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I need a big stick

Do you ever do ridiculous things to try and help you remember things?

I was running today and I ran past this tree on a drive way. In fact I ran past it three times because i decided to go back and get a photo of it but didn’t want to be obvious so i had to run a few meters past it, turn around and then run back past it to continue on my way. It’s not a great photo because as I said it was taken whilst running but it captures what I wanted it to. It seemed worth going back to get a photo because of the thought process that God used it to prompt in my.

The thought:

That tree is so small, it’s roots aren’t established, and so that tree needs help. It needs a tree bigger than it is to help keep it up and help it settle into the ground.

As I think about weight loss and the past 16 or so months of actually achieving a steady loss and as I think about Lysa TerKeurst’s Made to Crave I can totally see how God would use that image to poke me as I ran past it.

I can totally lose weight on my own. I can do it in my own strength and I can get to my targets AS LONG as nothing gets in my way. As long as I just keep going and keep my head down then why wouldn’t I manage it?

Problem is that I’m not managing it. My roots aren’t deep enough in the weigh loss journey to keep losing weight when things like special occasions or bad days come along and create wind to continue the tree metaphor.

I wobble and I get shoved around although i can maybe withstand it I can’t really achieve or grow and I end stagnant and STUCK!

What I need is the big stick that anchors me in place. What I need is God. I need His strength to sustain my willpower and decision making skills. I need His wisdom to help me make wise choices and eat the things which are beneficial despite everything being permissible. I need Him to help me see that there will be weeks when I can have made all the right choices but I won’t lose weight but that He is pleased with my discipline and pleased with me for making this walk with Him REGARDLESS of the scales and the tape measure.

There will hopefully come a day where my weight loss journey will become a weight maintaining journey and that it won’t be so much about the relationship with God because He will challenging me on the next thing and my roots will be deeper and more able to keep me stable but for now I need this stick to keep me upright!

I’m ignoring the thought process that the trees roots are going to wreck these peoples lovely drive way when it gets bigger and starts pushing them up! You can’t win them all! 😉

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Listening to His whispers

Are you any good at listening to God? More importantly are you any good at listening to Him and DOING something about what you’ve heard?

I’ve had a number of things niggling me for quite some time about what I do next in life. I am a stay at home mum and I don’t intend to change that. In fact I mostly enjoy it and I try to remind myself that work was monotonous too and that’s not just a home thing!

However I have felt God pushing me to take steps in areas of blogging, creating and possible photography.

I was thinking about dreaming the other week when I was looking at writing down my rule of life for small group. My personality and my giftings lend themselves to being a helper. To getting along side someone who comes up with plans and dreams and then helping them to get it done whether that’s with ideas or just doing as they ask me. I realised as I was thinking about this that the problem with being a helper is that when you try and dream for yourself it’s very hard to do. Firstly because it is hard to believe that your dreams might somehow work and not fear that the promptings you hear from God are just your own thoughts. Secondly it’s incredbily hard work out what steps to actually take to actually make progress and who to bring along with you in that dream you’re not sure will work in the first place!

So with these promptings I’ve spent a lot of time putting myself down.

  • I’m not good enough.
  • I don’t have time.
  • No one would want me to take photos.
  • No one would buy something I create.
  • No one would read the blog post.

But the thoughts keep coming back and somewhere in there I am starting to think more and more that it’s a God nudge.

However I keep coming back to that same problem: I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START WITH ANYTHING EVEN IF I WANT TO!!

Since Friday, what I am finding as I try to open myself more up to God’s prompting and strengthening for weight loss, He also seems to be talking to me more about the other things in life and how to move forwards.

I talked with a friend as we went for a walk who reminded me that although I was comparing my abilities with people around me, God has created me as an individual. I am me and no one else is. A good wet fish round the face to remind me stop comparing myself so much and so harshly.

I listened to on Friday as I was running which talked about the reaction of “I can’t” and how this guys Dad had always responded to him “I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me”. He started the talk asking people to think of what their ‘I can’t’ things are. For me the first thought was weight loss. I can’t lose weight, it’s too hard. Secondly, I was about to try doing hill repeats for the first time in my running to help me be a fitter runner. I’m not sure I can do this. It’s going to hurt. It’s too hard. And then I came on to creativity. I can’t. No one would be interested. I’d fail.
Listening to that talk I felt God talking to me about tasking the risk and taking a step. Jumping into what God is calling me to and to stop saying I can’t. Because I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me.
I came home from my run, which by the way I manage 5 reps instead of the 4 I was aiming for, and sat with Ross as we registered my blog domain (WholeheartedJourney) instead of using the free one I’d been using and didn’t like the name of AND we registered a domain for my creative adventure which now feels more like a reality.

I also did some investigating into Compel Training which I had heard of over a year ago but hadn’t gone back to. Compel is part of Proverbs 31 Ministries which is headed up by Lysa TerKeurst of Made to Crave fame. They teach writers to write better. They occasionally open up their enrolment and it’s currently open and so the obvious thing to do is to sign up for a month and see how I get on.

Finally I listened to a talk this morning by a lady called Crystal Evans at the She Talks conference. She talked about being a Kingdom woman. She talked about how invites into interruptions and invitations in life and how, as writers and speakers and leaders, we can use these interruptions to grow and write and share. She said that “it’s in these broken places that the most beautiful things grow” and as she spoke I just felt God’s prompting that He can use the interruptions that have happened in my life for bigger things and that to write about them is wise. Crystal also repeated the idea that God uses us right where we are. We don’t have to be sorted or write but just open to using our gifts for the glory of God and THAT is what makes you a Kingdom woman.

DO WHAT YOU CAN WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

And so I continue to listen. I continue to ask God for His help daily with weight loss hoping that it becomes more of a habit. I continue to hope that I open myself up to God I will hear more of his interruptions and promptings and that I will do what I can with what He has given me knowing that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

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Bittersweet

Have you come across the idea of bittersweet? The idea is that we need the bitter to grow and to make the sweet, feel sweet.
“When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. When life is bitter, say thank you and grow.” Shauna Niequist

It’s hard to imagine being thankful for the experience of a parent dying. In fact, it’s ridiculous to imagine it BUT actually the practice of living a bittersweet life allows you to look at the circumstances around the situation and be thankfully for what it reveals. Friends who are there; cry with you, step up when you just can’t go on, who help in emotional and physical ways, are revealed in the bittersweet of the circumstances. It’s easy to see this in the early days of grief.

What’s taken longer is the bittersweet thankfulness of what God is doing in my mum death in me. God is using the experience, the vulnerability, the passion for keeping her name alive, to grow me as a woman, a mother, a daughter, a wife, a writer, a creative spirit but most importantly a child of God.

When mum suddenly died it was like her light suddenly went out but as I reflect now I see that she leaves behind a legacy of lights in her husband, her children, her friends and family to keep her faith alive. Particularly for me and my husband we are trying to keep her presence real with our boys so that they know the faith Granny Sue had (she was grandma when she was alive but Zac was getting confused with his other grandma!) and how much love she would have shown them!

As I explore what it means to be a part of Mum’s legacy and all God has called me to be I’m praying God will guide my path.

Please understand I’m certainly not saying I am grateful my mum is gone. I miss her daily, sometimes hourly. I miss her part in my adventure and I hate that she is gone. I do not believe she was taken to teach me a lesson or that somehow her death was a positive thing but I have to believe in a God who deals with the bitter and can show me the sweet around it. I’m not sure I explain myself very well on this topic!!

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A someone or a somebody?

It’s so difficult to see yourself as someone who can be a somebody. Someone of use. Someone with a role no one else can play. Someone with influence. I find myself torn between liking the idea that I could be involved in something new and fearing that I am not the person who is meant to do. I mean I’m the one in the background who’s happy to facilitate. To do the dodgy jobs to help something happen – I’ve memories of walking up and down our church (the corridors are LONG) 3 times in the space of 10 minutes to find cups at 8.5 months pregnant – its wasn’t glamorous, it wasn’t practical but it was me and fitted my personality. How is it then, that you step out of the comfort zone which seems so in tune with your personality and be in a deliberate place of influence?!
I suspect I know the answer. Gods grace and purpose can overrid my fear, IF I let Him. Problem is my overthinking and worry that I am not who others see me as. The issue is that my voice will always be louder than the voices of those around me and I’ve learnt, and apparently forgotten, time and time again that when I change my inner voice to recognise the outer voices my fear is swept away.

However, right now, in this moment in time, I’m still not convinced I’m the woman that people see me as! I’m not convinced I am a woman with influence.
I’m open to God’s whisper to contradict me so here’s leaving that one to you God!