Yo, God~~~Renew Your Strength and Soar like an Eagle

But those who wait for The Lord, who expect, look for, and hope in Him shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up close to God as eagles mount up to the sun; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint; or become tired. Isaiah 40:31

As I reached for my weights this morning to start my daily weight loss class I call "Yo, God" my imagination already was ahead of me. Instantly I knew what scripture I wanted to meditate on while working out. Feeling great from the refreshing Christmas gathering with my family there were new smiles on my face and heart that weren't there before. 

Before meeting with my family I felt like the poem that stated "how do I know my youth has been spent because my get up and go has got up and went."  Mine was more like this:

 

" How do I know that my strength has been spent.

Because my get up and go has got up and went. 

With my spirit flat on the floor and my smile upside down

I wondered how in the world was I going to get around. 

My cancer had me dragging; life's stress had its toil,

was there really something I could do to get out of this hole?

Then I spent time in the scripture and exchange laughter with others,

suddenly what was flat was no longer smothered. 

It's true what God says about renewing your strength,

next time I will mount up like an eagle in a blink. 

It may take me back to the scriptures, to my family galore

but one thing I know I won't leave my spirit at the door. 

God is my strength its not the weights in my hands

but its His love and His presence that gives me my stand.  

Now with my spirit inflated again to be worn,

my upturned smile returns to me more. 

Come fly with me eagles, come fly with me now.

Lets renew our strength in God and get our feet off the ground. 

Life's too short to be a chicken unable to fly.

Lets fly away, fly away, fly away all. 

Mount up fellow eagles. 

"Yo, God here comes Your convocation of eagles."

Copyright 2014 Karen Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipe Publishing
Sent from my iPhone

95 day journey till Easter ~~~~~ Days 90 to 88

Day 88       Jan 2, 2013       It’s me not the food that needs to behave

One thing I’ve learned over the years is the fact that it’s not the food that needs to be obedient. Too often we try to give the task of being obedient to the kind of food we eat. After all it should be the one who behaves as we do our part and eat all the “right” things, whole wheat, all natural, diet drinks, fat free, or whatever else. Needless to say if we eat more of those “right” foods than our body can burn up we are going to gain weight anyway. Once when I was on a fat free diet I figured I could eat whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted as long as it was “fat free.” Guess what? Yes you guessed it, I gained weight.

 

The food was being obedient but I wasn’t. On diets we’ve had success with often once we lose our weight and stop dieting we gain our weight back. Why is this? It’s frequently because we haven’t taught ourselves to be the one who obeys God’s rules for healthy eating by eating when we are hungry and stopping when we are satisfied.   

 

It doesn’t matter what food we eat. We can eat a candy bar if our stomach is truly hungry and we stop when satisfied. However, it’s always smart to eat the food that is best for us nutrition wise such as vegetables and fresh food but don’t think it’s the one that needs to be obedient. Obedience to proper eating habits is our job. We are the ones who need to behave not the food.

 

Day 89          Jan 1, 2013     God’s Word In Action

A good task for anything we do is to keep God’s word in our heart. This is how I conquered my stress seizures over 20 years ago and this is how I can defeat my weight problem. Scriptures such as “I can do all things (lose weight included) thru Christ who gives me strength (Phil 4:13). God’s grace is sufficient (2 Cor 12:9) I don’t need food to complete me or my life. My body is a temple of God (1 Cor 6:19,20) I need to take care of it and use it to glorify God not disgrace Him by my choice of eating habits. Earlier in that same chapter in Corinthians it talks about how we may think all things are lawful for us but all things are not helpful and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be under the power of any of it. It goes on to say food is for the stomach and the stomach for food but eventually God will destroy both.

 

The ice cream I thought I needed, the fulfillment lasted about as long as the ice cream bar did. Once it was gone it all was gone including the satisfaction. What I need to do is concentrate on the fact that what remains is my spiritual temple I’ve been assigned caretaker to. It is the thing that will last forever and it’s up to me to see to it that it is cared for properly. It doesn’t require ice cream, pie, cookies, or extra food servings. It requires care, nurturing, attention, and the proper feeding of spiritual food instead. It entails me to allow God’s word to be in action in all that I say, do, and eat.

Day 90    12-31-12   The Fight Against Frustration

In attempt to do anything in life whether it’s dieting, going to college, working, training horses, riding cows, building bridges, etc we will always run into some kind of frustration. Recently as I weighed myself to see if I had lost any weight the scale went up instead of down.

 

Instant frustration could be felt over the fact that all my hard work wasn’t paying off. At the rate I was going I might as well quit now instead of trying to go on. The same old tape recordings in my mind began to play once more, “this is the way it always is, and no matter how hard I try I just can’t seem to lose weight so why bother!”

At the risk of trying to lie to myself along with everyone else I truly wasn’t trying. My ratio of efforts was reflecting on the very scale I stood upon as I pointed my finger at it yelling “liar, liar!”

 

When we lie to ourselves we are only adding to our frustration instead of taking away from it. Frustration is grown on the root of stress and it needs dealt with properly like everything else. Yes, life has its frustrations but that is no excuse to yell and scream and point our fingers at everyone else without looking at what the true problem is.

 

Frustration has a way of setting us back but we don’t have to give ourselves permission to stay there and make matters worse. Its better we stand upright once again and keep moving forward stronger and better as we overcome each of life’s frustrations and setbacks one day at a time.

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett at Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for Growing Beyond

 

 

The Need to Care

 Several weeks ago I told a group of teenagers that were boasting about something they like to do that is harmful to their health that some day they were going to care. They may not care now what they were doing that was harmful to their health but some day they would care and it may be too late. The picture the three of them put on facebook for all to see was their act of rebellion to show the world they didn't care as they made gestures to the camera.

Recently my doctor put me on an additional medicine to manage my cancer. Its a drug that could raise my cholesterol level. In precaution to see where my cholesterol started out I had blood work done. Guess what? It was high. Along with my cholesterol, my blood sugars are high, and my blood pressure is high. Go figure!

Two weeks before I was diagnosed with cancer I had lost over 30 pounds and finally got myself under 200 pounds. I was so tickled and proud of myself that I finally was getting somewhere in the weight loss game. After I found out about my cancer I lost my ability to care about my weight. Instantly it was, "Well I'm dying of cancer then what is the point of trying to lose weight and maintain it where it needs to be."

As the result of that attitude I have now in a year and half gained back 37 pounds. When my cancer doctor told me I would have to go on medication to try and get everything down to where it needed to be I thought, "No way." I need to get my weight down first then see if medication is needed.

On my way home that day from the doctor's I got to thinking about how I was no different than those teenagers who were boasting about their choice of lifestyle. To demonstrate my thought I went out and bought a candy bar to take a picture similar to the one they did minus the hand gesture to prove my point. With me no hand gesture was necessary because the wing expansion of my upper arm was all the gesture needed to the camera to demonstrate the fact that I didn't care.

Quicker than it has for the young teenagers my time has come that I better start caring again. I can't stop myself from getting cancer, or stop it from going out of control but I can my weight, my blood sugars and blood pressure. Today I talked to a nutritionist and I told her that I'm not fat, I am undisciplined. And that is the truth with all of us, we aren't fat we are undisciplined. We need to start caring to the point we are willing to take care of that which has been entrusted to us, our bodies.

My rebellious behavior isn't justified simply because I'm an "older" adult and not a teenager. Age has nothing to do with it. Those girls need to start caring now and so do I. We shouldn't wait until we "feel" like doing it we need to discipline ourselves into doing what we know is right and do it now. Right for us, right for our bodies, right in God's eyes.

"The time is now to start caring before its too late." Those were my words to the teenagers' weeks ago, and now they are the very words I find myself feasting upon today. For when we start to care it shows up in our attitude and its rewarded in our actions. After all, why wait till we are brain dead to stop doing dope, why wait till we have destroyed our liver before we stop drinking, why wait till we have a heart attack before we decide to lose weight, and why wait till we have lung cancer before we stop smoking. Waiting is bad for us and good for our enemy. Now is the time, not later to start caring.

**After I took this picture I didn't eat the candy bar I hope you know, I fed it to our three baby pigs. They loved it!

Saying no

Recently in our quest to lose weight and eat healthy my granddaughters and I have joined forces. One day as I said no to this lovely muffin I sent a picture of it to them and told them what I did. Or better yet what I didn't do. I didn't eat this. Some of life's journeys are hard and it helps to have the encouragement of others to get through them.

There are journey's that are not always fun but having a cheering section around you helps. Our plan is to go without sugar until July when we go on vacation. We may mess up once in awhile on our journey, so far so good, but that's okay as we learn to pick ourselves up and keep on going. Moving forward in life in spite of the obstacles that may come our way. The best thing our cheering section can do for us is to holler "jump" when those obstacles appear as an encouragement to keep on going and don't let life stop you.

Coping Skills

The journey in to work this morning wasn’t a fun one. The first snow of the season had finally hit. Driver’s not yet prepared with their winter driving gear slowly crept along the snow covered roads. Taking my time to get where I needed to be safely I began to think about being prepared and how things in life show up and we need to be ready to deal with them.

Over the years as I tried to cope with life's difficulties I did all sort of things to cope with life. Some of the tricks I pulled out of my hat worked well while others turned into dangerous paths that led to even more trouble.

Trying to cope with life is where we get into a great deal of our trouble. We do it all wrong when we try to do it without Christ. The tricks we pull out of our magical hat to survive are skills we dreamed up. No wonder they fail.

The biggest thing we can do for ourselves in coping with life is to remain strong is Jesus. We can’t give up on Him or ourselves. Just because we keep our Bible close at hand and pray frequently doesn’t mean life isn’t going to be a challenge for us.

As hard as it may be we can’t allow the emotions of the moment to take over our senses. We can’t turn to false hopes and temporary comforts like drugs, food, alcohol, or other people in order to survive. These are not the permanent solutions we need to survive.

Once when my sister fought with her husband she left the house to think things over. Her first reaction was to run to the grocery store and buy herself a candy bar before going some place to have a good cry. It didn’t solve anything but boy that taste of chocolate was her temporary comfort.

Storms in life are going to hit. Unfortunately some appear to get them more than others but everyone has their storms. We just need to prepare ahead of time for when they do hit. We do this by reading our Bible, develop our relationship with God, and practice fighting against Satan’s lies and his tricks.

For the next few journal notes I’m going to talk about things I did to try to deal with life. Tiny little things I used to get me through life. After that we will talk about the good skills that will make a longer lasting difference.

Merry Christmas my fellow Paulette’s. The other day I was thinking maybe I should have referred to us as Petterette’s. Now there is a word for you. Peter, because of the things in life he dealt with, his insecurities, his mistakes and struggles. Both men in the Bible finally overcame their flukes and flaws and were powerful witnesses for God. We will too. It takes time, effort, and the willingness to finish well.

Merry Christmas everyone. Happy Birthday Jesus!