Sunday, September 22, 2013

When it Feels Like Everything is Caving In: Where Does my Help Come From?

I apologize now, that this entry has nothing to do with fitness, or health, or wellness. I apologize if it's going to come across angry and bitter, or even hurt. But the honest truth, is I am hurting. A lot. And this is my blog, so I can write about whatever I want. And I shouldn't feel the need to to apologize for it, but I am.

Life

These last few months have been hard. I have confronted areas of my past that I have wanted to leave untouched. My relationship fell apart and I still don't understand fully what happened, or what I could have done different. I have battled some intense physical battles, and a few viruses. I am grieving alongside my mother who lost her soul-mate, the person she called the love of her life, and has faced some major surgeries, and illnesses herself. I am watching from the side-lines as a beloved family member walks through the pain of his own relationship falling apart, and walking through the brave steps of rehab. I feel attacked in every single area: career, relationships, family, personal...You name it I have faced a struggle or battle in it.

Don't get me wrong I have faced way harder things before. Bigger more life altering news, much much more difficult situations. And I know I have come out on the otherside. And it's been okay. I just don't understand why everything seems to be happening all at once.

For every single question I dare ask: Is it me? What have I done wrong? Is this a spiritual attack? What am I supposed to do next? How am I supposed to feel? What the heck am I doing? Why does life hurt so much sometimes? How is it possible I have any tears left? Am I hiding? Who can I turn to in these moments? Am I making poor choices? Do I own thse decisions? And so on and so on...every question I ask breeds two or three more questions. And every person I talk to gives conflicting advice.

The Advice

You're doing just fine! You got this! You need to examine your own heart because clearly something is wrong. What did you do to cause THAT to happen? This isn't you, it's them. You should be nicer. You're being too nice. You can't hold so strongly to your opinions. You need own your opinions.

And I am sincerely just confused, and hurting. I hate being weak. I hate admitting, I have no idea what the heck I am doing. I hate that every single situation is beyone my control. I can't turn back the clock. I can't take back words that have spoken by me or others. I can't reverse decisions of the past. I can't heal broken bodies or broken hearts. I can't raise loved ones from the dead. I am at a loss. And it's heartbreaking.

The Truth and the Choice

While, I can't do any of the above, and I am at a loss. I am found in a place that only God can reach me in. I'm not trying to be overly spiritual...most days I don't feel spiritual at all. There's nothing spiritual about questioning everything. There's nothing Christ-like about crying myself to sleep every single night. There's amazing about knowing that in and of myself, I don't have the strength to face the next day, and only through Christ can I make it. 

One minute I lay down every situation to God in prayer. The next I'm hurting in a new way over it. The next day, I know that God helped me through yesterday, but I am just not quite sure I will make it through today. I remind myself daily, that when striving (aka: me trying to fix things) ceases, that is when God's strength is made new in my life. I remind myself several times a day that I need to again, ask God to help me trust Him. I read and pray that scripture time and time again: Even when I am faithless, God you are faithful. If I wait on the Lord, you will renew my strength. I will run and not grow weary and walk and not faint. 

The only consoling thought in all of this is: I have a choice. I can cash in, I can throw in the towel. I can walk away from God. I can stop trying to trust people. I can give up and just exists...or...I can keep praying. I can keep asking God for help. I can keep being messy and fall seven times, what matters is I ask God to help me up the eighth time. I can say with all confidence that this to shall pass.

It will hurt until it does pass. It will seem overwhelming, and earth-shattering sometimes, but by the Grace of God the mountains will crumble. I do not have to bow down to despair, I can put my faith and trust and hope in something bigger then myself. Christ can meet those things. I know He can, and even when I fail to recognize that, even when I fail to see His hand on my life, I can be certain that He has not left me. 

Father God, I just desperately need you. I need hope. I need strength. I need you to meet me where I am at. My heart is hurting. I need you. Can you hear the cries of your servant? Please listen to them Father. Please heal my broken heart. Please keep me close. Without you God, I couldn't take my next breath. I thank you that you know all things. That you are leading me and guiding me, and sometimes just straight up carrying me through things. I trust that you are Jehovah Jirah. I trust that the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the Father of the Christ, is still active in my life today. God please move. Please help me to keep coming to you and putting my trust and hope in all that you have for me, and those I love. God, please protect my loved ones. Those who's hearts are far from you, those who know you well, be with them. Guide them and carry them. Father, even in the hurt I say thank you for the pain. The pain lets me know that my love for others is real. It lets me know that I am still alive and still fighting. It gives me a small glimpse into the agony you must feel when your children, YOUR CREATION, turn away from you, it's a tiny small glimpse, and so dim, but I am still thankful that you created me in your image. In your image I was created to feel things: love, joy, happiness, peace, pain, hurt, grief, and sadness. By being created in your image I must remember there is a time for all things. A time for joy and gladness. A time for healing and a time for peace. But in that there is also a time for weeping and mourning. There is a time for pain. You bring the bitter with the sweet. I choose trust again today Oh Lord, and Father if there is any wicked way within my heart show it to me. Reveal it so I may be found in you. Please take care of me Abba God. Amen

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

I'm Just a Girl

I'm Just a Girl.

I find myself saying that a lot. I get into a discussion with a friend, and I cry. I put on a fake smile, shake my head, and say, "I'm so sorry. I'm just being a girl." Or I deeply feel compassion for someone, really and truly am excited at their great news, whatever it is: engagement, upcoming birth, new promotion at work, etc. and the tears come then too. Again, I shake my head and say, "I'm so sorry. I'm just a girl." Or the stress of the day is too much: failed decisions, minor mistakes made, burning the pan yet again while cooking dinner. I get upset. I have an emotional outburst and again, the head shake and the "I'm so sorry. I'm just a girl." Why the need to apologize or offer my feminity as an excuse?

This journey this health and wellness journey has morphed and evolved into something that I never ever saw coming. I have confronted deep fears, I have failed more times then I can count, I have cried way more than my fair share of tears, I have seen countless victories, I have run further than I thought possible, and I have tried new exercises that I thought there is no way I can do that. I have used my excuse: I can't do that, I'm just a girl, more times than I care to admit. This journey isn't about just physical health. It's been a spiritual journey, and an emotional healing journey. 

I'm not afraid to admit that since losing my job a week ago, I have felt lost, fusturated, and confused. Somehow without realizing it, my identity was wrapped up in what I was doing. I keep falling into that trap of life over and over again. I start off doing something because I want God to shine through and be lifted up, and instead find myself hoping my efforts would shine through instea. Being an emotional eater, and hating to cook, I have gone to Chipotle more times then I care to admit, and I have eaten odd combinations of foods when I am just bored, peanut butter & baby carrots, anyone?. I can't help it. I'm just a girl. I'm wired for relationship. I'm wired to need people. I'm wired to care what they think. I'm wired to cry when I am upset, or happy, or thinking, or confused, or...you get the picture. 

But God is showing me that I am exactly who He created me to be, and it's perfectly okay. I AM A GIRL. And therefore it's okay to act like one. It's okay to cry at the loss of things I love. It's okay to modify my workouts, because lets face it: I am just built physically different then a guy. I embrace the fact that I love people without reservation...once I've decided to let them in. I don't ever unlove someone. Ever. No matter what. It's acceptable and should be celebrated that I can feel so much for those around me that their life situations reduce me to tears sometimes. When my friend announced that the adoption they've been praying for is final. I cried. Great big tears. When my other friend shared a deep personal family struggle, and I prayed, for her as if it was my own burden, it's to be celebrated. 

Being a girl is hard work. Being a girl from a divorced home, with a history of alcoholism, and sexual abuse, is even harder work. The lies of our culture tell us how to dress to be accepted, how to act to be loved, and to throw away your self-respect to make it in this world. Throw in HUGE trust issues, a few broken relationships, and the receipe is hard. Forgiveness has been key.  I have had to forgive people who have hurt me, I have had to forgive God for letting me be hurt, and most of all I have had to forgive myself. And that's been hardest of all.

Each day, I strap on those running shoes, each blog I write. Every time I set down the chips and pick up the celery, every time I meal plan. I can feel the weight of the past dripping away. The emotional weight, the weight of sin, the weight of hurt...clunk, clunk, clunk. At first believing I deserved it came only through pain...bloody chunk by bloody chunk. As I have progressed on this journey of grace, love, health, and spiritual healing, it has started to come softer, quieter, more of a steady stream of healing. It hurts less.

Just Do It. To anyone who wonders if they have the strength to look at thier past and make an honest evaluation of it. To anyone who wonders if remaining locked up inside yourself is more painful than dealing with the issues. To anyone who is afraid to challenge themselves physically. My advice...is just do it. Begin somewhere. In a year from now, you will thank yourself for starting. I don't want to be in this same place in a year from now. And I won't be. By God's grace He has made me just one of the girls. I am human. I make mistakes. I am ordinary, and altogether extraordinary. I cry when happy, sad, mad, or angry. I pray often and loudly. I am crazy enough to believe God speaks to me, and crazier enough to act on it when He does. I judge quickly, but apologize even faster. I'm not afraid of being just a girl anymore. I am exactly who God created for me to be. Mistakes, identity issues, blood, sweat, tears and all.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Choices: Food Choices, Emotional Eating, and God's Plan

I heard a speaker in church awhile back talk about how she built thankfulness into her boys. She talked about how when they where low on money, and the only food in the house was a box of pancake mix and a box of noodles, she sat her boys down and prayed: "Thank you God that we have choices." The choices weren't plentiful, but they had a choice. I think about that statement often. Am I thankful for the things in my life? Do I praise God for the fact that I have choices? The answer, the very honest answer is: NOT NEARLY ENOUGH.

I like things neat and orderly in life. I like to make lists, and I like knowing the next step. I want this health and wellness journey I am am to be free of set backs. I want to know exactly what food choices I should make. Is it better to eat a plate of grain-free waffles, with raw honey, peanut butter and apples slices for breakfast, or is two eggs scrambled with tukey nitrate-free bacon and a small glass of freshly juiced juice better for me? Would I get more impact from running intervals and staying in the "fat-burning" zone be a good choice today, or should I take build up my cardio endurance and go all out? It can be an entirely daunting task. But...one that I am so very grateful to be able to take on. I am glad that, my eyes where opened to the truth that changes needed to be made, so I could realize the strength and physical things my body is able to acheive. I'm incredibly in awe of the fact that, God has given me the ability to reason through these "problems" and has provided for a way for them to be solved. Not every decision is an easy one. The solutions aren't always aparent, the facts need to be sorted through. Sometimes mistakes are made...that brownie & ice cream I had the other day. Delicious, but I certainly regretted it the next morning when my hands where puffy from the dairy and I couldn't put my favorite ring on, and I was irritable from the sugar crash.

But that isn't the end of the story. One mistake doesn't end everything, nor does it negate all the progress that has been made. Just because something is hard to do, doesn't mean it's not worth it.

God Speaks

I saw a documentary recently called the Gift of Pain. It was really really eye opening. It talked about how Christians sometimes have a harder time accepting and recovering from suffering, trials, and pain because they have chosen to believe the lie that if they are believers, pain won't and can't touch them. Christians mistakenly believe that if you're following God and are in His plan then things will go perfectly, and easily. The documentary, followed a doctor who works in the leper colonies of India. The fact that his patients cannot feel pain, is the very thing that is killing them.

A simple cut on my hand, stings. It causes pain. I know something is wrong or is amiss. I can wash it out, and apply an antibacterial agent, and place a bandaid on it, to prevent infection from getting in. A simple cut on a lepers hand, if left untreated can cause, gangrene, infections, and more. When put in that perspective pain is a blessing.

When I work out hard, and move my body in such a way that is improper form, pain will shoot through my body letting me know something is wrong, and I need to adjust. I have begun to learn that there is a difference in being sore from working out, and being in pain. Pain indicates something is wrong. Soreness is an indicator, that I was working and doing something right.

I believe that God speaks to us through pain. I believe that He even sometimes allows it, to let us know something is wrong and off course. And we need to adjust.

God's Plan

How many times have I gone to God, and been upset or angry, because I feel like He promised me something and it's not happening. Or there is a painful season in my life...and therefore He's not there, because if this was His plan, it wouldn't hurt so much. I think I have it all wrong.

I don't think I need to be suffering for God to be at work. But...the absence of pain or hardship doesn't indicate this path is His plan. The Isrealites, faced obstacles. They faced pain. They faced hardship on thier way to the Promised Land. It got so difficult in thier minds that they: LONGED TO GO BACK TO EGYPT. That blows me away!!! They longed to go back to a place of slavery, and captivity. Did pain, hardship, etc mean they weren't on the very path God had for them?

NO...in fact I believe it was a very real indicator that they where exactly where God wanted them. He was taking them on a path to get the Egypt out of them, so they could thrive in the Promised Land. Maybe, just maybe pain, hardship, hurt...maybe those are indicators in our lives that God is at work. Maybe it means that we are on the right path towards victory. Perhaps, the Devil is scared that when we reached the Promised Land of our lives we will never ever want to leave. He's scared that when we come face to face with God's sovereign plan for our lives, we will have victory, and will no longer bow down to sin, fear, hatred, or evil.

Maybe hardship means we are on the right road. Giving everything up and offering a sacrifice of honest praise in the midst of a battle, offering praise in the face of fear, giving a shout of victory when all hope seems lost, is what wins the battle.

Refusing to Bow to Doubt

I believe I can be healthy. I believe I can be whole. I believe I can overcome my fears. I believe I can face the past pain, and release those who have hurt me. Is it easy? No. But is it God's plan. Yes. Absolutely yes.

When waiting for God to fulfill His promises to me, I can believe that God answers prayers. When doubt about if I am on the right path creeps in, I will refuse to give into fear. I will choose to praise God in the storm. I can cast all my fears and anxieties on Him. He will be faithful to answer. He will make all things beautiful in His time.

God, thank you. Thank you for choices. Thank you for life. Thank you for pain that leads me to You. God, thank you that you are guiding me. That not for one moment has you presence left me. God, you are good. You give me comfort when there shouldn't be any. You give me peace when the storms of life rage. You give me blessings where I deserve none. You give me victory that I haven't earned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.