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Saturday, August 27, 2016

I QUIT, QUITTING!

     I love doing new things! I love meeting new people. I love surprises! I do not love to, nor do I  naturally preserver. Ugg! It seriously took me until I was 30 to realize this about myself. Paul tells the Galatians, "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain- if indeed it was in vain? Does He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith- just as Abraham believed God and is was counted to him as righteousness?" Gal. 3:3-6. 
  Are you so foolish? Yes, Paul, yes I am, over and over and over again! Recently, my husband Paul challenged me to "do something for a year." This challenge came in a conversation littered with my tears of failure and defeat in the area of making healthy choices in my life physically. I got good at trying something new and then trying something newer 2 weeks later. I took his challenge and even got a new Instagram account called, "even_this _jess." I was on fire! Determined to change my life in a year. I checked with God on things I probably shouldn't eat and stuck to it hard core! It went so well for a month! Then it was time to take my kids and girls to Headwaters. 
First day of my program that didn't work! 

Head Waters Trip with the Girls and Kids!







Huh, real life. I can't always control what I am going to eat. Huh, I wasn't prepared for that in all  fire. So I eat whatever I felt like at camp and when I got home continued to eat what ever. I was confused at why I couldn't get back to hyper disciplined. I got discouraged and this resulted in yet another conversation with my ever patient husband. I asked if he would stop eating sugar with me for a year (basically grasping for control and him to give it to me). "Ah, NO!" In all my arrogance I was shocked that he wasn't willing to give something up and be disciplined with me. He, gently told me that he has no desire to live a crazy extreme life with food. He simple wants to be consistent in making good choices with food and exercise. He said that his comment several months ago about doing something for a year was just to encourage me in that direction of consistency and never meant for me to make a program out of it. Huh, busted. I am such a: make a program out of stuff gal. I think because my programs make me feel in control. Then in God's great love and knowledge that me in control of my life will end in disaster, He frustrates my plans with camp food. So, after some thought my man came back to me the next day and said, "This is what I will do with you if you would like. We can commit to our own standards of healthy eating and working out that fit each of our goals and then have cheat days once a week together." What!? I love it! So its not a program but its is guidelines so keep me in check. I don't want healthy living to become anything it shouldn't be. I doesn't need to rule my life! It also doesn't need to be dropped by the way side by excuses. The reason I want to be healthy is because I only have one shot at this life. I struggle with depression as it is and this eating well and exercising really makes a difference for me. Happy Mom is such a blessing for my family. I want to give that to them! 
Romans 5
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

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