That Same Old Weight

Today I have a different type of post than I've done in recent years. But I need to begin to record my thoughts somewhere. And to work through this area of my life.  It's one of those things I thought I would have victory over long ago.  But here I am.

This is what unhappiness looks like.  My unhappiness comes out in overeating, over drinking 🍷, not moving enough, and not doing enough.  It looks like fat, a cluttered house, and a cluttered foggy mind, and a mom/wife who is always angry and easily irritated.  I really don't want to live like this anymore.
I'm not sure what the answer is.  I've tried and tried and tried and failed and failed and failed.
I am terrified that I am going to continue to gain weight.  Completely out of control.  I'm already at my highest ever weight.  I'm not even sure what it is because I'm terrified to step on the scale and see.  I'm guessing it's somewhere around 225-230.
I can't hardly drag myself up and down my stairs.  I get out of breath quickly.  My knees and hips and feet hurt.  My clothes don't fit.  I hate my body.
I turn 50 in 2020.  And I want to be different by 50.
I don't even know how to get there.
But here's my first step.
I'm acknowledging that I am this way because I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy because I am this way.
I guess step 2 will be getting to the root of my unhappiness.
And we'll go from there.

What I Wanted to Say

This morning I was having brunch and a holiday cookie exchange with a group of women that I've known for a long time.  We have a dinner group where we try to get together at least once a month at someone's house and eat together.  It's been a bit more spaced out in recent years, but we still try to make our get-togethers a semi regular occurrence.

We were sharing updates from our lives today.  Going around the table, each of us took a few minutes to share what's happening.  Our group in general has had a hard go of it in recent years.  A life altering accident, divorce & separations, financial problems, loved ones with addictions, marital problems, health problems,  job woes, parenting stress, mental illness....life hasn't been easy for most of our group. 

I know that in the midst of all this I've been relatively blessed in my life.  My troubles have seemed paltry in comparison to what my friends have been enduring.

But, this morning as we shared with each other I opened up that this has been a really difficult year for me.  That my faith and trust in God has been tested.  That my expectation for the year was different from the reality.

My first post of the year was about that expectation.  How I came into the year ready to see what God was about to do.  I was convinced that something exciting, life changing, fulfilling was just around the corner. 

After all.  We had been obedient in His call to leave the security and safety of the path we had been on.  I was convinced that doors would open quickly and we'd soon be on a new (secure and safe) path.

And when that didn't happen, I was shaken. 

I tried to express this to my friends.  And also how, now that things are beginning to look brighter, it has me examining myself and my own heart.  Is my trust in God dependent on smooth sailing? Or do I trust Him even when I'm struggling to see His provision and His plan?

I tried to express it but I'm not sure how well I did.  In fact, I did what I do anytime that I speak.  I stumbled over my words.  I hemmed and hawed.  I find it frustrating to try to speak my thoughts actually.  Sometimes I pause because I need to gather my thoughts and formulate how to say what I want to say.  And, then I tend to lose my train of thought, my flow...and what comes out is abbreviated gobbledygook. 

It's why writing is so much better for me.

What I wanted to say and to express is that this year has brought me to my knees.  I've been humbled and broken.  I've been forced to look at myself in a mirror and I don't like what I see.  This year has driven me to the end of myself.  And into the arms of God.

I've fought against it.  I've beaten his chest with angry fists and with tears streaming from all my broken places.  I don't like pain.  Pain feels like punishment.  Pain feels like failure.  Pain feels like a sure sign that you're headed the wrong way.

But sometimes pain is what brings us to a place of healing, a place where God can form us and mold us into something better....more beautiful.... more like Him. 

This year has been a year of fear, of anger, of hurt, of despair, of loss, of loneliness, of losing faith.

But, this year has also been a year of surrender.  A year of coming to terms with my own insufficiency and a better understanding of His absolute sufficiency.  It's been a year of learning unlike anything I had expected.

 I am hopeful that He has brought me to a place where I don't always have to see where His path is leading me to know that I can trust Him.  I am hopeful that I still have time to make a difference in the world, with my life....that I have something to offer.   I am hopeful that fear is steadily losing its grip on me.

And I KNOW that God is always at work...no matter what the circumstances...He is always at work.

 And He is creating a beautiful story of His redemption, His power, His restoration, and His love.

And, that's what I wanted to tell my friends today. 

Hard Stuff

The last time I wrote on this blog was in April.  It's not the last time I wrote altogether.  I've written in my notebook, in my heart, in my mind.

I keep thinking I need to have something profound to share.

But, here it is.  I'm in a dry place.  I've been in a dry place this year.

Actually, that's not entirely true.  There have been moments of clarity and growth.

But, there's also been  discouragement, weightiness,  struggle, failure.

I was watching the Kara Tippetts story again tonight.  It's my second attempt at watching the documentary that brings us face to face with her and her family as they prepare for her death, as they learn to say goodbye.

And, I keep getting stuck right about halfway through.  I'm not sure why.  Is it too raw?  too real?

Does it raise questions I'm not prepared to answer?

I'm struck over and over at the incredible peace and grace that exudes from her and her family in the midst of very great suffering.

May I be honest?  It's a reminder of how deeply I fail.  How I fail to remain peaceful, gentle, and full of faith in the midst of my own minor sufferings.

What can I call suffering?  Certainly nothing like what so many around me are enduring. Sickness, death, divorce.

Certainly not anything as devastating and life altering as those things.

Yet why do I feel devastated?  Why do I feel so completely shattered at my absolute lack of control over my life?  Why do I feel like it's all too much?

What has left me so crushed?

We have been having one of the most difficult years we have ever had.  That's for sure.  Leaving a family business.  Feeling the hurt and loss associated with that.  Starting a new direction for John's career.  Financial stress.  More financial stress.  Did I mention financial stress? 

Struggling to know which direction we are meant to go.  Wondering... questioning if we heard God correctly in choosing to leave everything that was comfortable and secure.

Change after change after change.

And it's more than I can handle.  So much more.

Yet.

Yet, I know God's hand is on us.  We've seen his provision so many different times.

And still I question and wrestle and fear and worry.

When I see God's hand at work I feel good... reassured.  When God seems to be silent, I lash out.  Angry.  Are we being punished for choosing wrong?  Are we on the wrong path? 

Will God punish me for not being grateful enough? 

I mean, my initial response is 'no'.  But, isn't that what happened to the Israelites in the wilderness when they worried and complained?  When they lacked faith in what God had promised them?  Weren't they punished?

How am I any different?

I long for answers.  For encouragement. For a balm to soothe me in the deepest places.  I long for peace.

And, can I be honest?   I'm not finding that at church. Instead it feels like.... Performances.  Striving. Emotional gymnastics. Promises for prosperity when in reality I just feel drained.  It feels like this is modern day American Christianity across the board.

Does that sound harsh?  Negative? Does that sound like I need a little more faith?  Like I need to adjust my attitude?

I don't want to mock.  I truly don't.

But, why are we so afraid to walk through the hard times and acknowledge that they are a very real part of our Christian walk?

Why can't we hold each other's hand?

I need my fellow Christians to assure me that even in the darkness..and there WILL be darkness....God is still there.  That nothing....NOTHING that can separate me from the love of God.

It's not that I need to try harder.  To be better.

God meets me...meets us....regardless.  He knows we are but dust.  And, still He loves us.  He chooses to work in and through our lives.  Our messes.

Even when we don't understand what He's doing.

Even when He feels distant.

He is there.

There is no where I can go from his Presence.  No where I can go from His Spirit.

I don't need to work myself into a frenzy trying to have an 'encounter' with God.

Every day is an encounter as we see Him in our joy, in our sadness, in our fear, in our anger. He meets us in all those places.

He is reminding us of His Goodness, His Sovereignty, His Love.  In everything.

Even now.

Even now I am reminded. 

And to this I cling....

He is enough.

But The Cannibals, Part 2

My word going into 2019 was 'expectation'.  We had thrown off a lot of things that were familiar and gave us security.  We had made a really big leap.

And I believed, with wholehearted expectation, that the game plan....our big picture would reveal itself relatively quickly once we obeyed the call to set those things aside.

Instead, our expectation is being drawn out in a process much longer than I anticipated.

It's been a couple months since I wrote the first part of this story  - But the Cannibals, Part 1.  So much has happened, and yet not a lot has changed.  For some reason I couldn't quite bring myself to write the second part of that blog post.  The words were escaping me to explain what the title I chose meant to us. 

But, I need to finish that thought because it helps to explain how we got to where we are. 

In the book 'Radical' by David Platt he challenges the reader to examine the Christian status quo and ask ourselves if that's really what Jesus meant by taking up our cross and following him.  He reminded us that Jesus calls us to a radical worldview that dramatically changes the way we relate to the world around us. 

In Chapter 8 he tells the story of John Paton (1824 - 1907) a promising young Scottish pastor who felt the call to the New Hebrides - Pacific islands with known cannibalistic people.  Many people tried to dissuade him.  One older man in particular would exclaim, "The Cannibals!  You will be eaten by the Cannibals."

This was John Paton's reply, "Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms: I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by the Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeneess of our risen Redeemer."

What faith! 

Shortly after reading this story, I came across two other stories that in some way involved cannibals. 

The next one was something I saw on Facebook... a video called "Never the Same" based on the book "Peace Child" by Don Richardson....another story of missionaries who were trying to reach a cannibalistic people group with the Gospel.  They found an opportunity when they became aware of a practice where two warring tribes would exchange a peace child as a sign of their promise to keep the peace.  This was an unexpected opening to sharing who Jesus is and how He came to reconcile us to God.

And finally, one of our pastors shared something during a sermon about the true  story behind the novel Moby Dick.  The whaling boat, The Essex, had been severely damaged by a whale and was slowly sinking.  The crew had no choice but to leave The Essex and take three 20 foot boats to land. 

The closest land was a group of islands.  But, they were convinced that these were inhabited by cannibals.  So, they chose a different route to land further away.  Starvation and trouble followed them.  And, as crew members died, the survivors themselves resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. 

So why did I find these three stories significant in our process?
Well, the simplest analogy is that in each of these stories I could see how cannibals represented fear.

Fear is something with which I am well acquainted.  And I have to admit that I've allowed fear to rule many of my decisions over the years.

But, here's what I saw in each these stories.
In the story of John Paton - he didn't let fear hold him back.
In the story of the Peace Child - fear isn't what it seems, there is a way through the fear
In the story of The Essex - when we give in to fear we can become what we fear. 

It didn't seem an accident that these were the messages I was getting in the midst of making some of the biggest decisions of our life. 

But now what?
(More to come)

Growing Pains

There is a strange calm uneasiness, a numb restlessness that has settled on my soul. 

I know those words don't go together, but I'm not sure how else to describe it. 

In any other time of my life I might have described it as a cautious hope.  But, in my current mindset, I can't help but look at it through a slightly negative filter.

Maybe this is what coming to the end of yourself looks like.  Maybe this is the absolute inability to see the way forward that precipitates surrender.  True surrender to God and His will.

Maybe this is good. 

I'm just not sure.  And, I don't know exactly what to do with it. 

It comes with a certain sadness....like I've lost a part of myself.  But, maybe it's to make room for something new. 

Ah, see...maybe I haven't completely lost the ability to look at this through a positive lens.
Maybe there is still hope deep within these bones. 

Maybe these are growing pains.

But The Cannibals! Part One

John and I are in a major transition in our lives right now.  We made a decision that, on the surface, seems incredibly reckless, rash, and irresponsible.  But, it involved years of prayer and a really intense season of prayer and seeking God within this past year.

John left his job.  And, he doesn't currently have another one lined up.

He is essentially the sole breadwinner for our family.  I bring in some supplemental income with my hobby business of buying and selling vintage/ antique items.  But, it's not much.  Sometimes it's enough to cover the groceries or the gas.

So, why would we decide to do something like this?

It's so hard to put into words everything that has led up to this.  John has been feeling unsettled at his job (a family business) for a long time.

A recent personality profile that he took defined him as a 'Maverick'.  He's a risk taker, a problem solver, someone who works well in high pressure and unfamiliar surroundings.  He's got a sense of adventure, someone with broad vision, someone driven.   But he can be bogged down by details and rules and tends to color outside the lines/ think outside the box.

He once envisioned himself in the mission field...not necessarily in an evangelistic capacity...but rather as the guy who could go in and fix what needed to be fixed, get done what needed to be done, to support the missionaries on the field and their communities.

That desire to accomplish the things that God made him capable of accomplishing has been reawakened in John.  And, he's been looking for ways to make that happen.

I am the complete opposite of him in many ways.  Where he thrives in change, I dread it.  I am not the risk taker, I am the risk avoider.  I like the safe places - the familiar and secure.  Even for John, Mr. Adventure, the familiar and the comfortable became a safe place....an easy place to stay.

So, it's even more strange that I'm the one who first suggested to John that perhaps for God to open the next door in our lives, he was asking us to shut the one to the familiar and comfortable first.  That He wanted us in a position where we had to trust Him completely and fully.

There were other factors in our decision as well.  I don't need to detail them all here.  But, John found himself growing increasingly stressed, irritable, and bitter over situations he felt powerless to change.  That stress was spilling over into our family.  And, we had to take a good hard look at what we valued the most.  On one side was stability and security - but at a price that was constantly rising.  On the other side was our family and the ways God is leading us - but with an incredible jump of faith.

We chose the jump of faith.

There is always resistance to faith.  You can count on it.  The enemy loves nothing more than to plant seeds of doubt, confusion, and fear in the freshly tilled earth where we are growing our faith.

Fear has always been a huge factor in my life.  It has been at the crux of so many choices and decisions.  I naturally seem to look at what could go wrong, ways to fail, the worst case scenarios.  And, I have held back from opportunities and choices where the risk seemed too high.

Fear paralyzes.  It keeps us from moving forward and facing the unknown.

I've been re-reading a book that I came across years ago.  It's called Radical, by David Platt.  The tagline is Taking back your faith from the American dream.  In it, he hits hard on some of the things that we as American Christians have assimilated into our faith that are not necessarily Biblical principles, but more so American principles. 

Some of those things include the theology of comfort and prosperity.  He challenges that by reminding us of some of the very radical things Jesus said about dying to ourselves, suffering for His sake, and giving of ourselves sacrificially.

It's not exactly easy stuff to read.

But, it also has been stirring something in me and making me ask myself how I can best serve God with what is left of my life.

(To Be Continued)

Expectation

Happy New Year!

I woke up this morning still carrying weight from 2018.  Yes, I know that life doesn't magically change from one moment before midnight to one moment after.

But, I also see the New Year as a fresh start - one where I can adjust my attitudes and perspective.  And I want to look at things differently this year.  I want to look at them through God's eyes.  And, I want to look at them through a lens of joy and confidence ( my words for the year).

The thing that weighed so much on me this morning is knowing that we have burned a bridge behind us.  It's hugely scary, especially since we haven't found where we are going to land yet.

But, I felt like God said to me, "Do you trust in ___________ or do you trust in me? (I left a blank there because some of this is still too personal and raw to insert specifics.  But, you too can fill in that blank with whatever is specific to your life).

We are now in a position where we will need to rely fully and completely on God.  There is no Plan B.  It is simply to trust Him.

And I suppose the opposite of dread (that feeling that follows me relentlessly and that I feel so often almost as soon as I wake in the morning) is Expectation.  Maybe that's what my word should have been for the year.  Perhaps the joy and confidence I seek are the result of expectation.

Expectation:  A belief that something will happen in the future  

In secular culture we are often warned not to set our expectations too high so that we won't be disappointed.

Or expectations are seen as a set of pre-suppositions that can hinder actual growth or relationships.  For instance, if we go into a marriage with expectations of what the other person should do or should be like, it can actually hurt the relationship.

But, it's also a word that is used a lot in our church recently....in a totally different context.  Expectation is seen as looking ahead, looking forward to God's goodness - knowing there are things in store for His people......  expecting to see Him work in and through our situations.

And, as I looked up the definition of expectation online I came across the 'archaic' definition, which is "one's prospect of inheritance".

Yes!  Now put that into spiritual terms.  We look ahead to , we long for our spiritual inheritance.  This is the object of our expectation.

And, how can I infuse expectation into my daily life?  I'm not sure.  But, I'm going to ask God to give me a spirit of expectation.

Perhaps one of those ways is to rewire our neural pathways (This was mentioned in Sunday's sermon at church).  My pathways have been so trained to go directly to negative thinking.  It's become a lifestyle for me.

In fact, this morning when I woke up I immediately felt the heaviness of that negative thinking.

But, by sitting down and fleshing out those thoughts in written form and reminding myself of what God is saying, I am strengthening new pathways.

Pathways to Expectation, Joy, and Confidence.