Just because I love you...

Doesn't mean I have to like you right now. We've all heard it before. We've been there, on both sides of it. What do we do when we feel that way about ourselves? When we feel as though, I'm stuck with you so let's make the best of it. That is not what God has intended for us. God has made us for more. God has made us to be always loved, and always liked. Now, I'm just a Jesus girl who struggles with the feeling of being disliked everyday. What do we do with those feelings? Do we go buy a new pair of shoes? Do we sit in our closet and cry? Or, are you like me, do you go to the nearest fast food joint and pick up a coke and fries? Well, that is not what God intended for us to do. God loves us unconditionally. God created us, perfectly in His image. When we sit and wallow in what rude comment was directed at us that day, we are showing God that what He thinks is not as important as what the girl at work thinks. This Lent I am challenging myself to turn to God in those moments, instead of turning to food. Instead of dwelling on what was said or done to me, praising my Creator that he made me like this, so perfectly in His image.

Weekend Made to Crave and Day 6

Made it through the weekend! I made it through pretty well, actually. One of the chapters in the book talks about relying on God's strength, not our own. When we rely on our own strength we will fail ourselves, it's happened before, and it will happen again. One of the verses that is linked to this idea is 2 Corinthians 12:9-11, “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness… For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Made to Crave: Day 2

Today was not a good day. I let food consume me, again. This is going to be hard. I'm going to spend some time in the book and the Word tonight and hope I am stronger tomorrow. I'm sorry for being a disappointment today.

Day 1: Goals

Yesterday was Day 1 of Made to Crave, my journey. I'll try to write each night, if not, the morning after. Yesterday I set my goals for the next 30 days.
1) Read my Bible Daily
2) Learn to glorify God with the choices I make about my body
3) Consume food, don't let it consume me.
4) Grow closer to God

Ways to achieve these goals are going to be changing as I am on this journey. Today one of the biggest things to do is going to be to pray when I am tempted by unhealthy food choices. I need to turn to God instead of to food. I know that today will be filled with good choices that will help me change my habits! God has given me this body so that I can do His work here on earth, if I don't take care of it, who will?

30 Day Made to Crave

John gave me a book about a month ago called Made to Crave. When I first read the description of the book, I was angry. I was upset that my husband thought that I needed this. Then, as I read the book I was filled with God's presence and I knew that God had led John to buy me this book, and I was thankful. After finding out everything the last week at the doctor and now that I'm hopefully on medicine that will let my body lose weight, I'm laying down all of the excuses and starting my journey with Jesus. So to help hold myself accountable, each day I'm going to blog on here about how God has used my struggle with food to bring me closer to Him.

Family...

Lately a lot of my life, more than normal has revolved around family. I don't mean this in the sense of just John and I, but in the sense of my entire family, John's family, and the idea of family. These past two weeks we have had joy, tragedy, and hope in our family. Before I tell you about our week, let me tell you about our family. John and I come from two very spectacular families. They are both very different in their own ways, but amazing just the same. John comes from a family where everyone is close and gets together whenever they can, I come from a family where I was the first one to move away, so it's strange for my family to have someone that they can only talk to on the phone.

When John and I started becoming serious about each other there was one thing that was so clear for both of us, we wanted a big family. We set a "rule" for ourselves of a 3 kid minimum and a 7 kid maximum. We figured that God would bless us with the family that we needed, no matter what. Once we got married we honed in on this prayer for a large family even more. We tried for a while, then came to the conclusion that God will provide for us. After a few more months we got curious, what was wrong with us? I then realized that the problem was not "us" but "me". My body wasn't going to function well enough in the right ways to ever give us a child. I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago to have this confirmed. Come to find out, my body will work. The damage is reparable. They ran a bunch of tests and found out that I had three different problems that were preventing us from having kids, the most daunting being Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. This has been the cause of quite a few problems. It is part of the reason that I don't lose weight very well and it's contributed to a pre-diabetic situation in my body as well. Finding out that we will be able to have kids was the biggest relief that I have felt in years.

On the other side of things, on February 17 my cousin and her husband lost their sweet angel, Maddie. Jesus called 4-month old Maddie home to be with Him. They lost their princess to what was presumably SIDS. My cousin and I aren't close, we're actually second cousins, but a loss is a loss and we've all felt it. As I've sat with the joy in my heart over the prospect of one day having a child I also sit with a heavy heart knowing that my family had to bury one of our own this week. A baby. I wonder why God called Maddie home. Out of all of us, he chose the baby. She had more of a right than any of us to be here, but He wanted her. Everyone out there reading this, whether you know me, or them or neither, please just pray for them. Pray for Kellie and James. Pray that God finds a way to heal these broken hearts. Pray that He finds a way to give these parents peace and understanding, that only he can give. Tonight as you tuck your kids in, or cuddle up next to your husband hold them extra tight. Thank the Lord that you have them. What you have now is exactly what you need.

After this week my heart is torn. I have to make life changes. I have to become a better person for my family. All of them. God blessed me with a great family and has shown me that they aren't to be taken for granted.

It's been a while...

Since posting on here! Things have been so busy! We had the holidays, of course. For us that always involves a lot of traveling. For Thanksgiving we were at my folks' in Houston, then in the beginning of December in Omaha for John's big family Christmas, then in Oklahoma with John's folks for Christmas day. It was such a blessing to see everyone at the holidays! I'm down to just working at the bank during the week, and the YMCA and Coffee Club on the weekends. I like that schedule MUCH better than the past month or so's. John got a job working for a company called RGIS, they do Inventory Audits across central Kansas. So far, he really enjoys it. Today, I'm at work at the Coffee Club and John's building new kitchen cabinets! I am very excited to see what they will look like when they're done! Our whole kitchen is going to be redone, so hopefully I'll be able to post pictures soon. We are keeping our old appliances, because they still work. This week we got a lot of snow and ice. Now that it's all starting to melt it makes driving much easier, although we are supposed to get more on Sunday. I'm also reading a book right now called Made to Crave. If you are someone that struggles with an addiction to food, I highly recommend it. It has totally changed my relationship with God, and how I view food. Realized today, we've almost been married a year! WOW! Enjoy Winter!