The Difference Journal Day 3; Warning Warning

The last two weeks have been tough. It's like I put myself on  replay from 5 years ago. I couldn't see anything crazy that had happened to trigger this strange relapse, it just seemed to show up out of no-where. After two weeks of this out of control behavior, I finally seemed to come out of the stupor, shake my head and realize what was happening.
As I got to thinking and praying about it, I was able to see what might have happened. A few months back I had taken on several new challenges in my life. At first they all seemed fine. These are things am passionate about, however they require more time and effort.

 

I had grown tired as the weeks went by and old habits jumped on the opportunity as soon as my guard was down.

It didn't happen all at once, it was  slow progression of allowances. My routine was changed and I wasn't finding time to spend with God, so I was making choices on my own. I had also stopped exercising, so my emotions were down as well.

I needed to hit reset

On the good side, this is the first time in three years that I haven't freaked out and started a new diet, or bought ten new books on debt reduction. It may seem like a relapse at first glance, but it's actually a cause of celebration. God is making changes from the inside out. I'm not starting over, I'm affirming what I know; I can't do this alone.

Hope

 

The Difference Journal Day 2: Fasting Problems

catholicjokesandcomics.com

For years I was intrigued by, and obsessed with fasting. I would quiz people who had been able to accomplish multiple days, and plan my own adventures with the practice.  I would buy or make the special juices, and carefully plan my days of enlightenment. True to form however, the planning phase days, were my best days. I would talk people into these long 10 day fasts, finish two, find a reason to stop, and morosely observe as they finish the entire fast. This went on for a number of years. I never made it past two days, even with the special juice.
 

Of course the problem was in my head; my head is a favorite place for problems to hang out, and party.

 
"They" say; its all a matter of motivation. "They" say; If you wanted it bad enough you would: lose the weight, save the money, or stop doing whatever behavior is plaguing you. This was true for me. My goal had been to lose weight, even though I tried to pretend I was fasting from some higher spiritual cause or to get closer to God. I really just wanted to fit into smaller jeans. The pain of hunger wasn't worth the price. I can honestly say after years of saying " I'll start again tomorrow", I stopped, and my thinking has shifted. My goal now is to not allow anything other than the Holy Spirit to have that much control of my head and heart, including how to lose weight. The fasting, or weight loss had become the idol.

Now fasting is habit I am forming between hunger pains.

Fasting is still my goal, but now I "sprint fast", from one hunger pain to the next. The reason I fast now is to learn to not think about food unless I need to be eating. When I do eat, I try to eat I try to be smart about my choices. I am learning to walk with the Holy Spirit from hunger to hunger. It sounds easy, but it's tougher than you think. Food and eating, or not eating, had taken God's place in my life. I am learning to eat only enough to not be hungry and then sprint fast again. As I fast I remind myself that food was never a great "god", it betrayed me every time. God gave me food because He is good, I am putting them both back in their rightful places.

#onechoiceatatime #walkwiththespirit #thedifference
 
 
Hope

The Difference Journals: Retreat

This week I am looking forward to taking a solitude retreat. I am going to a place that has no electronics, a beautiful path near a river, and a warm spring in the woods. I am taking old photos, some passages of scripture I want to memorize and a journal. My hope for this retreat is to remember what God has done in my life, and to move closer to understanding what it means to walk with him in full submission of my will to His.

Solitude is difficult for me

I get wrestles and bored.

 In order to hear Gods voice I need to practice working through the uncomfortable anxiety of doing nothing. I will work through staying in moments with God and allow Him to renew my thinking. I don't expect to come back a new person. I do want to get past the habits that continue to catch me off guard and sabotage me. I won't resort to quick fixes, I will continue down the long road of a transformed life.  I hope to come back with a better recognition of His voice in my life, and to more constantly trust Him with my emotions; to live like the new person He has freed me to be.

Hope

What's The Difference?

The cause of addictive behavior is a problem that drives people crazy. They are desperate to figure out what makes them do things they know are destroying their lives, keeps them prisoner and taints their lives with shame. They run to books, counselors and spend lonely hours in tears, and anger. We love to hate our addictions, we want them gone, but at the same time, at our disposal should we need them.  Money, food,  substances, electronic devices, or any number of other things that give us temporary fixes to our emotional imbalances, have become the central focus of our lives. If we aren't indulging in them we are fixated on how to stop indulging in them. Either way they have our undivided attention. Often they are softly playing in the background like a melody on a loop while we do other things, reminding us or calling us. The saddest part is that the relationships that might be the ticket start us on the road to  healing are often the casualties of these addictions. We hide away from God and others to get what we have come to believe we need. If we were to shift our focus, seek God and others, we would find the grip of those habits decrease as we learned to trust. When our affection and trust moves our desires will follow. We have had such a short term, quick result, mentality for so long, we have forgotten what freedom and calm feels like. What it is to wait on God. He offers us the peace, love and joy we crave;  but we have been to busy getting temporary relief, and seeking other answers to hear him.  What he offers is so foreign it's hard for us to trust it. We have been lied to and shamed. We are left with anxiety and loneliness in our desperation. Our  naivety and gullibility at Satan's quick fix solution has left us feeling that we can't trust out own minds. God offers us a peace so deep that it will permeate us down to the deepest level of our souls; Joy so real that it will flow over the banks of our lives and touch those around us, even in painful circumstances; He gives love that will never fail or leave us, beyond anything we could ever comprehend and that always acts on our behalf to give us to what is good.

He offers himself.

Its time to come of the Shadows; replace the lies and trust the truth. It's time to stop living two lives.

Let go, live honestly with God, yourself and others.

Seek the One who loves you and wants only good things for you.

Hope Wirta

Ephesians 3:17-19(NIV)

¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Romans 8:26-28 (NIV)

²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[a] have been called according to his purpose.

One More Step

I spend a lot of days arguing with myself. Changing patterns in my thinking is difficult as I don't trust my own thinking in general. I know that my goal is not to focus on weight loss or saving money, thus making food and money the focus. I know that my goal is to focus on making one choice at a time as I walk with the Holy Spirit and learn to focus on each choice, not how I look or how much I have in the bank. In the end if I am making right choices one at a time, the weight, debt, words, relationships, and tasks will fall into place. HOWEVER: I find myself numerous times throughout the day comparing my body to others, making purchases I don't need, counting calories, worrying about things I can't control and saying thing without thinking. Those old tapes that having been running in my head for years on end just won't die.
If I continue to listen to them I know without question I will end up right where they got me before; Exhausted, defeated and feeling shamed.
I wonder sometimes how long it will take before the new tapes become the norm and I am happy to live without comparison, judgment or worry about what others think, in me and who God made me to be, once choice at a time.
Onward!