A Taste Party?

There are some things people just know. Touching a hot stove top will burn your hand. Walking into a rainstorm without an umbrella will leave you drenched. Running a red light with an officer behind you will get you a ticket.  But what to say and not to say about someone's weight can be less certain. And talking to someone about their extra weight can have the impact of launching a hand grenade.

I received a text last night from my neighbor inviting me to a taste party for Body by Vi 90 Day Challenge.  This particular neighbor is aware that I have been doing Zumba twice a week and riding my bike in an attempt to not only lose weight, but to tone my body.  What was she thinking?  I wonder how many women under a size 10 she invited to her "taste party".  Did she stop to think how it might come across? 

After much spinning and fuming, I found myself in the bathroom (bra and panties on only) looking at my body. I look smaller, more toned, and I even feel that way. However, that smaller, more toned body started melting away as I was looking in the mirror. I started seeing cellulite on my thighs, and a pouch on my tummy, and from there I went on a rampage of self-destruction. Gosh, I thought I was getting some where with this Zumba and bike riding, but she caused my mind to race with thoughts like, "What if the Zumba doesn't work? Am I okay with that? Why is it I can weigh the same as some of my friends, but can't fit in their clothes?" Somebody please explain that one to me?  That is not fair, y'all!

After my body-image bashing, I did exactly what any woman does when she is depressed about her weight and her body tone. . . I sat down with a bowl of ice cream and sent my neighbor a text declining the invitation to the "taste party”.  Send me an invite to "all you can eat party"!

A Willing Spirit

Several women from our church have been reading “Having a Mary Spirit:  Allowing God to Change us from the Inside Out” by Joanna Weaver for the Women’s Summer Bible Study.  Just the other week we read a chapter on having a willing spirit.  It was quite an eye-opener to say the least.  I tend to think that I have a willing spirit, but after reading this chapter I realized just how unwilling my spirit can be.

Joanna asked the question, “What is one thing in which you’ve said, ‘God, I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t ask me to. . .’?”  Did she honestly expect us to just have “one thing”?  Sadly, unlike Mary when God calls me to something I don’t simply say “May it be as you have said Lord”.  I’m much more likely to throw out questions, argue that he must surely intend for someone else to do it, or ignore him all together.  Yet I long to have a willing spirit. . . a heart and mind that says yes to God and a will and a body that sets that yes in motion.

God desires that we have a willing spirit. He promises to teach, counsel, and guide us; He promises to watch over us and instruct us. As for our part, He asks that we be willing. He asks that we be inclined to Him. He asks that we not be like stubborn beasts that have to be pushed and pulled, but rather like trusting sheep who follow their Shepherd unreservedly.

I can relate to the words the hymn writer sang, “Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” But when I first came to God in faith, He gave me a new heart. Ezekiel tells us He transplanted our heart of stone with one of flesh. I have a new nature and the Holy Spirit residing within me. God wants to foster within me a heart that is submissive to Him without compulsion. He wants me to cheerfully, willingly love, follow, and live for Him. In light of all He’s done for me, this should be easy; I just need to be reminded from time to time.

• 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 “The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
• Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
• 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”
• Romans 14:7-9 “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

I am not my own.  I have been purchased with Christ’s blood. He died for me  so that I might live with Him. He wants me near to Him, following Him, listening to Him, obeying Him with a willing heart. Furthermore, the very God who desires these things of me has given me the means. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” Paul said in Galatians chapter 2. Christ lives in us, His Holy Spirit lives in us, to give us not only the desire, but the ability to do that which is pleasing to Him.

I wonder, what God could do through me if I would stop questioning His plan, stop trying to understand, and simply say yes.  I don’t know, but I want to find out. 

Post-It-Notes

While reading Romans 1 this morning, I was reminded that "God's invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen since the creation of the world through things that have been made. So we are left without excuse." (Romans 1:20).

Some say that Post-It -Notes may have been God-sent, literally.  In the early 1970's, Art Fry was in search of a bookmark for his church hymnal that would not fall our nor damage the hymnal. Remembering his colleague at 3M, Dr. Spencer Silver, had developed an adhesive in 1968 that was strong enough to stick to surfaces, but left no residue after removal and could be repositioned.  Fry took some of Spence Silver's adhesive and applied it along the edge of piece of paper.  His church hymnal problem was solved!   

God didn't send Post-It-Notes beginning in the early 1970's. God has been leaving Post-It-Notes since the beginning of creation and continues throughout our lives to remind us of Him.  A few of the Post-It-Notes God has given me are :

• Hugs from my children
• Birds singing
• Grains of sand at the beach
• Eagles in flight
• Sunrise over Lake Okeechobee
• The laughter of a child
• A bride walking down the aisle
• A husband caring for his dying wife
• The birth of a child

Each one of these are God's reminders to me that He has saturated my life with His presence.  Through His creation, He longs for all of us to see and recognize His creative beauty, His enduring grace, and His fathomless mercy.

Are You Guarding Your Heart?

"Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:23)

The heart is the muscle that is responsible for sending blood around your body and the blood provides all the nutrients and oxygen that you need to live. It is the core of physical life.  Furthermore, the heart is the place where our emotions live.  While it is our thoughts that control our emotions, it is our emotions that control how we feel, which influence the heart ("For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.  The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him." Matthew 12:34-35)

When God tells us to guard our hearts, what exactly are we protecting it from?  From sin!  He knows we are going to be faced with every temptation imaginable, because we live in a fallen world.  Because of that fallen world , it is very easy for us to allow a little sin to poison and defile the very essence of who we are in Christ.  The truth is the more we sin, the less it bothers us and the less it bothers us the more sin we allow into our lives. 

So how does one guard their heart?  Guarding our heart can be done by allowing God to establish boundaries and borders in our lives.  He alone has the power to protect our heart.  When we step outside those boundaries and begin to do things our way, sin creeps in and spreads quickly.  If we stay focused on God and within the boundaries He has set, it will be hard to distracted from God's way.  We must keep our thoughts on God ("Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians 3:2).  When we begin to think biblically, we begin to live biblically!

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. . . becoming a people that are Christ's very own, eager to do what is good." (Titus 2:11-12, 14)



 

North Carolina I Miss You So

For those who love the outdoors, this area beckons your soul to explore God's creation in all it's beauty and splendor.  Just a few things I'm missing this week after returning to the flatland's of South Florida.  I've struggled this week with the humidity and the "same ole scenery". Yet I  have been reminded each morning while walking Bayleigh that God's beauty is always there, sometimes I just have to look a little harder and longer to find it.  So I am determined to seek out His beauty in the place he has determined I need to be and to do so with joy in my heart and praise on my lips.

Mountain View from our Cabin in Glenville

 Whitewater Falls

 Lower Cullasaja Falls

Dry Falls

 Riverbed at Gorges State Park

One of the many unnamed falls in NC

Mountain View in Asheville, NC

Old Rusty has sat at Bear Lake Reserve for 70 years

Old Barn leading up to Bear Lake Reserve

Mountain View in Glenville, NC

Llama resting

Bear Lake Reserve View

Whitewater Rafting on the Nantahala River

Kayaking on the French Broad

The Brooks - Our sweet friends

With Age

With age comes beauty. . . oh wait that's not right is it. . . with age comes WISDOM! Or so they say.  Doesn't seem to be that way in my case.  More like, with age comes saggy skin, broader hips, hairs on my chin and memory loss.  Aah the joys of growing old!

The skin is not as firm and tone as it once was.   That's why I've convinced myself doing Zumba two nights a week will firm those flabby arms, flabby thighs, and that flabby stomach.  I'm beginning to see results or at least that is what I tell myself every time I look in mirror. I've even been told that Zumba will narrow the hips.  Honestly, I think the only thing it will do for these hips is require a hip replacement later on.

There doesn't appear to be much promise for the memory returning to what it once was.  But then that's why they created Post-It-Notes, dayplanners, and smart phones.  If I could only remember to write important stuff down or put it in the smart phone.  If only I had written the password down to my old blog I wouldn't be creating a new one.  But, I thought I had it memorized and that the "old memory" would never fail. . . NOT!
Lesson learned, the password to this blog is written down and entered into the smartphone (hopefully those won't fail me).