Sharing Rambling, Resources and Recipes for Learning in Life

Sharing Rambling, Resources and Recipes for Learning in Life

Category: Faith

EducationFaithHealthRamblings

The Key to this Journey is the Definition!

By Audrea2 Comments

I have not written for a while before today because when my weight went up during my weigh in and a LOT of stressors came into play with work, I just wanted to stop. I continued working on this journey. I prayed for dedication, direction, peace and strength and I continued. That alone is a huge victory even though I couldn’t and still don’t really feel it! Sometimes, simply NOT stopping is a HUGE step forward.

It has been in this time of stress, feeling like a failure and battling discouragement that I have come to realize, through God’s direction no doubt, that I must understand that this is a JOURNEY. And guess what journeys can be fun and light and spectacular! AND they can be hard and dark, uphill and tough. BUT they are never short.

I may not get to my goal weight before I go back to school in the fall! That’s a huge bummer to me. I really wanted to check this off my list before the additional time constraints and stress of the beginning of the year. However, school will always start again. Life will always bring stress and hard and mess. It will also always bring joy and light and refreshment. And, I have to learn to journey through it all. So, whether my path is uphill or down, lighted or dark, I just have to keep walking and praying and choosing the joy and peace of Jesus! This journey will likely always seem long until I get to heaven and realize that it was short compared to eternity. That can be a comfort, but even that cannot be my sole focus. Because God has placed me here and told me to live today and then He will give me an easy yoke and light burden.

FaithHealthRamblings

Should this Journey be Indulgent or Not!?!

By Audrea2 Comments

So in exploring this journey as a healthy walk towards Jesus through the life He’s meant for me to live, I am taking a more laid back and baby steps forward approach. Therefore, NOTHING is off limits. That fact goes back and forth from being freeing to paralyzing to derailing! Today I am discussing the idea of whether or not a journey to having a body that is disciplined and trained to be a temple for the Holy Spirit should include indulgences or not. Now, I am not talking about having some fruit for dessert! I mean true indulgence of ice cream or chocolate or cake or something arguably not even a little bit good for you like Dr. Pepper!!

I think that in view of our ability to enjoy food and gain more from it than nutrients that it is OKAY to have some indulgences. There is a key though that I think can make a difference between indulgences that glorify God and indulgences that derail both our goals and even our relationships with Him. I am not at all saying that our relationships with Him would be permanently derailed, but that the wrong kind or time of indulgence takes it from enjoying a creation of God to elevating food to an idol.

Yesterday was kind of a rough day after my less than successful weigh in on Wednesday. So, I think that it was a dangerous time to indulge! Because I was rather down it made it very easy to allow food to be a comfort and then that comfort could take the place of God where He should be in His role to complete me and order and direct my steps!

So, when you are in a good frame of mind and you have been working hard and following the set of guidelines that you and God have set up for your good health and wellbeing, INDULGE! Do it gently, slowly and focused so that you can enjoy the pleasure God has sent you through your indulgence.

HOWEVER, if you are down, sad, frustrated, defeated or struggling in any other way. It may be wisest to skip the indulgence. Turn to God with any and all of your feelings and emotions! After all, He is the only one who can heal and help!!

I think I could have indulged well yesterday evening given a better frame of mind. As it was, I know that I indulged beyond what my body needed or what was best for my goals. I knew that my body needed a chocolate chip banana muffin as an indulgence instead of ice cream to “keep things going”. So, I made that healthier choice for the added fiber and whole foods. That was good! But, I also had a bite or two or three of ice cream as I made my daughters’ bowls and a spoonful of peanut butter to go with it. So, in reality, I should have had one of those indulgences, not both and neither in addition to the two tablespoons of chocolate chips I had earlier in the evening. Since, I was still disappointed from my weigh in, I had received stressful information from work and I am struggling with how to best support my husband through some stressful situations he is dealing with himself, indulgence in a quick sand! So, in light of all of these stressors, prayer would have been my best and healthiest indulgence! There was nothing wrong with the foods I ate, the problem comes when I’m eating them to feel better!

FaithRamblings

My “Bumpy” Journey to the Temple

By AudreaLeave a comment

Today is that writing that I figured would come, but I thought would come further down the line after more successes had piled up to make the landing more cushioned and easier to take. Yesterday was my weekly (keep me accountable) weigh in and I had GAINED .4 pounds! Yes, that is only .4 pounds, but that is NOT what I expected or wanted after the “successful” week that I had had adding work outs, following the “food rules” that made sense to me and my endeavors to treasure the gift of food and my body at the same time. I mean, I’d been doing everything way more “right” than I did the week before and instead of losing even more weight than I did then, (like I truly expected to) I gained weight! HUGE LET DOWN and definite possible de-railer!

However, I still got up this morning and did both of my work outs anyway. I still made and ate a healthy plant focused breakfast and lunch and only ate until I was satisfied. Lunch was particularly yummy with a bed of romaine lettuce and spinach covered in heated up left over spaghetti sauce with ground beef and mushrooms from dinner last night. That was topped with an Italian blend of shredded cheese and a small side of cottage cheese. All served on a child sized plate to further help with portion control. I have also already drank 80 ounces of water today. It was SUPER hard to get up and keep moving forward after such disappointing results. But, I know that honoring God by treating my body as a temple has VERY LITTLE to do with the number on the scale and VERY MUCH to do with healthy eating, healthy exercise, discipline and obedience.

So, I am currently pressing on. I am relieved that I have still lost 1 pound since I started my weigh ins. And, I am hopeful that the changes I am making and CONTINUING will result in a more favorable weigh in next week. If not ,then I know that I have more adjustments to make and I will look in to that and those then!

FaithHealthRamblings

My Journey to the Temple; Small Victories Pave the Way to Success!!

By Audrea2 Comments

So far on this current journey toward the temple I have experienced several small victories. I am thankful and blessed by each one. I am attempting to relish them so that I can remain thankful and forward focused when I experience small or even large set backs.

The first set of victories may not at first even appear victorious. The first was asking a friend of mine to walk this journey with me with weekly visits and weigh ins. She has lost over 100 pounds through eating well and exercising!! She is currently working on maintenance, embracing the fact that this is a life long journey and taking a break from her scale because their relationship wasn’t healthy anymore! She agreed to meet with me! That knowledge alone helped me lose 1.6 pounds during the last week of school amidst baccalaureate, graduation, graduation parties, end of the year responsibilities and end of the year teacher gift preparation for the girls’ teachers! That was ahuge victory to me and I am SO grateful to her and God for helping me accomplish that loss during a time when fitting in exercise was not an option!!

Since we’ve been done with school, I’ve exercised every day (except Sunday). My plan was to take the weekends off, but I had time and motivation to get a workout in on Saturday and I did. Another small victory that felt HUGE!

We were all done with school on Thursday, May 23rd. The girls had been asking to go to the local library ever since the school libraries stopped loaning books in order to get ready for their annual inventories. So Friday, I took the girls to the library for them and I to get some books. One of the books I checked out was Michael Pollan’s, Food Rules. In it he talks about the “rules” which he says are more like guidelines of eating. One of them is the idea of eating to satisfaction rather than fullness and that has been working well for me the last couple of days! Another victory for this girl who hates feeling deprived or hungry!

So, with each small victory I gain a little more confidence that MAYBE I am truly on a life-long, forward-moving journey and road to the temple within my body and outside in heaven, my ultimate destination. Perhaps even my eating and weight and body composition can be sanctified!! After all, ANYTHING is possible with MY GOD!

FaithHealthParentingRamblings

My Journey to the Temple

By Audrea1 Comment

I am currently focusing again on health, well being and of course weight. However, in light of wanting a “forever fix” and having two adorable young ladies watching me, whose body image I want to cultivate instead of warp, I am trying to take a different approach than I ever have.

So, since one of the biggest motivations behind continuing to try to navigate this road and balance of life, motherhood, work, busyness, tiredness, weight and exercise is to truly treat my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, hence this title. I don’t want to just look a certain way or weigh a certain amount for myself. And it can NOT be in order to achieve some one else’s standard, because then, I will never succeed. I am on this journey wholeheartedly again, because I am not okay with where I currently am. However, I could convince myself that where I am is not that bad and that it is just the unavoidable consequence of birthing babies, getting older and having no time to myself! Yet, God has given me a higher calling than that that says just okay isn’t good enough. That calling is in the form of the command to treat my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19-20). It also comes in the form of being the momma of two little girls. It is the second form of this calling that compels me to find a different way than cutting out food groups or counting every calorie. My girls will watch everything I do and learn things, whether I am trying to teach them lessons or not. And following a specific, limiting diet and losing and gaining the same 20 pounds endlessly are not the lessons I want them to learn.

So, I start/continue this journey, trying to stay heavenly minded and find a healthy, long-lasting relationship with this fuel, gift, pleasure and temptation that we call food.

One of the things I am striving for is balance. I need balance in the ability to exercise around caring for the girls. I need balance in being able to eat all things. I need balance in this peculiar idea shared in Michael Pollan’s book, Food Rules, of “all things in moderation, even moderation”.

So far in this newly started summer break things are going well. I’ve been able to work out every day except Sunday which is what I wanted to accomplish. I’ve been able to embrace the idea of being done eating when I’m satisfied versus full (again from Pollan’s book). And I am even enjoying the accountability that I have set up with a friend who has successfully navigated a HUGE journey to the Temple herself.

It has been VERY tempting NOT to share anything about this journey publicly! I mean, based on past experience, I’m going to fail. BUT, accountability is supposed to help and sometimes just knowing we’re not alone helps us move forward. So, I’ll share and hopefully propel myself forward and maybe help someone who reads this and maybe hear from you when you read it and that WILL help me!

FaithFarmingRamblings

Fencing Freedom!!

By Audrea1 Comment

I was struck with a thought about our freedom in God while my husband was working to finish the fence for our back pasture. We recently built a house on 15.8 acres of land. This has been a long time dream for my husband and something I treasured for his sake. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of having land set off from town, a place to just “be” and a kitchen designed to host and serve! We had various ups and downs through the process of buying the land and definitely through building the house!!

Before we bought this property, we signed on another property that would have needed more work to accomplish our goals, but seemed to be in a better and ideal spot! After we signed, the seller backed out and we were told that he could even though the contracts had been signed by both parties. It was a pretty big blow to us as we wondered if it meant we should stop looking for land, stay where we were, or just buy a house that was already built. We continued to pray and seek God’s plan as we wondered. He brought us to the land we have now. Land that needed no clearing, the other land was almost entirely wooded and we want pasture, and was less per acre and bigger. It also happens to sit right between very good friends of ours who also happen to be our plumbers and a wonderful lady (who actually sold the land to us) who is turning out to be another Grammie for the girls! We are EXTREMELY blessed!

Like always, building took longer than expected, but we moved in over Thanksgiving break. Both my husband and I teach and he coaches football and track. So, between school and sports he has been VERY limited in time to devote to the fencing we need to add to the property. Spring Break was the first time he was able to get time to devote to it. So he spent almost all of Spring Break (Thank you Jesus for the beautiful weather!!) fencing off the back pasture.

One of the days he was out there working, I stopped to take some pictures and it struck me that although it looked like he was making our land smaller by adding a barrier, that very barrier would free us to fulfill more of our dreams. And that struck me as just like following God. To an outsider, it looks like all God does is set up road blocks and boundaries that keep us from being free to do whatever we want. Things like: Go to Church on Sundays, Only Marry a Believer, Abstinence Until Marriage, Be Holy as I am Holy, Don’t Be a Stumbling Block, all scream Boundary Line, Restriction, Rules, and Limits! BUT, EVERY single one of those things bring us to true freedom, realization of ACTUAL goals and dreams, AND protection from SO MUCH pain! That fence that Adam built did make our yard smaller, but it also opened up the possibility to run cows when we’re ready and to bless our neighbor by running his cows on it until we do. These rules from God may limit us from something that seems good right now, but they free us from guilt, shame, fear and give us the freedom and strength to gain SO MUCH more and SO MUCH better! Just like our children actually feel safer and freer when we give them boundaries, because it lets them know we are there and they are safe, we should revel in God’s boundaries. They do not limit us! They simply reassure us that we are loved, He is there and we are safe! Then, that reassurance allows us to GO and DO ALL things through Christ who strengthens us!

FaithRamblings

Mary or Martha

By Audrea3 Comments

Today is a struggle between who I want to be, who I choose to be, and who I feel I can’t help being!

I want to sit like Mary at Jesus’ feet. I want to sit in blissful peace learning from Him and trusting Him to perfectly orchestrate and work out everything around me. I know He is in control! I know he loves my daughters and husband more deeply and more perfectly than I do! I even know that if anything difficult, bad or untoward comes into their paths that He’ll use it for good! However, I feel like Martha!

I worry and pray for resolutions that seem impossible! I struggle to lay every concern and worry at His feet and walk peacefully away. I endeavor to serve with joy and rejoice in a calling that chafes with every step and thought. I seek blissful, faithfull peace and I can’t find it. My reality chafes against my wishes and hopes. My responsibility chafes against my preferences and dreams! I confess and ask and seek His face, presence and strength!

And you know what, it finally comes! Not when I asked for it, not quickly or all at once. But, as I put one foot in front of the other, I find solid ground. As I pray and confess, again and again, I find constant strength. As I focus on Him, I walk right past difficulties. And then, there I am, at the end of an impossible day with a little more faith and a little more peace and a LOT more rejoicing. He IS and ALWAYS will be faithful! It’s not always blissful, but being faithful leads to being faithfull, and being Faith Full leads to strength and peace. Then, strength and peace just might if I let them, lead me to bliss!

FaithRamblings

Its All About Perspective…Part 2

By Audrea1 Comment

So the other main questions or issue that I’ve been confronted with and contemplating is the idea and command of joy in trials.

I feel that this idea and plan of God’s has been coming up a lot lately. It comes up in the trials I face in life (so small compared to most people’s, but still hard for me), in Sunday School lessons, in blog posts I read, in Bible Study lessons, in sermons, etc. Since it keeps coming up, I feel that God must be trying to get my attention and help me see things from His perspective when it comes to suffering.

For a long time, I have viewed the command to “count it all joy when you face trials” as a means that God has for supernaturally inspiring us and helping us to avoid the pitfall of bitterness and feeling abandoned by an all powerful, but at times seemingly distant God. I do think that He wants us to “count it all joy” to avoid a perspective colored black with bitterness or hatred, with the lies of abandonment. However, I think that it is less of some nebulous, supernatural interference on His part and more of some natural perspective on suffering; more of an offer to see trials and suffering for what they really are: (perspective shift again) gifts of love.

I fear to write this because I know my sufferings are SO small compared to what others are facing. I write this trembling with the hope that readers would know that this is not something “I have attained, but I press forward” toward, even in my small sufferings. I would hate to add to someone’s suffering by trivializing how difficult and painful their hurt and this shift can be. Pain and suffering are real and hard and often excruciating. But whether it leads us to a breakthrough, a miracle or simply a deeper, more transparent and dependent relationship with our Father and our Savior, it remains that every ounce of pain is a gift. It is a chance for a deepening of faith, a strengthening of relationship that equips us for whatever our work will look like in heaven. And for those who have the honor of not just suffering, but suffering for their faith, a chance to experience the same things Jesus did.

Now let me be completely candid with you. I do not wish for more pain and suffering, regardless of this idea/truth that continues to seep into my soul. The truth that they are truly and completely, lovingly dispensed gifts. I pray not to be counted worthy to suffer as Christ did. I also tentatively and fearfully pray for a change in my heart for that. I don’t share this perspective shift as something we should crave or want. Who wants to suffer and I don’t believe God wants us to suffer. I share it because I simply believe He is willing to allow it in order to give us what is best for us. I just feel that although this doesn’t really alleviate the pain of suffering, it does sweeten the experience and it makes it easier to ask what (do you want me to see or learn or gain) instead of why (me, this, not me). It helps me make some sort of sense of the hurt I see and the love of God I know. It helps this equation match up and deepens the reality and strength of the verse that says, “He works all things together for good for those who love Him.”

So, for faith, growth and wishing I could be more and was further than I am, this is the truth I am considering, meditating on and SLOWLY absorbing into my soul.

FaithRamblings

It’s All About Perspective

By Audrea1 Comment

I have been mulling over a couple of things for awhile now in regards to this life and heaven as well as this life and my relationship with Jesus.

One is this idea that, although, this life, with its cares and concerns, seems the more real of the two, heaven and the spiritual world are the actual real part of our existence. It is so easy to get caught up in what is happening here and to feel like it is what matters and what needs to be done. That it should be the focus of my time, energy and emotion. BUT, nothing in the Bible backs that perspective up. Instead the Bible warns to be vigilant, not for people around you with differing view points or bosses and jobs with deadlines or even children with schedule and personal demands, but in watching for, and standing against, and fleeing from, Satan, a spiritual being.

Then the Bible tells us, not to create the perfect to do list and the perfectly balanced work and home life, but to use every experience to move closer to God and to live every moment to bring Him alone Glory and Honor. So, when the cares and concerns of this world are pressing in, and EVEN when they are pressing in because they are in opposition to Biblical and Godly choices and living, I can stand free to look at it from a different perspective. Those cares and the mounting opposition to Godliness and heavenly simplicity MUST pale in strength and importance when I look at them from a Spiritual World Perspective. This is because in the Spiritual World, although there are real and fierce battles still being waged and fought, the war is over and victory has been determined and set! AND Jesus WON, and I am humbled and comforted that He said, I can win too, if I want to, by choosing to follow Him.

All the difficulties of this world will still be here. I do still have to face people with differing opinions, I do still have work loads and deadlines, my children are still human angels and do have needs and demands that I must put before my own. BUT those things aren’t the most important. If one world is a hologram and one a reality, I can find rest in peace that this world is the hologram. It just looks like life, real life is happening in the spiritual realm. And, I will get to “see it in full” one day when Christ returns or I die and so get to escape this hologram and walk in the fullness of life. Until then, God does not leave me with only the longing for that time. But with glorious and generous glimpses of that reality, in the hugs and faces of the ones I love, in joyous reunions, in deep moments of fellowship with Him, in cards from family and friends and even sometimes in “likes” for a post, I get to “see as in a glass darkly” the glorious real life. The best is yet to come, but praise God for glimpses and tastes in the meantime!

FaithRamblings

Philippians 1:27a

By AudreaLeave a comment

I have been working SUPER slowly through a Bible Study on Philippians by Karen Ehman. It’s called “What Matters Most” and our Bible Study group chose it because we all have various trials or struggles that we face and felt we could all use a little more joy. And joy is supposed to differ from happiness in that it is separate from your circumstances. Happiness comes and goes depending on what you’re dealing with, but joy is supposed to be permanent and “no matter whatish”.

The verse that we are supposed to memorize for Week Two is Philippians 1:27a which says: “Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ”. This has been rolling around in my brain ever since I read it. This idea that my citizen is settled, I belong in heaven because of Jesus’ sacrifice and my belief in it. BUT, there’s still the ONE THING! I’m supposed to ACT like I belong in heaven from now until I get there. Not to guarantee or earn my place there, but to honor Jesus’ sacrifices and be worthy of the title Christian.

This idea just kind of stopped me in my tracks for two main reasons. One was that it is so easy to see this world as our reality and heaven as this supernatural, other worldly, idea that some day will become real when we get there, BUT that’s not true. This world is the vapor, the flash, the mirage that we walk through to get to reality/Heaven. The supernatural is our true reality, the spiritual is the actual. As a citizen of heaven, my future is decided, the “victory is won”, my case and debt have been settled and all of that is current and past. Done, decided and completed. I just have to realize, recognize and live in that.

The second reason this verse stopped me and has stayed in my mind off and on for the last week is that “Just one thing” is to live like a citizen of heaven so that my “life is worthy of the gospel of Christ.” And the gospel of Christ is that the most powerful being in the ANYWHERE suffered and died in my and your place, AND THEN used His own power to rise again to conquer death and let me and you be a citizen of His heaven IF we want to. So this verse, this “One more thing” is a call to live a life worthy of that story. So, even though I get tired and I feel like everyone wants something from me even when I have nothing left to give, how can I not turn to Jesus and ask for His strength, patience and love to give one more thing in order to honor ALL that he’s done for me!

And what that “one more thing” is changes by the moment, I think. Even now as I write this and one of those rambunctious princesses keeps crawling up next to me and wanting to color or read or anything, but let me finish typing this, my “one more thing” changes from sharing the thoughts on my heart from God’s word with anyone reading this to spending some time building that princess into whatever Her Jesus wants her to become! So, here we go, “just one more thing……