A New Way of..... Living ?

Today begins a new thing for me.  I just finished my first 2 weeks at a new job, I'm facing the reality of moving to a new country in a little more then a year's time, and my little sister had a health scare recently that has impacted my entire family.

Something you need to know about my family; we are are BIG people.  Like the lightest one of us might be 250 pounds BIG.  With this last health concern for my 24 year old sister we have realized that we need to make some changes.  We have set up "The Biggest Loser - Family style".  We all pitching $10 in every month.  The person that loses the highest percent of body weight at the end of the month gets the pot.

The draw of me gaining $30 and the fact that I am at my heaviest right now has convinced me to make some changes.  I have done something like this before.  I did really great with it, and then went through some major shifts in life (moved to a new city, got a new job, etc) and relapsed back into the world of fast food and potato chips.  I call it a relapse because that is exactly what it was.

I think we don't realize that most of us have an addiction of some kind in our lives.  Some of them are obviously horrible for us and those we love, others seem to be a little less harmless.  Mine happens to be eating.  I love food.  I enjoy eating and cooking with and for others.

There is nothing wrong with that except that I have lost myself to food and the reality of food on the whole.  I have gained 40 pounds since August.  I'm pretty sure that none of my clothes truly fit, and I've been avoiding the nagging of the Holy Spirit that keeps telling me that I'm a glutton and that what I'm doing to myself is sin.

Some people probably think I just went over board, but in my case my over eating is a sin.  I have stopped turning to God and started turning to food.  I have stopped praying and started eating.  I have let my body and my health decline to the point of losing my breath when I bring the laundry up from the basement.  This is not the woman that I want to be.

As a result I am going to start a 6 week meal plan and work out schedule to get me back on track.  The preparation for it starts today.  I getting ready to go to the store and pick up the stuff I need.  The list is huge this week... there are so many things I need to the recipes, but the reality is I'm excited.  I'm nervous about various other things and know that I'm going to have to sort through a lot of emotional things as I do this.  It has already started.  I have some fears and insecurities about myself when we start to talk about and look at weight and fitness issues.  I have decided to start writing this journey because I know it will help me to process it and will point me to a place where I can think things out.  It also helps that there are only maybe 2 people out there that know I have a this blog thing going on.

So here are to new days, new beginnings, and new things.

Mel C

today I'm broken.  it has been a week of realizing just how messed up I am; of having sin brought to light; of repenting and tears.  it has been a messy, messy week.  I don't know how to share it with the ladies that I work with. I'm not sure how to teach them the things I want them to learn from this time in my life.  it's all i can do to not break down and cry when i look at them.

they need so much more then I know how to provide.  they need more then me, they need God in all his fullness to come into their hearts and change them on a regular basis.  I need God in all his fullness to come into my heart and change me on a regular basis.  I know this is a truth as old as time, but it is currently one of the hardest things I'm trying to understand and apply in my life.

How do you teach something you have no understanding of yourself?  How do you convey the importance of an issue when you know that you don't really understand what's going on either?

I'm struggling today.  It has been rough here, but I can still quote my friends and say "I don't know the way, but I know THE WAY."

Tears and growing pains,
Mel C

Creative Changes

When I think about what it takes to be a writer I consider how I used to write.  I used to write on an almost daily basis.  I felt like I had something new to express every day and so I expressed it.  Everything started changing when I began to find other outlets.  When I was writing everyday it was because I didn't do any other creative activities.  

That all changed when I began to work at a bakery after college.  That provided me with a lot of outlets for my creativity.  I was daily discovering new things, new ways to do stuff, and thinking of new ideas when it came to bakery products and their presentation.  

Now I am in the new job and find that I don't have the same feel as I did before the bakery even now.  I want to write often but at the end of the day I find that I'm super worn out and have taped the bottom of my creative tank after 8 hours of work.

As I've reflected on this phenomenon in my life I realized that I really do like being creative, and I'm able to be creative in a whole lot of different ways.  In college I wrote, at the Bakery I baked, here I counsel, advise and love those around me.  It's crazy how different the same person can be at different times.  I love watching how God is taking the woman that I am and making me into the woman that he wants me to be.  I love watching God use different things to change people and their thought process.  I love watching things change and shift at the hand of God.  It's a blessing.   

A Recap

Struggle, struggle, struggle.  That's what this week has been all about.  I've struggled to sleep.  I've struggled to stay dry eyed.  I've struggled at work.  I've struggled in my room.  I've struggled at church.  I've struggled at school.  I've struggled.  That's the sum of it.  It's been hard and tiring.  And I've discovered the problem.

I haven't been having my personal times with God.  It had been an embarassingly long time since I had had a quiet time and I seemed to be doing just fine.  But then we went on a three day trip with work.  When we came back from that it was like nothing in the world was every going to be right again.  (Dramatic, right?)  I made it through Tuesday and Wednesday simply because I didn't have to go to work.  Thursday I went to my Bible study and conviction ran deep because I was 9 days behind in a 5 day a week assignment book.  When I got to work I was weepy and tired and upset.  I wanted nothing more then to just walk away.  I was ready to run out on my responsibility, on my calling, on what God required of me.  I was ready to go like Jonah on a boat to Tarsesh.  Not the best response to a hard week.

But I didn't.  I cried  privately when I could, I did my job.  I collected work from my students.  I did what I had to to make it through my shift.  And then I slept, after reading through the book of Jonah.  I slept for 9 plus hours, it was fantastic.  And then I got up and had some time with God.  Yesterday was better.  I wasn't as stressed out.  I actually got some work done.  I walked like a woman who knew where she was headed.

Last night was a blessing.  I got to attend a concert that benefited the adoption ministry at my church; I cried a few times because God is breaking my heart for the children of the word that need to be taken into good homes.  After the concert I ran into these four beautiful children that had recently been brought into a loving home and it was great to sit in the floor and let them climb all over me for a few minutes.

Today I'm making it.  I'm fighting because I know that it's worth it.  I'm pushing on because I know that I have too.  I want to be the woman that God has made me to be and I want to be here at all times, not just when I'm at work or at school or at church.  I want to be that woman at all times.  I want to be God's in all that I do.

I want a home that is full of children that are loved when the world deemed them unlovable.

I want a life that changes others because I choose to be obedient to the Lord, my God who was the creator of the land and the sea.

I want a life so full of love and joy that others can't help but be drawn in.

I want a life that serves and glorifies God in all things.

Mel C

The weather has turned here.  The temperature went from 101 degrees to the high 60's overnight this past weekend.  It's so strange around here.  It's cold and drizzly like we are in the Northwestern part of the country, but we aren't; we're in Kentucky.

I find the weather fitting for how I feel today.  It's been a strange day.  I've been draggy when I've wanted to have energy.  I've been sleepy when I needed to be awake.  I've been awake when I should have been asleep.  I've been moody when I should have been steady.  I've been scattered when I should have been organized.

I find myself discontent.  I love what I do.  I love the work God has me doing, but I'm tired.  For some reason I find myself wanting to go any where else.  This is a struggle that I watch the Ladies of the house deal with on a regular basis.  Being here is hard, in every capacity.

Mel C

That Girl is Gone...

Since so few people actually read this thing, I'm going to write about what is on my heart today without worrying about sounding prideful, because this isn't about my pride.  It's about God's grace and His glory through my testimony.

Last night I realized how much God has changed me.

I have worked more then 24 hours since 2 pm Thursday.  It has been a long couple of days at work.  I know my limits, and they are very, very near.  As in it could get ugly if I'm at work later then I'm scheduled to work today.  I miss having more than an 8 hour turn around between shifts.  But at the same time I have learned a lot about the person I'm becoming here.

In college, way back when I was just starting out on this journey with God (9 years ago last month), I prayed crazy prayers.  The kind of prayers that you pray when you are young because you don't really understand the work that is going to come after you pray them.  I asked God for patience.  I asked that He would help me to be a better listener.  I asked that He would lead me to a position of ministry with women.  I prayed that He would give me a job that impacted lives in a direct fashion.  I prayed that God would lead me to women to disciple.  I prayed all these things with out really understanding the words coming out of my mouth.

Now 9 years later I find that I am a woman I never expected to become.  I never anticipated that I would be patient enough to hold my words until I could speak without harming others.  I didn't think I would ever be living and working in an addiction recover facility.  I didn't know that praying for someone to disciple would mean living with 13 other women in a 3 story house.  I never would have imagined that I would be going to a Southern Baptist Seminary for graduate school.  I didn't think that God could or would change me so much.

Last night the ladies expressed some of how they see me and I was taken aback.  It's alarming to hear how other people view you.  It's also alarming how easily satan can convince you of how flawed you are.  I struggled with knowing if I was the woman the ladies described me as or if I am the woman I have known myself to be.

And then, well actually just now, I remembered 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away, the new has come."  I am not the flawed, self-centered woman that I was even just a year ago.  (I will point out that I still have huge struggles and issues on a regular basis, they are just not the ones that I used to have because I have matured past those issues for the time being.)  I have been made new and I experience new mercies everyday.  I am not the girl that I was, I am becoming more and more the woman that God has made me to be and it's been happening when I wasn't paying attention.

I am amazed at the work that God has done in the little time that I have lived here.  When I think about the things I struggled with daily before I moved I realize that my battles are very different.  God is teaching me the fine art of preserving and pushing forward toward the prize.

 I am more then changed.

We are more then changed.

We are made new, completely new.

The belief that "this is just how I am" is false.  We are how God has re-made us to be.  The parts of me that I thought were here for good, that were unchangeable, have become something new.  God is for real when He says He wants to purify our hearts and minds.

To paraphrase Beth Moore: "I am not that woman any more."

Mel C

run-a-way

Sometimes I want to run-a-way.  (I like to spell it like that because that's how I say it, it's one word in my world.)  I look at the recipes on a cooking blog and dream of having a kitchen that is predictably available and organized.  I miss cooking and hosting and providing a good time for others.  It is probably one of the biggest hang ups I have about the life that I am currently living.  I love my job, I do not love not having a kitchen to call my very own.  Right now almost everything from "my kitchen" is sitting on a shelf in my overly large bathroom.  I honestly think that Someone could do a little remodeling for me and create a kitchen by adding a wall to my bathroom, I mean what one person needs a bathroom that is bigger then my first dorm room at college?

OMG, that idea may have just changed my entire life.  I need to find a contractor or someone who could do this for me..... I'll need outlets, cabinets, a stove, and a water line.... that shouldn't be too involved should it?  What do you think about that.... I would lose most of my closet space but I am willing to make it work....

Shew, that's not where I saw this going at all.  Oh well, that's where it went.  Welcome to my run-a-way thoughts.

Daydreaming of cooking...

Mel C