This Granny is doing it … baby steps - one day at a time (with God's help)

I struggle a lot with my weight.  It makes me feel awful.  It has robbed me of great joy.  I remember once when I was down on myself, my daughter told me to stop calling myself a loser.  That was an eye opener - and a wake up call.  It also made me very sad.  Years have passed since then.  My struggle is still my struggle and I figure it always will be in one form or another.  Lets face it - we all have our stuff.  Some of us just "wear" it more visibly.   My weight has been one of those things - and over and over again, especially in the last few years, I have seen how my spiritual health is strongly connected to the other parts of me - mental, BIG TIME emotional connection, and HUGE physical connection.  It is all intertwined in this hard to explain way.  Until I realized as I was reading a devotional … (not like it was a new thought, but it just struck me new) that God made me this way - he made me to be intertwined in all areas of my whole being.  He made me to be dependent on HIM but I have taken that, and instead depended on whatever was close enough to eat in times of stress, or sadness, or depression … you name it, I ate my way through it.  I have come a long way - although it is only in the past six months that I think it is finally sinking in and "clicking" in my being.  SO I am on a journey here too - or still - I know some of you who know me will say, "ya, one more thing Joy"  "I will believe it when I see it"  or "we will give you a few months and it will be back to the same old."  I guess by putting it out there as a POST … I am making myself at risk for all those things to be said, IF I regress - but well, part of the whole thing is being vulnerable and admitting that this IS a struggle.  EMOTIONAL EATING is a real thing for me - and for many.  And I want it to stop.  I want to change.  I want to get healthy.  I want to cut my risks.  I want to most of all - be able to run and play for many years, Lord willing, with my grandchildren.   I don't want to be an old lady before my time!  SO … I am moving ahead - one day at a time - with God as my strength - and with friends who are there for me as cheerleaders AND also some as accountability partners (you know who you guys are).    I am onto it - and this time, O Lord - help me to get healthy and stay there!!  I know with God's help - this Granny is doing it - perhaps just baby steps, but one day at a time!!

 I wrote more about what I am doing - but that is a different post, on a different blog, if you really want to read it.    www.thisgrannycan.blogspot.ca

My ONE WORD for 2014: ABANDON

“I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.” 

― Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor

A couple weeks ago, at care group, we watched a DVD.  The website is called www.myoneword.org
and it is about choosing ONE WORD for your life.  The instructions are this:

• determine the kind of person you want to become by the end of the year - you must drive deep into your soul.  What about the condition of your heart?  Who is the person that God has created you to be?
• identify characteristics of that person - get a picture and simply identify major characterists.  What are the qualities?
• list the characteristics and then pick a word.  Commit to it.
• pick a verse to go with your word (this was added, I am not sure it is on the website as a point to do, but it was part of our homework)

So last Saturday night, I got to writing in my journal - and thinking about my "one word" for my life - for the woman that I want to be by the end of the year - only by the grace of God I might add - because without HIM, I can be nothing!!

Here is what I wrote, and what I am choosing to share with you.  

I want to become a woman who lives fully for Jesus - embracing all that he has for me!! I want to become more deliberate in my faith, and more intentional in my being Jesus hands and feet to others.  I want to fall in love more and more with Jesus - getting to know the lover of my soul in an intimate way - and to fall madly in love with the Lord.  I want to live fully and embrace life fully - to "go big or go home"

What is the picture of a woman like that?  She would be content in her demeanour, loving, fun and passionate.  She would be kind in words and actions, a teacher of the truth, inviting, with an exuberant faith.  She would have an obvious love for Jesus, and would live all out and fully, with a wild abandonment to the ONE love of her soul - Jesus Christ.  She would embrace life, and would not live with complacency or status quo, but would be willing and open to what God is calling her too.  She would perhaps feel a timidity but at the same time live with adventure even when God's way for her is not clearly seen.  She would be ruined for the ordinary, and would live hopefully so that the devil knows he has no foothold in any part of her life!  She would live  with abandon to self and given fully and totally abandoned to Jesus Christ!

Words to describe: LOVING ~  FUN ~  DELIBERATE ~  INTENTIONAL ~  INTIMATE ~  MADLY IN LOVE ~ CONTENT BUT NOT COMPLACENT ~ EMBRACING LIFE ~ TEACHER ~ INVITING ~ ADVENTURE ~ RUINED FOR ORDINARY ~ ABANDON

I WANT THIS TO BE ME!!!  

MY ONE WORD:  ABANDON

Abandon means:  to give up completely (course of action, practice or way of thinking)  synonym: relinquish; complete lack of inhibition or restraint, synonym: uninhibitedness, recklessness, wildness, lack of inhibition.

Verses to live by, on my way to becoming a woman that lives a life of total abandon to Jesus:

Mark 8:34-37

The Message (MSG)

34-37 Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

or from NIV translation: 

Mark 8:34-35

New International Version (NIV)

The Way of the Cross

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

O Lord - help me to become a woman of total abandon from self and to total abandon to you Jesus!!  ONLY YOU.  Grow me - so that I live a life true to the motto:  "Go big or go home"  and one day Lord, the best is yet to come - and I want to GO BIG for YOU - right until you call me home!!  Amen.

so let my words be few

This morning I am just delighting in the love of my Lord.  Can't explain it, but I just feel it.  His closeness.  His presence.  His love.

I have been thinking of that a lot lately - about HIS love for me.  WOW.  It is quite something.  But often I don't think I even grasp a tad of it!  It is just that big.  Sometimes in my own moods (yep, ask my husband, I have them!!) I sometimes just try carrying on and don't give the Lord the time and position in my life.  I just sometimes do thing in my own strength.  (relate to this?)

But this morning, as I have retreaters here, I am unable to sit in the pews at our church.  But down in our suite, I had a SWEET time with HIM.  Like I said - words can not express it.  And sometimes, that is okay ... but it made me think of a song which can!