I am Thankful.

I have always identified with 2 Timothy 1:5  where Paul tells Timothy “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”

I am so thankful for my Christian heritage. See My mom is a pastor’s wife, her mom was a pastors wife and her mom mom’s was a pastor’s wife. 

  But when mom and dad got married they weren't saved. My life would have turned out very different if dad and mom had not got saved. I have heard all my life of how mom and dad spent their weekends in bars. This is a picture of mom in 1970. If this was the lady that raised me, I would be a different woman all together. Does this lady to the left look like a pastor's wife???  

  My parents raised me in church. Not like regular church like most people think of when they hear that they think “oh yeah me too, Sunday morning Sunday night and Wednesday nights, and once and a while when we would have special services we would go then to” No, that’s not what I mean. I was literally raised in the church. Dad started preaching full time when I was only a few months old. And we attended church nightly, as he began saying “yes” to every preaching invitation he was offered, something I am still not sure he has learned to say “no” to yet.

I don’t understand a lifestyle that church is optional. I can’t tell you the first time I heard someone talk in tongues. I don’t know a life that this is not 100% normal behavior. I was taught how to figure out the sale prices on clothes in relation to tithes, if something is 20% off that means tithes twice. To me prayer and a relationship with God is as natural as the sun coming up in the morning. Because my parents didn't just take me to church but they raised me with a Kingdom mentality I think and look at the world differently. I didn't live perfect as a teenager and young adult. But even when I was furthest away from God I never doubted who God was, if he was real, if he loved me or my experiences with him. Because of the things mom and dad taught me and the way they raised me I knew that God was never gonna leave me alone, I was gonna have to straighten up and fly right cause He was a God of love that would always pursue me.

So, I am Thankful that God allowed me to be raised in a Christian home. I am thankful that my “normal” is a Pentecostal experience. I am thankful that I was raised in a home where the daddy isn't perfect but he loves God so extravagant and preaches the word passion that it is contagious to those around him. I am thankful for a mother who sets an amazing example as a pastors wife of excellent character and faith. I am thankful that the God I asked to be my personal savior I was 3 years old, is the same yesterday today and forever.

My Little Family

There are only 5 of us. Daniel, the dad is 43. Me, Lori the mom is 38. Breanna, the oldest is 17 (will be 18 in 2 months) Serena, middle child is 13. Keenan, the only begotten son is 9. 

Now, normal dinner times at our house have certain elements that are usually gonna happen

1.      Someone is going to tell a story that makes us all laugh really loud, not usually because the story is as funny as the way it was told or some weird noise they made, or poor use of wording, or mix up with punch line.  But some unfortunate soul is going to be the butt of the jokes that night.   We all take this in good fun, cause we know that it is dished out equally.  I could go on for quite a while with examples but most of these are “on-location” type jokes that don’t really re-tell well.

2.      Someone is not gonna get their way. Something is gonna come up that 2 people want a different way, if we are discussing plans for later,  who should clean up, the price of tea in china, whatever… we are going to have to work out a compromise. 

3.      Somebody is going to get too loud and annoy someone else. You never can tell who this is going to be, everyone has a different tolerance level on different nights for volume. This explosion is lurking on the horizon at any time!!

4.      Now, not always, but a lot of time, we are gonna have a mess of something, something will spill, be knocked over, poured out, overfilled, ya know the usual. Which, you would think, with our kids all being older that wouldn’t happen as often as it did when they were 2,6 and 10 but it does!

So all these things are fine and good, at home, but they all happen out in public too!! I say this because the other night our little family went out to eat to Pizza hut. We were seated about a few minutes after 2 other families of 4 and 5 and then another family came in after us of 4. We were seated in the dead center of the restaurant (lucky us).  We ordered, as the other families did and then we began to just do our normal thing, ya know sit and talk to each other.  We were laughing, yelling, pouting, compromising, arguing, laughing more and overall just carrying on as normal. Then I began to notice as I looked around, that the other families were just sitting there staring at each other in silence.  (I don’t know if it was because we were being loud, and I don’t know if we were being like annoying loud, or just like regular volume, because we were caught up in our good time). I started wondering, if we had something other families don’t.

Our family isn’t perfect. My kids argue. Keenan and Serena get along well cause they share interest, but she is 13 and is maturing past some of those, and this confuses her brother, who worships her, so this causes strange and wild fights. Breanna is 17, and the oldest, she is put in charge of the other 2 a lot, so when she puts on the parent roll Keenan doesn’t appreciate “the sister” being “the mother” and does his best to make Breanna want to hang him from the roof by his feet. Breanna and Serena do the girl thing, with nasty comments and hateful attitudes.  So I am not saying they never fight. But for the most part they get along good. They laugh a lot together. They genuinely seem to enjoy each other’s company.  And so that makes it more fun for us (the parents) to be around them too. They make me laugh like no one else can. I truly enjoy this stage we are in, in our little family. I really miss the days when they were little babies. When they toddled around the house in diapers saying funny little things, taking sweet naps, letting me rock them to sleep and when they would snuggle on the couch to watch movies. But this stage is fun too, where we can have “inside jokes” and when we can go out to eat and laugh so much that the rest of the place thinks we are crazy!

I think it is important to enjoy every stage of your children’s lives. Not to miss the baby days so bad you can’t enjoy the preschool years or beyond. Or hate the teen years so much you can’t wait for them to get out of the house.  Every stage has it’s challenges and it’s precious moments.  I have heard so many people talk about how they regret not doing this or that with their kids. I don’t want to live that way. I will do the best I can with each day, then try tomorrow to do better. I don’t want to ever beat myself up over what I didn’t do, just learn from it and from what others have done and try every day to be the best I can be.  Motherhood can be a life of guilt, never feeling like you have done enough for your kids, but overall my kids are happy, fed well, get along with others and love God.  So  far so good…… I’m gonna keep doing what I am doing and leave the rest up to God.

How bad do you want it?

How bad do you want it? Well, it depends on what “it” is. Each of us has an “it” that we want. Your “it” could be weight loss, it could be being debt free, it could be being tobacco free, it could be being out of a bad relationship, it could be deeper committed to God, it could be more consistent in your walk with God.  “It” could be any number of things.  The question is how bad do we want that “it”?

Lets work on a “want” rating scale:

1= I have a desire to want to, but right now, I just think it is a good thing to want to do.

2= I have thought about, and possibly written out what I would do to make my goal become a reality, actually thought through a plan of action.

3= I have made a few, small steps in that plan, nothing that costs me money or any great deal of time or energy yet.  (Done a web search, read a few free pamphlets at the doctor’s office,  asked a few friends “what would you do if you wanted to ……”)

4= I have told a few people of my goals and desires to achieve this goal and taken a few more steps and possibly spent some money

5= I have made sacrifices of things that I love that I know will not allow me to get to my goal.

6= I have made a sizeable investment (finical, emotional, physical, etc like joined a gym, written a dear john letter, started seeing a councilor, started a tobacco patch etc.), a public declaration (on social media, or otherwise let a larger population know)

7= I have created some kind of accountability or follow up system to make myself become more accountable for my actions.

8= I have reevaluated my plan and made adjustments to the plan to firm up the areas where the plan didn’t mean realistic expectations.

9= I have come up with (and executed) a plan to challenge myself when I stall out on my journey.

10= I have decided that nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than my goal. No distraction will deter me, No defeat will deflate me. No set back will derail me. No bad decision on my part will make me give up. I will accept nothing less than the goal I have set for myself. I WILL ACHIEVE WHAT I HAVE SET OUT TO DO!!

So, on our scale of want to, where are you? I know for me, there are days I wake up at a 10 and by the time I go to bed I am a 1. Then there are days I wake up at a solid 5 and go to bed at a shaky 6. Your desire to get to your goal can come and go like the rolling in and out of the tide. I often say my motivation attention span lasts about 3-6 months. I can only push myself HARD to get to a goal for 3-6 months. It is hard to maintain that 10 kind of “want to” for years on end.

What I am trying to get at is, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t keep your “want to” at a 10 all the time. I have a calendar in my purse to use as my motivation report card. Where I can grade myself every day on the “it”s I am striving for. At the end of the week, I can look back over the week and say, Sunday was a 5, Monday was a 7, Tuesday was a 4, Wednesday was 8, Thursday was a 2, Friday was a 10, Saturday was a 8. So my average for the week was 6, not a bad week overall.  And the next week I strive to do a bit better.  I am not going to be perfect, so 6 is a good start!!

A few 10 days will make you want to have more 10 days, cause those days feel great. And those days get you to your goal!!

Good luck getting with your “it”. You can do it! Stay focused and remember Philippians 4:13!!

Perfect is not the point

I am learning this truth, day by day, little by little in every area of my life. I am a perfectionist in the worst way. I like to be perfect and really hate the area’s in my life that I am not. I refuse to do any sport or anything I can’t do perfectly or at least really well. I am really competitive and want to be the best. I truly hate this about myself. It is something me and Jesus are working on. I can allow myself some imperfections allowances in some places, and in other places I can’t seem to take it. So instead of being imperfect I refuse to try. So the mantra I am trying to adopt now is “perfect is not the point”. I have been telling the members of my WW meetings to give themselves permission to not be perfect, the last time I said that in a meeting I felt the Holy Spirit say to me “Why don’t you give yourself the same permission?”

 In the meeting I was talking about tracking your food, writing down everything you eat is a huge key to your weight loss. But most people really struggle with doing that 100% of the time. So I tell people to find a happy compromise that they can be ok with. Some tracking is better than no tracking. So I am trying to take on that mentality with the rest of my life. I can’t clean the house from top to bottom in one day, so I’ll do a little every day. Which may seem completely logical to some, but to me this is a new concept I am trying to adopt, along with many other things. 

God isn’t looking for us to be perfect, He wants us to put forth and effort, then rely on Him for the rest. His forgiveness and grace is there for us when we fall short of perfect, which we always will. We are pleased with our children when they try to do what is right, they don’t always get it right either. It’s about the effort we are putting forth. I know my heart, I know when I am giving it my all, and when I am giving it only a 75% (or sometimes less) effort. God knows too. He wants my heart to be right.  I too often look at myself through other peoples lenses, “what will so and so think of me if I do or don’t do that”, when I should think “what will God think if I do or don’t do that” most of the time I would realize that God doesn’t care about some of that stuff as much as man does. It would free me up to relax in some areas and in others, it would really make me behave myself more.

Perfect isn’t the point the intent of the heart is what is. God knows my heart, now I just have to know my heart too!!

Proverbs 31 Woman 2012 version

A while back I was reading through Proverbs 31, and I have always found the idea of the Proverbs 31 woman a bit overwhelming. But then I began to think, if I put in terminology of 2012 maybe it wouldn't seem so unattainable. So I rewrote it for myself, and thought I would share it with all of you. I left the original version on the left so you can see what the actual bible says against what I rewrote.

Proverbs 31- NIV	Proverbs 31--2012
10 A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.	10 Who can find a wife of outstanding character? For her value is far more than stocks and bonds.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.	11 The heart of her husband is safe with her, and he has no areas of distrust.
12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.	12 She brings him good and not a headache everyday
13 She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.	13 She keeps her family on a balanced budget by spending wisely and clipping coupons.
14 She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar.	14 She is like an endless pantry; she brings her food from the grocery store.
15 She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.	15 She also gets up while it is still dark outside and gets the family going for their day and prepares snacks for teacher appreciation week.
16 She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.	16 She researches investments and buys low ; from her investment returns she buys new appliances
17 She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.	17 She works out 3 times a week and she strengthens her arms, legs and core muscles.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.	18 She knows that she has a lot to offer any employer; and she is prepared for the unexpected.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers.	19 her hands work with integrity and purpose
20 She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.	20 She bags groceries for convoy of hope and gives the "will work for food" guy on the street corner all her change.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet.	21 She is not afraid of the snow because she has changed all of the closets over to winter clothes and has plenty of Kleenex.
22 She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple.	22 She buys her clothes on sale; her clothing is practical, modest and cute!
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.	23 Her husband has a good reputation because she brags on him and tells her girlfriends of his kindness and generosity
24 She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes.	24 She lists the kids gently used and outgrown clothes on eBay and leaves nice notes and treats for the postman, garbage men and UPS man.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.	25 She is known for her strength and honor and she can laugh at the time to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.	26 She offers wisdom, and she gives loving words to others.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.	27 She is aware of where her children are, what they are doing and what they are looking at on the internet and she makes good use of her free time.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:	28 Her children think she is wonderful, her husband brags on her to his friends saying
29 "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."	29 "Many women have been good at this or that, but they ain't got nothing on my woman"
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.	30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD will be respected.
31 Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.	31 Give her the day off on mothers day and her birthday and let her works be known through out the community and church!

Monday's munches 5/21/12



Breakfasat
Cereal Bar and Coffee 5 PP



Morning Snack

Unsweet Tea and Mint Cookie Crisp 2 PP

Lunch

Osaki Onion Soup, Kids size meal of  Hibachi Chicken, Sweet Carrots, Mushrooms, and the ever delicious shrimp sauce. I counted it for 15PP left 1/2 the shrimp sauce in the container, that was hard to do. Left some rice on the plate too.

Dinner

Left over Sage brush Chicken, Steak, Shrimp and Corn. Didn't eat it all so counted it for  7 PP

Total for the day was 33 PP went into my 49 by 4 today. Earned 4 PP back with a exercise class this morning. Doing good this week.

Created for Community

I believe we were all created with the inborn need to be around people, to find people that are like us in some way. Similar personality, common pain, similar sense of humor, common struggles, same hobby, common love for sports or sports team. We are drawn to those that we share a thread of similarity to. And it seems to me the rarer the struggle, the stronger the bond. For instance, if you have child with a very rare disability, but find someone half way around the globe that share the exact same diagnoses, suddenly you are not so alone, and you create a sense of community and a bond that makes you feel like you “belong” somewhere.

One of Satan’s biggest and best tricks he plays on us is isolation, when he can convince it is best to draw away from people, for whatever reason, he gets some pretty big hooks in us. If he can tell us “no one knows what you are going through, you are alone in your struggles” then you begin to isolate yourself and then you will begin to believe more and more of his lies because you have no one to counter act them.  Of course no one has been through EXACTLY what you have been through and could never have walked the EXACT same path as you. Even siblings growing up in the same house, having the same parents have different experience from the same background. But the truth is, that there are enough people that have been through enough things, that there is help for whatever it is you are going through. Isolation, and withdrawing is never the answer.

 Finding a community isn’t hard, there is a church on every street corner in every city in America.  There are support groups for all kinds of things from drug abuse, to anger, to over eating, to….you name it. If you have a hobby, find someone else that does too.  We were created to be around people, if you find yourself feeling the desire to draw away recognize it as a trap of the enemy to pull you away from God’s best in your life. He wants the exact opposite of what God wants. When you want to be alone really really bad, call someone to hang out or throw a party and really make the devil mad.  When you think “I don’t feel like going to church tonight” that is the time you need to go the most. Remember alone is bad, with people is good. 

Samson Was On A Special Diet Too

The day I began to prepare for Keenan’s Birthday party my daily bible reading was Judges 13. And it was the first time I really began to think about how Samson was on a special diet too, just like Keenan.

For those of you reading this that don’t know already, my son has an inborn error in his metabolism, that prevents his body from processing protein. We must carefully weigh, measure and journal every bite of food he eats. If he eats to much protein, it will build up in his body and began to kill his cells, including brain cells therefore doing brain damage. If he doesn’t eat enough protein, his body cannot regenerate cells and grow properly. He drinks a 20oz of a modified protein shake every day that helps him get the proper amount of protein. We have know about this since he was 13 days old, every baby is tested for it in the hospital, it is called the PKU test.  PKU is short for phenylketonuria, only one in every 20,000 kids has it. If you would like to read more about it I put a link on the bottom of the blog that will link you to the national PKU website.

But since this blog isn’t about PKU, I digress, the thing that I started thinking about is Samson got distracted with what the limitations of what he couldn’t have/do. In Judges 13 an angel of the Lord came an visited Samson’s mother who was childless. The angel told her to obey a set of rules because the child she was going to have was going to have a special calling on it’s life. It was going to be a Nazarite from birth. In Numbers 6 the bible lays out the rules for the Nazirite vow it says: “If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of separation to the LORD as a Nazirite, he must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or from other fermented drink. He must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins .As long as he is a Nazirite, he must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins."'During the entire period of his vow of separation no razor may be used on his head. He must be holy until the period of his separation to the LORD is over; he must let the hair of his head grow long. Throughout the period of his separation to the LORD he must not go near a dead body. Even if his own father or mother or brother or sister dies, he must not make himself ceremonially unclean on account of them, because the symbol of his separation to God is on his head.”  Numbers 6: 2- 7 

So this was to be Samson’s life. From birth Manoah and his unnamed wife, knew that they had to teach Samson the rules of his calling. When they went to birthday parties and grapes were on the table being served or passed around they had to say “No, Samson, those aren’t for you”. Or when their friends said “oh, your child is lovely is that a boy or a girl?” they had to explain why their kid had crazy wooly hair when the other kids got regular haircuts. When Samson’s grandma died, one parent had to stay home from the funeral and explain to Samson, why he wasn’t allowed to go. This must have felt like a life of a lot of rules for a young boy to grow up with. I know a lot about that.

But with that set of rules came great blessings, God’s call on your life is nothing to take lightly. God had set Samson apart from before he was born. God had his hand on his life, and had a purpose and a direction he was taking Samson. Samson saw and enjoyed that calling and that blessing. He heard God’s voice on who is was supposed to marry, he killed a lion under the power of God’s anointing, he caught 300 foxes, tied their tails together, and set them on fire, (that couldn’t have been easy).  He killed a bunch of Philistines with a dried up donkey jaw bone. He knew how it felt to be under the power and anointing of God.

I think that Samson’s down fall was that Samson began to get focused on the restrictions of his calling rather than the blessings that the calling produced in his life. He kept thinking about the things he couldn’t do and it weighed him down.  I think that is evident when he finally tells Delilah the secret to his strength in Judges 16:17 So he told her everything. "No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man."

His strength was not in his hair, it was in his covenant relationship with God. The hair was the outside sign of something that was supposed to be going on in the inside. The whole point of a Nazirite vow was to show separation for special time for God to be doing something in your life. Samson’s time was just supposed to be longer than most.  He had been separated from birth to have a special purpose put on his life.  He kept the outside façade going but on the inside things were changing.   The shaving of the hair, was the last sign of the relationship that had been cut off. By the time he got to the point of telling her about his hair, he had taken many steps away from God.

The time he spent after the Philistines had captured him and imprisoned him his hair had time to grow and his relationship had time to restore. So when the time came “he was able to kill more philistines in his death than he had in his entire life”. Judges 16:30b

As Christians, there are things we “can’t” do. Not because God wants to restrict us from having fun, but because God wants us to be safe. If we focus more on what we can’t do than the blessings that come from being in covenant relationship with the Father then we will be like Samson and it will only be a matter of time before we fall. When you are tempted to count you long list of “can’t” dos, I challenge you to instead begin to start listing your benefits and blessings of being in a covenant relationship with God.  Keep your focus on the Father and you will find fulfillment.

http://www.pkunews.org/ 

Shark cake

This is the cake I made for Keenan's 9th birthday. The water cake was a regular cake for all the party guest. The shark was lopro for Keenan.

Call your momma!!

We all love our momma, and our daddy, and our immediate family, well we are supposed to anyway. I truly do love my family. No one makes me laugh like they do! After a few days together I am always overwhelmed with how well we all get along, and how much fun we have together.  Yeah, we all have annoying quirks and habits that we have to work around.  But there is NOTHING that they can do that is a deal breaker for me. I don’t like some small thing they may say or do, or the stand they may take on some issue, but I don’t feel like any of that is worth losing the relationship I have with them. I am sure in some families, there would be deal breakers, and in some cases there would HAVE TO BE deal breakers. I am just glad that in our case there haven’t been.

We haven’t ever had the pleasure of living in the same town with any member of my immediate family. This would be a dream of mine. One day to live in the same town with my parents or one or….dare I even dream it….ALL  my sisters at once and their kids, that would be the best ever!! To get to go to every football game Zion cheers at,  see every play Adara or Marla are in, to go get Tina from work so we can have lunch, to meet Jeni’s crazy lady at the bank, to see Austin and his date at their valentine banquet in person instead of on facebook, to get to watch ToriBeth perform in church instead of on video, to run errands and go shopping with mom, to actually hear Abigail say funny things instead of read them on status updates, to watch Elisha and Aaron play basketball, to buy shoes from Lyndsey, to get to drive Josiah  and Keenan to Marine Biology Camp together, and to hear dad preach every week that would be an amazing wonderful perfect life!!! But that isn’t our lot in life. God has us all on different paths and we just get to see each other 2-4 times a year.  I guess that is what makes our weeks together even more fun. We know that they are few and far between.

God HAS blessed us every placed we have lived with a great church family. That have treated us like we were part of their family. We have always felt like we fit in quickly and loved unconditionally. I couldn’t begin to name all the wonderful people that God has put in our lives from when we first started our journey as a married couple in Whitehouse Texas, then moving to Owasso Ok, then God calling us to Bossier City LA, then moving us on to where we are now in Morganton NC. God has been so faithful in placing us with great people that love us and are so good to us. Family is impossible to replace. And a family like mine even more so. But God has given us amazing friends that I know without a doubt I could call on in time of trouble and they would do whatever they could to help us.  I know this because not to long ago, I needed prayer and I called on a few of them, and within days my situation was 180 degrees better.  Now that is a real friend.

So call your mom, if she is still around, tell her you love her. Call your dad too. Make sure those that God has placed in your life know that you love them. You may feel that way, but if they never know it, they never hear it, it doesn’t matter to them.  In this situation, it isn’t the thought that counts it is the ACTION that counts. Write a note, make a phone call, send an email, somehow let the ones you love know it before it’s to late. They may know it already but it never hurts to heart it again.

With that being said, I’d like to say this:

Daniel Smith, I love you with all my heart.

Breannna Michelle, I love you and I am super proud of you.

Serena Raquel, I love you , you make me smile.

Keenan David, momma loves my man, I am glad you are my son, you are one tough dude.

Mom, I love you, I am so glad God gave made you my momma, I am thrilled to be just like you.

Dad, I love you, you have been and continue to be an amazing example of faithfulness to God to me and my family thank you for that

Durwin, I love you big brother, you are a strong man of God

Tina, I love you thanks for being a wise wonderful big sister

Austin, I love you, you are a mature and responsible strong man, super proud of u

Abigail, I love you, you are the long awaited promise and worth every minute of what we waited for

David, I love you, you are a rock and stabilizer, thanks for all you do

Marla, I love you, thanks for being wise and witty and wonderful

Lyndsey I love you, just keep swimming

Toribeth I love you, you are strong and level headed wise and mature

Adara I love you, you make us all laugh and keep us entertained

Adam, I love you, thanks for taking us on and bringing jeni back

Jeni I love you, eye would die 4 u, darlin if u want me 2

Aaron, I love you, you did great around all of us at Christmas, proud of you for that

Elisha I love you, you are a great leader, use the skills God gave you and He will show you what to do

Josiah, I love you, you are amazing and wonderful, strong and wise

Zion, I love you, your energy and funny attitude is great to be around

Aiden, I love you you are so sweet and precious

Eliminate Stinkin Thinkin

This week our weight watchers meeting topic is on thinking positive.  I will be going to lead my 1^st meeting on the subject here in a few hours, so I thought I would blog about it before I go to get “reved up” on the idea. 

I am, for the most part a pretty positive person. Like a lady that shared in our Women’s group said, sometimes I am positively wrong, but still positive. I believe with all my heart I can do anything I set my mind to do. I believe, if I so determined, I could fly from here to China, it may take some time, some creative resources and quite a bit of money, but I’ll get it done. Having said that, there are the days, although few and far between, I do think “I can’t do anything right”, and “I’ll always be a failure” and those kind of self –loathing thoughts.  I really don’t stay in that place long, I don’t see how it does anyone any good. I like me, I like me a lot, probably more than anyone else likes me, maybe even more than I should.  But I gotta spend a lot of time around me, so I better like me, cause I can’t get away from myself, ya know!!

So back to positive thoughts, Proverbs 23:7 says “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” What do you want to become? You have to begin to change your thoughts to who you really want to be. God really began to deal with me on my thoughts (AGAIN!!!) not to long ago. And He led me to write a 4 paragraph “mantra” (at least that is what I have been calling it). I read it every morning before I get out of bed, most nights before I go to sleep and sometimes a few times during the day. It is 2 paragraphs helping me refocus on what matters most, and then 2 paragraphs on how to make changes in those areas. I won’t share what my mantra is because it is a me and Jesus thing. I will tell you one line that I felt very impressed to write, to give myself permission to be human- it says “I know the ruts are deep and the change will come slower than I want but I am DETERMINED to change the way I think, talk and act for the betterment of my family”.  Like I said, I am a positive person, but I had let little thoughts creep into my head throughout the day of  “I don’t want to do that” “I am too tired to do that” “I’ll do that later”. Not what I would usually think of negative things, but things that were dragging me down none the less.

Now how can this help you in a weight loss journey? NEVER let yourself think, “I can’t do this”. I hate it when members come in and say “well I’m gonna try it for a little while but I’m probably gonna quit”. I wanna smack them. You don’t HAVE to fail, you can succeed!! The science of weight loss is very simple, eat less calories in a day than you burn. That creates a calorie deficit that creates a weight loss. That ain’t hard!!! But we get the defeated mentality if I screw up a little might as well screw up a lot and eat the whole cake!! NO!! You don’t have to; you can mess up a little, and then be done with it. Buy a ladder at Lowe’s and put it in the kitchen, every time you “mess up” climb the ladder, get over it and keep going. If you quit your marriage every time you messed you-you wouldn’t have stayed married a week. If you gave your kids up the 1^st time you messed up with them none of us would have left the hospital with them. If we quit Jesus every time we messed up with Him we would be so lost and screwed up we couldn’t find our backside with both hands!! If Jesus can forgive us, we can forgive us!! So forgive yourself, love yourself, talk sweet to yourself, be nice to you, cause you can’t ever get away from you!!

Below are some bullet points from the As a Man Thinketh is a literary essay of James Allen, published in 1902. I think they are worth reading and thinking about.

• Men do not attract what they want, but what they are.
• A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
• Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these, if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built.
• The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors, that which it loves, and also that which it fears. It reaches the height of its cherished aspirations. It falls to the level of its unchastened desires - and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.
• Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves, they therefore remain bound.
• Every action and feeling is preceded by a thought.
• Right thinking begins with the words we say to ourselves.
• Circumstance does not make the man, it reveals him to himself.
• You cannot travel within and stand still without.
• As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts, can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.
• Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err

Create your own mantra, include lots of positive self talk, encouraging things that you know God thinks about you, use scriputres that lift you up. You can do anything you set your mind to do. Lose weight, kick an addiction, get out of an unhealthy relationship, approach your boss about a promotion, anything that you and God determine is best for you!! You can do it!! Think Happy Thoughts!!

Weight Watchers and God

I guess every 1^st blog post needs to have some explanation of why I felt the need to start a blog.   I thought that most everything I could think to post about could fit under 1 of the 4 categories of Faith, facts, food or feelings. I would like to help people, the bored readers that decide to stop by and read this blog, find some hope in their weight loss journey, faith journey, journey to discover facts (of which I know little) or get in touch with their feelings.  Or maybe it will just be my journey to all of the above, either way, I thought this might be fun. 

For my 1^st post, I thought I would compare my 2 jobs, (a pastor and a weight watchers leader) I have thought a lot lately about how they have so much in common. A weight loss journey and a spiritual journey have many similarities. To list a few:

·        Takes DAILY discipline of following specific rules and guidelines

·        Changes come slower than you want

·        You don’t have to be perfect to see results

·        Sometimes you do the work but you don’t see the results you think you should

·        Some people come to the meetings, invest their money, but don’t do the work during the week and are upset with me because things aren’t going like they think it should

·        Some people start off with a great passion and then fall off the wagon, and then have to come back, because they know sticking with the program is the only thing that REALLY works

·        People that come to the meetings, do the work during the week, stay accountable, keep themselves motivated, and want to be different see the most change

·        When people begin to change, the others around them want to know what they have been doing to get such great results and they want to be changed too.

·        A couple that comes together can change the destiny of their entire family and many generations to come

·        If you get out of the habits you will slip back into old and bad behaviors quickly

·        Instant gratification of momentary temptation can set you back and undo weeks of hard work and it takes weeks more to get back what that moment took from you

·        Every group has at least 1 person per 10 you can’t make happy no matter what you do and they ain't gonna quit coming

 I seriously could go on and on.  Before I lost weight with Weight watchers I had never really tried to lose weight. I don’t have a story like MOST everyone that comes in the door.  Many of the leaders and members weight loss story begins with “I have joined weight watchers _____ times” that blank ranges from 2-52. I, on the other hand joined WW in 2006, having never joined before and made my goal weight 2 yrs later. I had looked into a few other programs and WW was the only one that I thought I could live with, because you could eat whatever you wanted, to someone with serious control issues, this is great news. As sat in my meetings, listening to person after person say how they had gained their weight back after they got to their goal because they thought they could do it on their own I thought “I don’t want to be like that”. So I made the decision then that I was going to do whatever it took to not go back to where I started. I listened to my leader who said “if you want to stay at goal weight you have to weigh in EVERY MONTH without fail, and stay for the meeting” and I did just that. I also got a job with WW because they make you weigh in once a month to keep your job, you have to stay at your goal weight.

I say all of that not to brag on my weight loss journey, but to say that your spiritual journey has the SAME concepts!! You have to come to the meetings, you can’t go at it alone, you have to be accountable to someone or you are gonna slip back into old patterns and be back where you were 5 years ago or worse.  I know by experience in my spiritual journey that there have been times, that I have chosen not to follow “the program” and instead think “ I can do my own thing” or “I got this, I know how this works, I don’t need the book” and fell flat on my face, more times than I can count. So I am determined this time to stick to the program, attend the meetings, invest my money, stay accountable (to the point of embarrassment) because I want the end results more than I want the temporary gratification of the temptation set before me. No matter how many times we have walked into the door of the church to say “I’m here to join, I’ve join _______ times before”, God is always there to welcome you back with open arms, and say, “I’m so glad you have decided to come back and join us!! We will get you to goal this time, and you will stick to it this time I just know it”.