Realizing your value through Christ

Happy Monday Guys 🙂

I hope everyone is off to the start of a fantastic week.  Mine has started off as a Monday.  I had been “cooking” dinner in my crock pot for about 2 hours when I noticed I did not even plug in the crock pot.  Oh well maybe it will still be ready for dinner 😉  Anyways on to what is on my heart today.   I have written about before I got serious  I tried so many things and never stuck with it.  I was looking at everything as a diet or quick fix.  Nothing really truly changed and I didn’t truly want lifestyle change till I TRULY realized my value in Christ.  I realized I was worth investing in for myself and for those I love.  When I went on a fitness journey it was about sooooo much more than just weight loss and truly I didn’t even know that till I began my journey.  Once I realized my worth in Christ I was actually able to follow through and lose the weight and truly change my lifestyle.  My relationship with both Jesus and my husband  grew deeper. See Trapped in survival mode….  and I knew it had to change…. I realized through Christ ultimate love I was valuable.  I had grown up saying and hearing this but it wasn’t till I TRULY believed how valuable I was and started taking ACTION on things that things changed.  Look, us ladies naturally wear a lot of hats and have tons of insecurities. Maybe yours aren’t with needing to go on a fitness journey or needing to lose weight. We sometimes struggle with self-worth.  Truly the only person that can make you feel valuable and worth it at a core level all the time is Jesus!  I have talked to so many people, who were once like I was, and want change but don’t know how and ask me what changed and my secret. The truth is I had to realize it wouldn’t be quick or painless  and I had to realize my worth and this was a journey worth taking with Jesus! Look, the truth is it comes with much effort involved.  When Jesus takes us on a journey to realize our worth I believe he so wants us to experience his best and what he has for it.  That means there will be work, sacrifice, and dedication.  Without those things along the way we couldn’t truly learn and see all he has for us.  Jesus wants us to be confident women who are sure of our worth through him. He wants to equip us to see we are valuable and cherished and worth investing in.  ( Now, I am NOT talking cocky and arrogant as that is the complete opposite of truly being confident in Jesus and his heart for us.)  However, when we go on a journey with Jesus it is a journey that takes worth and effort.  He WILL equip you and show you amazing things along the journey if you let him this I can promise you from first hand experience!!  I can not STAND the word diet as the way the American population has made it.  A diet is simply what you eat!  It is not a quick fix to lose weight.  Look, bottom line.  I went on a fitness journey with Jesus, not a diet, and through that he truly gripped and changed my heart and lifestyle.  I believe with 100% of my heart than if you are where I was, truly needing change and wanting change, Jesus will walk with you through the journey and show you things about yourself and make you come alive in new ways if you truly want it.  However, please please friends remember this a journey and he cares so much about us he doesn’t want us missing the journey and trying for quick fixes that don’t work.  He wants to truly grip our hearts, renew us, make us confident women who know our worth through him.  It will take effort and stretch you.  My heart is truly for all of us women to realize this even if you may not personally need a fitness journey!!  Blessings!

Ps.  I will leave you with these 2 quotes with one of my fav quotes ever and so much truth by Lysa Terkeurst and then one of my littles biking to town today as it just makes me smile and thankful 🙂

Starting Somewhere

Good Afternoon guys 🙂

Today I want to talk really quickly about something that I think is the biggest hurdle for starting a fitness journey or anything we need to do or change in life.  It is simply STARTING!  Starting and getting on a routine and changing the way things have been done in my personal opinion is half the battle.  We all know to expect different results we have to do different things.  It is really simple in theory but can hard to put into action.  Old habits and routines are hard to break up and change sometimes even when they are for our good.  However, it is ALWAYS worth it!  I think it is also important to remember that when you start you won’t be where you will a month from now, 6 months from now, or even 3 years from now.  Guys if you had told me 4 years ago I would be active daily (and enjoy it) and I would take long hikes, bike rides, and runs I would have told you that you were crazy and obviously didn’t know me.  The point is had I  never been active or into truly leading a healthy and active lifestyle in my adult life.   Now I will be honest.  When I first started changing my lifestyle I couldn’t run a whole mile on the treadmill.  I would walk 3 miles at a moderate pace for me at the time with some intervals.  I kept pushing myself and realized I liked the progress.  I then, over time, took it a step further and tried different things.  However, the simple and harsh reality is if I had never started at the small place I did then I would never have been able to experience different activities and realize I enjoyed way more than I thought I did.  Progress takes time and comes sometimes in impressive gains and sometimes at the pace of a snail but it is worth it!!!  Changing routines and getting out of ruts and old patterns is hard and takes time, but now I couldn’t imagine life being any other way and I’m so beyond thankful!  If you have to make big changes like I myself did don’t look at it as one daunting goal.  This is super overwhelming!  Look at it as a place to start and grow and continue growing.  I am definitely still growing and pray that never ever changes. If you are at a point where you need to start remember don’t be too hard on yourself but START and be consistent and realize the joy of the process and transformation. 🙂  Have a wonderful day guys! 🙂

The outpouring of the heart…

I will head this off with a warning….This post  is nothing based on weigh loss specifically though I did apply some of this through my journey and will bring it together at the end of this post.  I have something on my heart and kind where God has been taking me personally.  In proverbs 4:23 it says “Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  In the new testament there is also TONS on the heart.  For example, Romans 12:8 says “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others have fulfilled the law.” Jesus and Paul both talked a lot about our hearts and guarding our hearts as well as truly loving others.  This past few years God has been showing me how important it is truly be pure with what flows from our hearts. For example, I think about with my marriage. I don’t want to love my husband based upon a list of things to do, yet I want to truly love him and connect with him on a heart level and I want him to do the same.  If not then we don’t have a true marriage.  I don’t want my children just to follow my rules because I say they need to. I want love for Jesus and others to be in their hearts and the reason they choose to do things.  I don’t want to raise children who know my rules but have never had any heart behind it, because then they are following a “plan” and that’s what keeps them on the right track so to speak. (DISCLAIMER : I  do know when you are a parent sometimes we have to make boundaries and pray our children’s heart follows.  I know part of the job of parenting is to establish boundaries for your children to follow, however I hope to show my children the heart and why behind these boundaries and rules ) I personally don’t want to do things just because I need to check them off my list.  Look this may be controversal but I think a  HUGE problem with “american christianity” is so many times we look at things as boxes to check off with no heart behind why we are doing things.  We look to do things to get it checked off our list with no true heart behind it.  Look, I know we are all human and at times we know we just have to do things and we have to be willing to die to self and know that the heart will follow.  However, I DO NOT want that to be my life verse and song.  I want to love others truly because God first loved me.  I want to build community because I love people.  I  want people to know I’m real and make mistakes and  I screw up but my heart is pure.   I am so thankful for a savior who loves me and bestows grace and mercy upon me, yet I pray daily to have my heart transformed to love people BIGGER and MORE.  Look people MATTER!!  We have such an awesome Lord who loves us and when we truly can grasp that as much as our humans minds can we truly want to love others.  I have known religion and of God my whole life but my faith truly didn’t really start becoming my own till my 20s when I truly started developing relationship and seeing Jesus and his truths for myself, not as a box of something I had always known. Once I truly had the heart to seek him and make my relationship with him truly my own I really started knowing him and his heart.

With my weight struggles before  I had success I  always looked at my weight and issues as something to check off. Yes, I needed to lose weight and get healthy but truly for a long  time I had no heart behind my motives to truly take action and get healthy.  I would try something with no heart behind it and it may work short-term or whatever but I wouldn’t stick with it.  My heart wasn’t in it. It was not till I truly put my heart into wanting to get healthy and change my lifestyle  I had true transformation to make my weight loss journey happen.  NOT just the idea of it but truly wanting to change and willing to put in the effort. ( Yes, even with our heart in things we have to put in effort it just changes the attitude we have behind the effort and usually makes our effort truly a 100% effort)  I  honestly  had to get to this point in my relationship with The Lord and my marriage as well.  Things never really changed till I changed my heart and I was ready to take action.

My burden and desire is to truly have a HEART to love others, put in effort for things that matter, and not look at things in my life as just boxes to check off.  When I have looked at things and people as boxes to check– and oh have I with so many things at different times of my life, it either made be give up or made me biter. May we truly have the heart to put in the effort to love people and make effort and heart change for the things that matter to us.  It is WORTH IT!

 

Trapped in survival mode….

I should preface this post and let you guys know its highly personal to my life circumstances but after talking to numerous women I know the way I was feeling isn’t that uncommon.  I should also add some of these post will be hard to write, but as I said, I want to help people if I can, and please note there is NO WAY I can share all the details of the events in blog post.  You will get a general overview of my specific situation.

I had the normal life or so I thought.  Yes, we struggled sometimes.  We fought sometimes, but at the end of the day I had a healthy family, who loved The Lord and loved each other.  I loved my children fiercely and thought I was loving my husband.  We were surviving, but is that the life I really wanted? What that truly all I was called to do?  I was clearly stuck in survival mode!!  For years before I started getting serious about loosing weight, I had tried numerous eating and exercise  plans, and had well meaning people tell me what they thought may help.  They would never really work for a few reasons–

1-  I would try ((sometimes)) their ideas but never stuck to them.  At the time i really couldn’t understand why I couldn’t stick to any of the suggestions.  I mean I wanted to loose weight I really did (but truth be told I didn’t always want to put in the effort and sometimes I was just overwhelmed.

2-  I also wasn’t putting myself and my health as something super important.  It was about me and I didn’t have time to invest in me and be “selfish” so it could wait ((I will address this misconception later))

However, after a time of praying and some life circumstances, which included a move to Georgia, I realized my life was kind of crazy. I was literally stuck in survival mode.  My whole world revolved around my children.  Please understand I LOVE my children dearly, but their needs, wants, and preferences. came before EVERYTHING in our family. Please note I realize children take lots of time and they should.  I’m not suggesting not meeting their needs as I believe that’s part of our calling as moms and I know raising children takes work—lots and lots of work but the rewards and joys are also great.  I homeschool so I am with my children 95% of the time and I wouldn’t change it but the order of my life  and my thinking had to change.   My husband worked a lot and I was at home with my children so naturally I was attached to them. I think as moms we all struggle with this however I became so attached to them I LOST myself! My husband has a high stress job that he excels at but  for years he couldn’t be very involved so I just retreated to my children.  I no longer could think of myself as much of anything but a mom. This made me depressed without even realizing it.  My husband was gone a lot and I was home a lot so I just sucked myself into my children.  ((Please note I think being a mom is a WONDERFUL thing and a gift and children are most certainly a gift from The Lord, but I was WAYYYY out of balance) ) Sure, I thought I was a good wife, but the truth is my husband and I never dated, and while we got along just fine as roommates, we were just that, roommates. I thought a good marriage was equal to not arguing with my husband and being able to get along.  That’s what the world tells us right?  As life gets busy and our marriage goes on we just sort of evolve and its quite “normal”.  I mean no one has time to take time for marriage.  It takes work and it is just what is it.  Sure, that may be what the traditional american marriage is and how our culture views marriage, but its deception, and a LIE!  Marriage is meant to be treasured and enjoyed!  Please note I’m not saying marriage is a fairytale.  It isn’t and it takes work but I believe it should and can be one of our most treasured relationships and I can honestly say that when your marriage is in the right priority that life and your family run smoother, because its the way God intends it to run.

So once I realized I was more of a robot than a person and through the prompting of The Lord that I needed to take my marriage seriously I started getting nudges in my heart to get serious about my marriage, then after a season of that and becoming a true wife again God started working on my heart about my weight and health…..That’s where the weight loss journey begins to shape in effect in december of 2013—-stay tuned tomorrow as I start sharing how God changed my heart to get serious about my weight and health and why this time would be prove to be different.