" me make life easier, for a short time. I think that is the most luring thing about fast food, isn't it? It's easy and quick, and there's no clean up. For me that is so inciting because I usually, at any given time, have a bad headache so to be able to drive 5 mins and lunch/dinner is over...that sounds amazing. Not truly helpful though, is it? In life, everyone is presented with two choices: The easy way or the hard way. 

In Mathew 7:13-14 Jesus said it like this,
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

     Why do only few find the gate that leads to life? Nobody wants the road that leads to death. The problem is, however, that no one enjoys taking the road less traveled. Now Jesus was talking spiritually and about our eternity. However, like most things in the bible, we can directly correlate this verse to other areas in our life as well. No one enjoys taking the road that is much more difficult. The wide road is easy and doesn't really have many challenges. The reality is, that nothing worthwhile in life comes easy. It requires discipline, hard work, and courage to keep going when things get really hard. 
Unfortunately, being disciplined and working hard is almost unheard of in this world we live in. We expect too much and ask that it is delivered to us promptly. Sad, isn't it? but that's our reality.

     My goal in this journey is to be healthy and to take my problems to God instead of food. This is not only going to require taking the road less traveled, it's also going to require a lot of perseverance. Perseverance to keep going even though this goal seems unattainable. 

1 Corinthians 9:27 ESV
But I discipline my body and keep it under control,lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

In Greek it says, " I pummel my body and make it a slave". How often do we let our body's control our actions? For me, it happens all too often. I have a long hard road ahead of me, and it may take longer to reach that goal if we follow the "hard" way, but it will be well worth it.