The Biggest Loser is Back! Why I Will NOT Be Watching On Tuesdays!

I’ve watched a few seasons of The Biggest Loser. Last year was by FAR the most inspirational! It had a lot to do with the contestants, and a LOT to do with the trainers (I’ve always loved Bob and I immediately fell in love with Dolvett!), but mostly, I think it had to do with me.

I look at recent photos of myself and I know that I have gained way too much weight. As much as I have told myself the past couple years that I really need to try harder to lose it, I just didn’t have enough motivation to do it. It’s especially hard in my situation when you have to work twice as hard while only able to do half as much as everyone else. I easily let excuses creep in left and right. I would hit a low point every now and then, tell myself this was it. THIS time I was really gonna do it. I would do great for about a week. Then I’d go right back to my old ways. After several attempts, I ended up doing the worst possible thing I could do for myself. I settled.

I convinced myself to view myself as beautiful no matter what. Don’t get me wrong, we ALL need to do that. But I did it in the wrong way. I used that as yet another excuse to not worry about how I looked. But as I looked back on the past year, I realized something. I LOVE taking photos! Every family gathering, date out with friends, special events…I’ve got my camera out flashing left and right. But there’s something missing from a lot of those photos. Me. I made memories of all these great times in my life, but I left myself out of them. I could lie and say it was just because I was behind the camera, but the cold hard truth is that I didn’t want to be in front of it.

I watched Season 12 of The Biggest Loser from start to finish. I work Tuesday nights, so I had to resort to waiting until it was posted on Primetime On Demand. But you better believe, the minute that it was, I was in front of that tv watching! I spent almost every minute of that season in tears. The things that the contestants went through, the things they overcame, the victories they experienced, Bob and Dolvett’s speeches, it was all so moving! I found myself changing on the inside bigtime! But I did nothing to change it on the outside. Even when I posted some of Dolvett’s quotes on my fridge…it did nothing for me. When I found out my brother was getting married, I set a completely attainable goal, with plenty of time to achieve it. And I’ve completely failed with that too. What will it take to finally break me and get me to make that change? What will it take to keep me going longer than a week on my goals?

Then today, I had a thought. I’ve been so focused on all the excuses NOT to do anything about it. But instead, I started to focus on all the reasons TO do it! It looked a little something like this….

Excuses: I’m too tired. I’m too busy. I don’t feel well. It’s too cold out. I’m too sore. I’m a woman (you know…).

Reasons: I will look better. I will feel better. I will be healthier. I will be more mobile and independent. I will be happier.

I think I started to realize all this while watching the last season. It just hadn’t sunk in right away. It took a while. But as I reflect on the new year and the goals I want to accomplish, it finally sunk in. I don’t want to be tired, sluggish, immobile, and unhealthy. I want to be happy, healthy, and more mobile!

With that being said, and with the dreadful holiday/birthday season behind me (dreadful as in all the tempting foods….the holiday/birthday season was actually pretty amazing!), I made a decision for this season of The Biggest Loser. As excited as I was to watch every week last season, and as eager as I have been for this season to start, I know this will work beautifully. During this season, I will not watch each episode until the following Saturday. But there’s more to it than that. By Saturday, if I have not fulfilled my exercise/diet duties for the week, I will not watch.

Also, I will be starting a blog where I will have to post every Saturday recapping the week before I can sit and enjoy the week’s episode. One thing I haven’t had is any accountability. That is definitely something you need when trying to achieve any goal! You guys will be my accountability.

I’m so ready to do this! Today marks exactly TWO months until my brother says “I do”. That is my first goal. On the day of his wedding, I will be in front of that camera and looking and feeling better than I have in a long time.

But I’m not stopping there! I’m ready to change myself this year so that I can spend the rest of my life happy, healthy, and in the best shape I’ve ever been!

In the great words of Dolvett:

Make results, not excuses!

Hard work! Dedication!

Eat the Cookie, Buy the Shoes

If you’ve known me the past few years, you know that I’ve recently begun two new traditions:

1. I write an “End of the Year” blog every year
2. Within said blog, I declare a motto for the upcoming year

Thanks to my little brother, I found my motto for 2012: Eat the Cookie, Buy the Shoes

I love Joyce Meyer! I buy one of her devotionals every year. She’s so inspirational, and she knows how to keep it real at the same time. She doesn’t just preach a bunch of cliches. She speaks the truth, and injects plenty of humor into it. You have to be able to have a sense of humor in life!

My brother got me Joyce’s book, “Eat the Cookie, Buy the Shoes” for Christmas. I haven’t had the chance to read more than just a few pages this week. But I have looked into the book in the past and basically, it’s Joyce’s way of telling us to lighten up. In the first few pages of the book, Joyce reveals the meaning behind the clever title. She tells us it’s ok to indulge every once in a while. Life shouldn’t be one big diet where you don’t allow yourself to have any fun because there’s always some responsibility staring you in the face. You need to have fun in life. You need to laugh. Again, with the sense of humor! We get so wound up in life, at work, at school, with chores at home, and with situations with people, we forget to have fun and take care of ourselves!

This past year was full of lessons: some harsh, some revealing, but all very much needed. It’s the tough times that teach you the most about life and about yourself. I learned a LOT this year! With losing a very dear friend who has the same disability as I do, becoming distant with friends I had been so close to, things taking a 180 at work, and taking on the responsibility of caring for two crazy animals, and trying to keep a somewhat clean home…I’m tired! I’m tempted to just sleep straight through 2012!

Don’t get me wrong, I had some AMAZING times in 2011! But for the past few months I’ve noticed, and apparently so has everyone else, that I’m just tired and burnt out. Suddenly, I roll up to people at work and instead of saying, “Hi, how are you?” they say, “What’s wrong?” or “Are you ok?” Of course after you hear that so many times in one day, you end up NOT being ok.

I realize that all I really need to focus on this next year is lightening up. I need to get my stress under control, and get my life organized, so much so, that it will be nearly impossible for things to get out of hand.

I need to have my home organized. I need to stay organized at work. I need to keep my events and activities organized. I need schedules. I need lists. I love lists!

My aunt took me shopping last night to buy stuff to help me get organized. You should have seen the piles of paper I had with me. I had lists of each room broken down and what I needed in it and I had lists of what I needed (and what I can currently afford) to get started on the organization, as well as the very aisle they could be found in at the store (I love the new Target app!). Shoot, I even had diagrams of each room in my apartment AND diagrams of different pieces of furniture and what would go on each. It was quite sad, but it was me. That’s the way I have always been. I always make lists. In college I sat every night before bed and made a detailed to-do list for the next day including classes I had to go to, assignments I had to do, phone calls I had to make, chores I had to do, places I had to go. Everything! Pretty much every minute of every day was laid out for me. It may sound a bit much but it worked. I got so much done, and I felt such a sense of accomplishment each day when I crossed things off the list. I was happy. I need to get back to that.

I may not do that exact thing since my days pretty much consist of going to work, coming home, eating, maybe watching an hour of tv, showering, and going to bed. But I really need to sit down and decide what needs to be accomplished on a weekly basis, or a monthly basis even. Then keep track of it. And I will be sure to include some “me” time in there. If scheduling “me” time in my day is what it takes to remind myself to lighten up, then that’s what I’m gonna do! And you can bet, on every page of that schedule you will see two things:

1. Eat the cookie.
2. Buy the shoes.

Balance…it’s the Secret of Life!

Our company was bought by a corporation several months ago and there have been numerous changes since…mostly with employees. Our kitchen alone seems to have new faces every day!

Over the past several days, I’ve talked more and more with one in particular. He’s always so cheerful and positive and greets me with a smile and a big “Hello, Kelly!”. When you deal with the daily stresses of our situation, cheerful people are very hard to come by. But somehow, he manages to hold on to it.

Today, I went to the kitchen to pick up my dinner. As I was waiting for them to plate it up, he came in and started stacking up plates on a tray to deliver. He said, “Hey Kelly! How are ya today?” I said, “I’m good, and you?” He said, “You know how I am? I am superb, terrific, fantastic, and totally awesome!” I said, jokingly, “Wow, what’s your secret?” He replied, “Balance…it’s the secret of life!”

As we’re having this conversation, he finishes stacking his plates on the tray, and the chef hands me mine. I turn to leave and see the guy trying to pick up the tray he has stacked 8 plates on (these are not just plates…these are plates with covers, so he’s got them stacked double high!). After just a few moments of struggling, he picks up the tray over his shoulder, gets it balanced, and heads out the door. I head out behind him and as he slowly makes his way out the door, I say to him, “I don’t know how you’re doing this right now!” He tells me, “Honestly, I have no clue either!” I laughed, then quickly replied with, “Balance, right?”

I replayed this whole scene in my mind the rest of the night at work and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how right he is! The past few days, I’ve been taking my lunch break outside at this totally awesome spot I found right next to our fountain. I love the sound of rushing water! It’s so peaceful and calming! In the midst of all the craziness my job brings, just 30 minutes in front of that thing can change the course of the rest of my entire day.

We really need to keep our lives balanced, or they’ll slip right out of our hands. But what kinds of things do we need to think about when we think about balance?

Family. Friends. Finance. Spiritual life. Health. Work. R&R. We have so much on our plates (or should I say, tray of plates) that it can really be hard to balance it all sometimes. We might have finances weighing heavily on us one minute, and work the next.

Raise your hand if you think it’s strange that I included R&R in that list above.

Nope. That wasn’t a mistake. It IS possible to have too much R&R! You can’t convince yourself that work is so hard on you and tiring that you need to spend every minute of your life at home just sitting mindlessly in front of the tv or lounging in bed longer than necessary. We all NEED some R&R every now and then. But if you let it get to the point of laziness, housework will start to pile up, things at work may start to pile up. Next thing you know, here comes the stress again, even after all this R&R time. You need to find that balance. Don’t think of R&R as “rest and relaxation”. Think of it as “refocus and re-energize”. However long you need to rest from something to get yourself refocused and re-energized for the next item on your list, that’s all you should take, whether it be 5 minutes of crying in the bathroom, a 30 minute lunch break in peace & quiet, or a day off of work to go shopping or lay in bed and watch mindless tv all day. Hey, we all need it every once in a while

I could take each one of these 7 things and talk about them for days and days…and honestly, I could probably even add more to the list. I just wanted to touch on something that I personally have been struggling with lately. I have found that I am very unbalanced. I put off house chores as long as possible. I come home and go straight to the tv, even if it’s just to channel-surf. I’ve convinced myself that I am entitled to rest because work is so stressful and tiring. But the thing is, I spend half the day at work just sitting behind a desk. So for me to come home and just sit some more is the worst thing I could do for myself.

After the Seventh Day Slumber concert a few weeks ago, I came home and made a list outlining what I wanted my days to look like from now on. I’ve slowly been making these changes and I’m starting to see the beginning of a brand new me. A ‘me’ that I WANT to be. A ‘me’ that I can be proud of. A ‘me’ that is balanced, happy, superb, terrific, fantastic, and totally awesome!

I’m almost there but I know I have to find balance first or I never will get there.

Balance…it really and truly is the secret of life!

A Season of Thanks (And Toasted Marshmallows)

~ Written by Daily Inspirations Contributing Writer Sarah Fine ~

I almost burnt the house down last Thanksgiving.

Okay, so that’s an overstatement, but I’m sure it could have been ugly had I been away from the stove for ten seconds longer than I was.

Picture this: November of 2010. An absolutely gorgeous Thanksgiving Day has risen upon cool and sunny Southern California. If it’s one thing my family does on Thanksgiving, it’s food, and LOTS of it. Most of us wake up before the sun and start cooking something. We always make the main staples of our Thanksgiving feast, such as turkey, stuffing, roasted veggies, but every year, one of us likes to mix things up a bit by trying something new. Normally, whenever we try something and like it, we’ll do it again the next year, and if we really like it, we’ll have it again on Christmas.

Last year, I had the bright idea to “wing” a sweet potato casserole. After all, I’d seen enough Food Network specials on how to cook one, how hard could it be?

He. Hehe. Hehehe…

Anyway, so there I was, in the kitchen, Thanksgiving Day, an hour before dinnertime, trying to be Ms. Martha Stewart and make a sweet potato casserole.

Now, I’m not out to toot my own horn, but I’d like to think I’m a fairly good cook. My mom works late nights a lot of the time, so I cook dinner for the family at least four nights a week. Not to mention lunches and breakfast (I was homeschooled –I learned how to make an omelet before I knew what Algebra was.)

As I shoved the casserole into the oven that day, I had no clue what would await me. 40 minutes into cooking, I opened up a bag of store bought marshmallows, threw some on top, set the broiler on high and walked away from the stove. Yes. I walked away.

Cooking Lesson #1: When making a sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top, NEVER EVER walk away with the broiler on.

“Make sure you keep an eye on that, Sarah” my mother would warn me, “it won’t take long for them to get brown.”

“I know” I said sweetly, secretly thinking, “pssh, I know what I’m doing…”

Well, I walked into my room and only expected to be in there for a few moments before I went to pull the casserole out. I must have gotten sidetracked somehow *COUGHCOUGH*facebook*COUGHCOUGH* because as I walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, with smoke pouring from the stove and that delightful smell of gas and flames in the air, I was greeted to my mother screaming “SARAH!!!”

Oops.

I opened the oven and watched as a roaring fire ignited my delicious side dish into sweet potatoes from hell.

Frantic, everyone in the kitchen turned off the oven and watched as I took an oven mitt and slammed it atop the casserole trying to extinguish the flames. In a matter of seconds, I went from having something delicious and turned into it something completely inedible. My casserole was dead. Thankfully, because no one was hurt and nothing was damaged too badly (except my pride), my whole family found it appropriate to laugh at the whole mess all throughout dinner.

You remember how Charlie Brown felt when he found out all Snoopy had made for Thanksgiving dinner was popcorn and toast? Yeah, well that was me for about the first ten minutes at dinner. ‘This isn’t funny!’ I thought to myself, ‘I could have set the house on FIRE! I could have killed someone!’

It wasn’t long however, before the sourpuss in me got over it and enjoyed herself that night. Needless to say though, I don’t think I’ll EVER be walking away from the broiler EVER again.

It’s funny how God can take situations like this, whether they are far more drastic or even far less, and turn them into an opportunity to remind you of His faithfulness.

Truth is, had I been away from the stove for a minute longer, the fact of an actual fire happening was very real. Only, stuff like this happens to us every day, we’re just not always aware of it. Imagine how many people you avoided yesterday with ill intentions and nothing happened, imagine how many car accidents you’ve avoided today. I’m not saying this because I think we have a bunch of stuff to fear, (I’d rather die and know I lived than live and act like I’m dead), I’m saying this because sometimes it takes a backseat perspective to realize how much we have to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving is in a few weeks. Crazy, but true, and as much as I love all the parades, food, football, family and fun that goes along with it, I’m one of those people who can get so easily caught up with all the “stuff,” that I forget WHY the holiday exists in the first place.

Last year, a flaming casserole brought it to my attention.

I had A LOT to be thankful for as I went to bed that night. A full belly, a warm bed, and a roof over my head. In a matter of moments, all of that could have been gone. It shouldn’t have taken something so petty to remind me of that on Thanksgiving of all days, but it did.

Hebrews 13:15 says “Let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”

“Continually” isn’t a one time thing. When you run water from a faucet, it runs continually. It doesn’t stop running till you shut it off. The word continually means “regularly without interruption”, which is exactly what I believe this scripture implies when it comes to giving thanks.

It shouldn’t have to take something like a near death experience for us to realize how good we have it. We may not drive fancy cars or wear designer clothing, but if we have the ability to get around and look nice, then we have something to thank God for. His providence in our lives requires a steadfast, continual attitude of thanks. This doesn’t always mean we’re going to feel like it. Sometimes I don’t “feel” like doing the laundry, but I do it anyway because it’s required. I live by what I “feel”, I have to live by what I know. The same applies to giving thanks.

God is continually faithful, when we see it and when we can’t, that alone is worth thanking Him for. Not just every 4th Thursday of the year, but EVERY day of our lives.

If you gave someone money to pay their bills and didn’t thank you for it until they needed more money, how would that make you feel? God doesn’t want a vending machine relationship, He wants to be acknowledged. We have SO much to be thankful for. The smallest blessing is His way of reminding us He will forever have our back, that’s His promise to us.

I want to encourage all of you as we enter into the Thanksgiving season, to not just get wrapped up in the “stuff” it has to offer. All those things are fun and we’re totally meant to enjoy them, but at the root of it, comes the reality that we have a God who deserves our thanks. Not only for everything He has done in our lives, but all He will continue to do.

Don’t let thankfulness become a “one-day-a-year” attitude that happens when you “feel” like it or when you’re forced to remember, but instead, let it be like a faucet out of your lives continually before God.

Love, Blessings, Pancakes, and Sprinkles,
–Sarah

Be Moxie!

By the time she was turning 50, my mother had done it all…she had worked as a waitress at Pizza Hut, she worked as an assistant to a dermatologist, she partnered with my father in his advertising agency, she was a director at a health club, she was a restaurant manager. Whatever she had to do to get 7 plates of food on the table every night, she did it.

But as she was preparing to hit this milestone, she realized she hadn’t yet discovered her true passion in life. Or maybe she had and she just didn’t realize it.

My father challenged her on her 50th birthday to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up…by the end of the day. On the eve of her 50th birthday, we all sat around the livingroom as a family and listened as she shared her idea. She wanted to create a magazine. She wanted to use her passion for health & fitness and her love for writing. It was perfect! But what would her magazine be called, and what exactly would it contain? This is where she called on the family for help. We all sat around and shouted out names. As we jotted down words, we needed to find one word, or a two-word phrase that summed it all up.

Thus, Moxie was born! At the time, “moxie” wasn’t heard or used all that much. People used it every now and then, but it didn’t really have a clear definition. My mother took on the task of defining the word herself.

When you look up synonyms for “moxie” you’ll find the following words…

Bravery, courage, toughness, boldness, adventurous

As mom had narrowed down her focus to the health and wellness of women over 50, this was perfect! She wanted to inspire these women to stop seeing age as a limitation, but rather as a celebration. Life doesn’t stop when you’re 50. For some, that’s when your life is just beginning!

I work in a retirement community and I have learned so much about life. I used to feel sorry for the elderly because I viewed them as weak, dependent, and for the most part, immobile. I viewed growing old as the ending of life. Boy was I wrong!

Recently, one of our residents was signing out to go celebrate her son’s birthday. I had assumed from day one that she was one of our younger residents. Our starting age is 62 and to be quite honest, I didn’t even think she could possibly be THAT old! As she was signing out she told me she was celebrating her son turning 64. I’m pretty sure my eyeballs popped right out of my head & got huge at that moment, like they do in all the cartoons. Her son was older than I thought SHE was! Turns out, this woman who I didn’t even think could possibly be in her 60s…was 84 years old!

We have another resident who has been to the hospital twice in the past month. When she came back home the second time, she wheeled in, looked at my coworker and I and shouted, “Hot dang! I’m back!” She’s 94 years old!

I am truly inspired by these residents every day. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel like this isn’t it for me. This isn’t my “calling”. While I love my job, I don’t feel like it’s my “passion”. It’s been so hard for me to admit that I’m 30 years old and still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I went to school for 8 years to become a teacher, only to discover that I didn’t have the passion for it.

But as I sat down with a soothing CD and a yummy cup of hot cocoa tonight, ready to tackle the job of proofreading the next fabulous issue of Moxie magazine, God spoke to me! I opened to my mother’s words…

“My daughter discovered her passion in the eighth grade…”

No, not me. Her other daughter.

My sister dances and spins a flag or a rifle with more passion than ANYONE I have ever seen! Every time I watch her I end up in tears. She has so much emotion, so much passion. It emanates from inside her and she draws you in until you can’t take your eyes off of her! It is so inspiring, yet, she doesn’t say a word or give you anything. She’s simply doing what she loves and loving what she does.

In this same letter from the editor, my mother proclaims, “It took me fifty years to discover my passion and now you’re holding it in your hand.”

For fifty years, my mother didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up, and in a year she not only discovered it…but used it!

The thing is, my mother did not come up with the idea for Moxie because she spent an entire day brainstorming. She came up with Moxie because that’s what she is!

Your passion isn’t just something you love to do. It’s who you are. My father is a graphic designer, my brothers are musicians, my littlest brother is a technological GENIUS, and me…?

Well, I’m about to be 31 and I have yet to figure that out. But I know that someday I will figure it out. And thanks to my father issuing my mother an ultimatum on that day, and thanks to my mother not only discovering, but USING her passion, here I am…four years, two months, and four days later…finally believing that!

Passion breeds inspiration. If you want to be an inspiration to others and make a difference to others, be passionate in everything you do. What you do may not visibly affect someone right away. But everything you do every day has the potential to change someone’s life…someday. Don’t waste your whole life trying to figure out your passion. Spend it trying to discover yourself. Your passion won’t be found in a list, or a quote, or a song, or in a self-help book. It’s in you. What makes you happy? What brings you joy? What makes you smile? When you can answer those questions, your passion will become crystal clear.

Be who God created you to be. Be brave. Be courageous. Be tough. Be bold. Be adventurous.

…Be MOXIE!

“Humble Yourself”

These two words were all it took.

On June 7th, 2008 these words spoken by Seventh Day Slumber’s lead singer, Joseph, smacked me across the face and knocked me down to my knees (figuratively speaking, of course!). I was in the midst of freaking out because we had all been instructed to bow our heads and close our eyes while Joseph asks us a series of very personal questions. To make matters worse, I was up front with all the videographers who were going back and forth and flashing us all on the GIANTscreen, whether we wanted it or not. As he continued to ask his series of questions, my mind was racing. Should I really raise my hands? No one will see. No one will know if I’m lying. Then he said it. “I beg you guys tonight, humble yourselves!” It literally felt like a slap in the face! I started weeping! I realized that in that moment, I was not at all humble. I was so self-centered in the midst of this beautiful life-changing moment. And as I begin to realize that, I begin to realize all the areas in my life in which I am not as humble as I’ve always made myself out to be.

Last night, as Joseph chanted the phrase, “Humble Yourself” over and over, it took me back to that day. I rewound the last two and a half years in my head. It was ugly! Yes, I have come a LONG way since that day, but I still have a LONG way to go. We all do! And part of realizing that has to do with humbling yourself. You can’t assume that when you finally answer the call to be “saved” (I put that in quotes for a reason….another blog, for another time!), you’ll have everything figured out. You’ll have all the answers. You’ll be perfect. WRONG! When you finally answer that call to be “saved”, you simply become you. You become real. You become honest. You become the “you” that God created you to be!

After last night, I came home refreshed, renewed, and ready for a new chance at all the goals I’ve let slip through my hands these past few years.

I decided one thing I want to start doing is setting aside time each night before bed to reflect on my day. I needed some good reflection questions to guide me. I found hundreds of sites and wrote down the questions I felt pertained the most to what I wanted to get out of my reflection time. Then I came across a blog post containing reflection questions. But these weren’t all happy questions. I suddenly found myself skipping through most of them because I felt they were too deep and would reveal a lot of things I found ugly about myself. Then it hit me, those are the very questions I NEED to be asking myself! It’s the bad stuff in me that keeps me from having a full relationship with Jesus Christ. It was that very realization that led me to answer the altar call that day in 2008. I was done! I was done pretending I was a great person. I was done pretending I had everything together. I was done pretending I had been getting everything I needed from my fake relationship with Jesus Christ. I was done, and I AM done!

As we approach a new year, I’ve started to reflect on things I want to change. Things I want to do differently next year. Things I want to grow on. I kept saying, “When the new year starts I will…”

No! The time to make change is now! Don’t get trapped in thinking you need to take time to prepare ways to make a better life for yourself! Do it now. Humble yourself. Broken, hurting, confused, depressed, unsure, unhappy…give your life to Jesus Christ this very moment and let HIM take the time and fix you.

Humble yourself…and become the person God created you to be!

Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

Well…not always. We had the most AMAZING rain yesterday! It lasted for HOURS! It wasn’t a crazy storm…just rain. I opened my windows early on in the day and listened to the rain falling in the background as I cleaned house. I’m not sure why, but there’s something so soothing and peaceful about the sound of falling rain. And don’t get me wrong, I do LOVE a good crazy storm every once in a while.

I’ve written a few blogs in the past about embracing the storms in your life, but I’ve never quite been able to put things in the exact words that I wanted. My friend, Meg, was able to do just that:

“Never blame a day in your life…good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience. Both are essential to life, all are God’s blessings.”

Huh?…

Bad days are essential to life? Bad days are God’s blessings? Well that just can’t be right!

But it is! One of the hardest things to accept after you’ve fully accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior is that bad things will still happen to you. You will still feel pain that you didn’t think was possible to feel. You will still go through times that you thought would be impossible to get through.

Think about when you exercise. You hurt so bad afterwards because you’ve torn up your muscles & ripped them to shreds. But once they heal, they’re even stronger than they were before. We’re the same way. We go through hard times. We fight, we hurt, we grieve, sometimes we even lose ourselves. But when things finally calm down we look back on what we just went through and somehow we come out on the other end even stronger.

The thing most people don’t understand is, God is not in the business of making a world full of rainbows and butterflies and happy songs and Fridays. He’s in the business of making each and every one of us more like Him. He wants us to be the best “us” we can be and the only way to do that is to let our guard down and fight through the obstacles life throws at us and allow God to use us. This lyric from one of my favorite songs is so eerily beautiful…

“When you start giving in, where do the promises all go?
Will your darkest hour write a blank check on your soul?”
Lyrics © Slaid Cleaves

Don’t give in as soon as life gets bad. Don’t start throwing blame where it’s not due. Bad days come. Tough times come. God told us they would. But He also told us that if we hold on to Him in those times, we’ll make it through to the other side.

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” ~ John 16:33

How cool to know that we have someone on our side who has overcome everything that we could ever face in our lifetime! How can you not find comfort in that?

Stop blaming your bad days and start thanking God for bringing them so that you can be even stronger than you ever thought you could be.

James Study – The Parade

Only a couple days into this study and I’m already so inspired! Mark so far has only gone a few verses into the book of James, but there is SO much depth to it. One of my favorite Bible verses is found at the beginning of James:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of any kind, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
~ James 1:2-4

So many people live under this notion that when you’re a Christian, life is great! No. When you’re a Christian, you still go through hard times. Bad things still happen. The difference is that you have someone to turn to who will comfort you and strengthen you like no one else can through the hard times.

It’s very easy to confuse “joy” with “happiness”. You may read these verses and say to yourself, “How can I be happy when I’m going through this?” Happiness is circumstantial. When bad things happen to us, we’re not happy. We’re sad, mad, confused, lonely, anything but happy! Joy goes much deeper. Joy is something you feel when you are going through hard times, but there’s still a part of you inside that says, “I know things are hard right now and I don’t understand, but God I know You’re watching me and You’re going to carry me through it. I know these hard times will not last and I will have a happy ending.”

The Comal County Fair Parade is just days away. It’s our local parade held every year at the end of September. It features local businesses, bands, local officials, and most importantly – SANTA!!!! In Texas we do it a little differently. Our Santa cruises through the parade in a blue suit and on the back of a police pickup truck. But still…it’s Santa!

Mark compared these verses in James to a parade he attended when he was a kid. You go to the parade so excited to see Santa. But you have to first sit through all this other stuff. Some of it might be good. Some of it might be fun. But some of it is just downright boring and painful to watch.

That’s how life is. We have good times, we have bad times, we have hard times we wish would just end already. As Christians we’re all living on this earth just waiting impatiently until the day when we get to meet Jesus. We’re ready for all the bad stuff to be over, just so we can get to the good stuff. I’m sure Jesus is so excited to meet each and every one of us up in Heaven, but He has given us all a job to do down here on earth first. It is our duty not just to live through and survive our time down here…it’s to embrace it to use it. The good times, the bad times, the struggles, the pain, the celebrations, the loss, all of it!

Don’t live your life so focused on how the story ends that you forget to read the rest. Embrace life. Live life. Love life. God took the time to write a story for each and every one of us. Don’t rush through it. Read your story one page at a time…and live life with joy, knowing that your story will have a happy ending.

World Changers

A few years ago, I connected with this guy on Twitter. He was the drummer for a band from Kentucky called 7eventh Time Down. I HATED getting those random band requests and almost blew him off. But something told me to give this one a chance. I’m so glad I did! Shortly after “meeting” him, I volunteered to create an EPK site for them. For weeks I was completely immersed in their music and in their story. But all it took was just a few notes of one song and I was hooked! I could not believe these guys were not signed! Fast forward two years and here we are the day after their debut album release on BEC Records! It’s been so great to be a part of the journey with these guys thus far and I can’t wait to see what their future holds.

Allow me, though, to back up just a little bit. Recently I was hit with this idea, as the guys had just signed with the label and were working on getting their album out. I’ve always had a huge heart for promotions and have toyed with the idea several times of going into it professionally. Any time I find a band I believe in, I do all I can to promote them. Most bands these days actually have their very own “Street Team”. It’s a group of fans who go above and beyond just buying CDs. They work to help spread the word about the band.

I knew these guys needed to have a Street Team but what could they call themselves? Then as I’m listening to their song, “World Changer”, it hits me….THAT’S IT!

I actually help run another ministry and our philosophy is that it only takes one person to change the world. It’s so true! The past few days I’ve been more aware of the people around me and how they behave. I’ve realized that we as a society (and yes I am absolutely included in that!) are so worried about ourselves, we don’t take time to think about the people around us. Well it’s time for us to start!

God’s really been working in me lately, especially in the wake of the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, and He has given me a heart for the ministry that I’m involved in. I feel Him using me to help the people around me realize that all it takes is one person to change someone’s day. All it takes is one person to change someone’s life. All it takes is one person to change the world. We all have the potential to be world changers. We just need to realize it, accept it, and listen for God to tell us how. We need to take responsibility, not just for ourselves, but for the people around us.

I wrote a blog post a while back about this guy who came in where I work and started shooting questions at me about how I go about reading the Bible. He gave me a Bible verse to read and warned me it would be difficult but challenged me to not give up on it until I get something from it. To this day, I still don’t get it but I did learn something from it. I learned that if a Bible verse is difficult for you to understand, try applying it to your life. Don’t try to adapt to the text. Make the text adapt to you. We all do it. Pick any Bible verse and ask 5 people what they think it means. I guarantee you you’ll get 5 different answers.

So today, the guy comes in again. He asks if I ever figured out the last text. I tell him no. Then he says, “I have something for you.” He writes something on a piece of paper and hands it to me. He tells me, “This one will be much easier for you to get. This one is clear as can be!” He then proceeded to tell me about how the end is near, and honestly, he got a little too passionate for me. He told me he wasn’t just making stuff up…that it was right there, plain as day in the verses he wrote down for me to read. After he left I looked up the verses and I can see where he was coming from, but at the same time I took it to mean something completely different. Even when the text itself was plain as day, I still adapted it to my own life and my own beliefs.

We have to do the same thing in life. This world is not our home. We spend so much time trying to adapt to the world, but what we should be doing is making the world adapt to us, so that one day when we reach the gates of Heaven, we will be well equipped to enter.

We are God’s Street Team! It is our duty as Christians to “promote” Him! It is our duty to spread the love of God. That doesn’t mean preaching up and down the streets throwing the Bible in peoples’ faces. It simply means putting others before ourselves. Serving others in any way that we can.

My absolute favorite lyric from 7eventh Time Down actually comes from their song, World Changer. It says:

Every day is a melody. A new song You have given me to sing, because You love me.

Every day is a chance for us to share love and encouragement with others. It’s a song He has given us to sing. What if we didn’t sing it? Yes, every day is a gift…something we’ve been given for free. But it means nothing if we don’t use it.

God gave you a song. How will you sing it back to Him? I encourage you all to become World Changers! Not for yourself, not for me, not for 7eventh Time Down…but for God. It really is that simple.

One life can change the world!

You Make Oceans From the Rain

It’s amazing how we can spend so much time and energy trying to put a difficult situation behind us. Then the smallest incident can make it all come crashing down right on top of us.

I’ve spent the past several weeks trying to convince myself that I’m fine without him. I actually started to believe it. Then in one night, thanks to an accidental text from him, it all came rushing back. All the pain. All the heartbreak. All the confusion and unanswered questions. The past several days have been really difficult because of it. Last night I got in bed and put my mp3 player on shuffle. Jeremy Camp’s Surrender came on and I lost it. I cried that cry that makes your throat, ears, eyes, and head hurt. That cry that keeps you from breathing and for a split second can even stop your heart from beating.

It’s funny. All this time I’ve tried to be so strong. I’ve tried to push through it, hold my head high, and leave the past in the past. But then I realized what I needed to be doing all along is surrendering, and as hard as it would be, I knew I had to actually face the pain in order to let go of it. I put the song on repeat and allowed the words to soak in, as well as the pain, until I was freed from everything. I woke up this morning feeling so refreshed! That’s not to say that the pain won’t come back again, but when it does I’ll have plenty of room for it to get lost inside of me for a while.

We hold on to a lot more pain than we might think. All those little things that bug us throughout the day. We tuck them in one by one thinking they’ll just disappear, but instead, they join forces and hit us like a ton of bricks when we least expect it!

It’s not easy to keep from doing that but if you ever feel that deep, cleansing cry coming on, the best thing you can do for yourself is to let it go. God made oceans from the rain and he can bring us happiness through our tears. We just have to be willing to surrender. Stop trying to get your life under control. Give HIM control and watch Him wash it all away.

You make oceans from the rain
Breathing life into this place
And I will drown inside Your love
Until I see Your perfect face
Wash it all away
Lyrics © Seventh Day Slumber