ENCOURAGED IN HEART

My weekly weigh-in revealed a two pound, two ounce loss!!!

Three to go until my I get to my goal weight of 70 gone forever! I’m dancing in my chair right now!

Last week, God prompted me to stop moaning, draw a line in the sand and start dancing the Can Can – meaning, what I can do, do.  With my injured foot, I recommitted to exercise with what I can do…

This week I continue to have sand stuck between my toes as the nugget God hugged me with came while I sat in the desert with the main character of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

God can speak through a borrowed library book?

Yup cause well…He’s God! He uses a variety of methods to communicate with me.  I just wonder how many times I’ve not heard what He’s spoken to me because my hands were too busy people pleasing, my feet too busy with the hurry-up syndrome and my spirit restless because I was more focused on my omni-present “To Do List” than Him!

(Back to the sandy desert…

The main character is a shepherd boy in pursuit of his Personal Legend (his purpose/passion/destiny).  His pursuit led him via a long journey to the desert where he spoke,

“Every second of the search is an encounter with God…When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.” (1)

Every second of this now, six year journey for health and life, has been amazing encounter(s) with God.  I thought I was searching for weight loss, but I discovered along the way that it was a deeper relationship with God. He revealed my purpose and my passion, “to encourage women, with practical principles, for a purposeful and powerful life in Christ!”

Through this journey and relationship, I have received intense emotional healing. Without God’s promptings, I would not have known nor had the courage to pursue emotional healing. Emotional healing that I was completely unaware I needed. I’m now in the acceptance stage from the most painful moments of my life: my mother’s death, childhood pain, our children’s deaths, and my near spiritual death.  Putting this all together seemed impossible.  But with God, and only with God, it and I are possibilities.

I often wonder, “God, why do you want me to blog about when I get my “binge on”?”

God immediately reminded me of this verse:

[No] for God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.  1 Corinthians 1:27 (Amplified Bible)

It’s not because I am strong that I’ve lost 67 pounds.  No, it’s because I’ve finally come to realize I’m a weakling without Him.  He has made me strong to endure this journey. When I’ve been dehydrated in the middle of the desert, He’s refreshed, parched me.  Yes, it’s taken MUCH longer than I thought.  But the deliberate steps He’s directed have acted as miracle-producing-oases.

My translation to 1 Corinthians 1:27 scripture above is:

God uses the wacky folks (me…you too?!?)  to make the smart folks scratch their heads and rethink this whole faith-gig!

I love the beach, and sand in my toes.  For a suburbanite woman that is surrounded by cement, this has been quite a pleasant surprise to be tangoing my toes in the sand (that is on the other side of the line!)

Well, what do you think…are you ready to get sand in your toes too?

The choice is yours.  Remember, with God…you can!

(1) Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist (New York: HaperCollins Publishers, 1988), 146-147.

My weekly weigh-in revealed a five ounce gain.  Deep breath…Tuesday (my weigh-in day) it was not okay because for weeks, the ounces have crept on.  Today, it is okay…because I learned a new dance…you’ll know what I mean by the end of this post!

Five pounds to my goal!

Wednesday I saw the podiatrist, who after exam and x-rays, diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis.  (Sounds obscene, no?!?)  So I now have a name for my foot pain, great.

He prescribed steroids (look out Arh-nold!)…

taped my foot, and said come back in two weeks.  So that’s that.

Side note:  If we were to have another child, my name preference is first, Google, and the very next offspring would be Wikipedia (the free online encyclopedia!).  For any medically deficient as moi, “Plantar fasciitis is a painful inflammatory condition of the foot caused by excessive wear to the plantar fascia that supports the arch or by biomechanical faults that cause abnormal pronation.[1] The pain usually is felt on the underside of the heel, and is often most intense with the first steps of the day. It is commonly associated with long periods of weight bearing or sudden changes in weight bearing or activity.” (Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_fasciitis)

The weekly nugget God revealed is, I need to learn how to do the Can Can.

The Can Can?

Yup…the Can Can.  But, more than just the dance.

I’m in no way a Solid Gold dancer.  I would never even consider auditioning for a Fame rerun.  But, I am a dancing fool!  Dave and I met at a bar/casino
dance club (like all Christian couples, right?!) in Biloxi, Mississippi
and we’ve been steppin’ ever since!

We don’t have “a style”, and if we did, I think it would be most accurate to itemize it as “The Elaine” from Seinfeld.  We just celebrated our 12th Wedding Anniversary this past weekend, and we were back shakin’ it together!

My romantic honey surprised me with a Moonlight Dinner at a local vineyard, where we boogied until we closed the place down.  (And, yes, my foot barked like a dog.  But a night dancing with my honey…how could I pass up such a treat?!?!)

The place was just BEAUTIFUL!  The Blue Ridge Mountains…

With abundant grapevines…

A perfect evening, not too hot – not too cold…

And I was cooked for.  Feed me and I’m one happy girl!  Ahhhhhh….so relaxing.

You might have noticed in the first photo, Dave’s right arm was bandaged in a cast.  In October, Dave had his elbow operated on (ulnar nerve released).  He had a great recovery, but then re injured it during a home repair.  His elbow’s been barking too.

Well, both Dave and I have had a contagious case of “the moans”, and have been cross contaminating one another.  “The moans” derived from being in the middle of great exercise regiments, and then blam-o, set back with an aching elbow and foot.

So our happy feet created a new dance, the “Can’t Can’t”…what we can’t do.  And since Dave’s primary dance move is “the robot”, you can easily see why his arm ailment plagues him.

And hence, God’s nugget dropped, learn how to do the “Can Can”.

Mid week, I felt God encourage me with, “draw a line in the sand now Steph, what you can’t do, don’t do. But what I can do, DO!”  I can’t run, but I can lift, do abs and low impact (doc said biking would still be okay).  I need to focus on that.

So, yesterday, I drew a line in the sand.

What I can do…I will do.  The best biblical approach to the “Can Can” is this:

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 (New International Version)

Just reading that Bible verse makes me want to flex! And why not, I’m on steroids, my muscles just have to be bigger right now!

Since God is for me, in me and with me..I Can DO the Can Can!!! And that is something really worth booging-ooging about!

Is there an area where you need to step out and start dancing the “Can Can”? With Christ, we’re never too old to learn a new step!

My weekly weigh-in revealed a two ounce gain…so you can imagine my chagrin. I have five pounds until I hit my goal…which at times, seems so far away.  It seemed much less further when I was just TWO pounds away from touching it!

When I widen my goal from a view finder to a wide screen perspective…I’ve come a long way baby! (no need to take a drag on a smoke with that one!).  Five left, 65 gone is enough to get the party started in celebration.  (Immediately, I think of Kool and the Gang, “Cel-e-brate good times, come on!”

I need to keep reminding myself I didn’t place the goal number in my heart, God did.  I believe something tremendously exciting will happen, like, maybe I’ll get my first piece of writing published, or something delightful will occur at the goal weight!

I did make a podiatrist appointment…which would have occurred in two weeks as the Doc’s on vacation!

(Seriously on vacation when I want to see him, now? How dare he live a balanced life when my foot’s hurting! The gall!)

Then I received a loving comment from Leigh Ann last week, which prompted a sense of urgency.

(* Please pray for Leigh Ann and her foot/ankle to be healed and avoid surgery!)

So, I canceled that appointment and booked with  another foot/ankle doc next Wednesday.  Which leads me to the nugget God dropped on my heart, I am a rebel with a cause.

Unlike the coiffed hair, leather jacket wearing, cig smokin’, smooth operator, James Dean…

I nod to the “rebel” part but I am certainly not without a cause. My cause is to know Him more. And girl, I’ve gotten to know Him more (and myself) through this commitment to spiritual, physical and emotional health.  Paul said it artistically,

[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [[a]which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] Philippians 3:10 (Amplified Bible)

My rebellious flesh decided to ignore my foot pain, this is until after I get to my goal, then I’ll get it checked out.  So again, I focused on end game and my rebellion sidelined me from the running and high impact exercise that I enjoy.  I need to listen to not just the promptings of the Holy Spirit but honor the promptings of my body. Cause my body and life is a gift from God.  I need to honor and care for it as such…not after I get to my goal weight…

My outward rebellions look drastically different these days…like using the breakfast spoon not just for my oatmeal…he, he!

Monkey see…monkey do:

Pray for our kiddos, would ya!?  Dave and I are concerned about their meshed West Virginia and New Jerseyian genetics!

It is not my outward rebellions, while still important to God, that are significant.  It’s my inner rebellions, you know the ones….that others can’t “see”.  The ones that only God and I know about (and well, you, since I’m writing about some of them!)

Let us rebel no further, remain committed to the cause and keep pressing forward together!

Take an honest inventory.  Where are you wearing a leather jacket, puffed hair, with sexy half-squinted eyes – doing life your own way?  What is one area, just focus on one, where have you rebelled, that only you and God know about?  God’s not nearly as interested in our tidy outer appearance, but rather a tidy internal life.

Ask God to forgive you, share you struggle with a fellow sister and keep pressing on towards the cause!