Transformation

Growth.

 

Change.

 

Evolution.

 

Transformation.

 

Why are these thing so scary?

 

If when we die, our lives are the exact same as when we were born, something has gone horribly wrong.  As we live life day by day, we mature.  As we develop new relationships, new responsibilities we evolve.  Adapt.

 

These are all a requirement of a successful life.  Why do we fight against change?  Get offended when someone offers a word of correction?

 

In Your Secret Name, Mr. Oberbrunner suggests "Left to our own devices, we usually choose the path of least resistance and prefer stagnation over transformation.

That is so hard for me to handle.  That's not the case with me when it comes to running.  I'm constantly trying to grown and improve.  Once I "mastered" (please know I use that term loosely) the 5K distance, I kept pressing myself to increase distance.  And when I'd completed the 13.1 half marathon distance, I decided to work a on speed.

That's how it should be in other aspects of my life as well, but instead I find myself clinging to sameness.  How many times have we offered up the excuse "That's the way I was when you married me!" as if that somehow validates our flaws.

Sure, I had an independent streak when I got married - because up until that point I WAS independent. 

I also had slacked in my Bible study around the time I got married (we'll come back to the why later), does that make it okay to continue neglecting God's word?  Of course not!

"I'm not a morning person."  Was another excuse I used to remain stagnant.  I just couldn't possibly get up early to have my daily devotional time.  Remember when you got up at 5:30 every morning to lift weights?  Poop.  I guess that proves it can be done with the right motivation. 

What better motivation do I need than to give God my first fruits of the day?  (Okay maybe not first.  I do shower, dress, and put on make up first.  After all I do need a little time to wake up so I can understand what I read.) 

Another thing that has helped is a notebook to accompany my readings.  Courtney at Women Living Well suggested it in her Putting Your House in Order post.  I now read each chapter, then stop to reflect on what God is saying or application for my life.  It very much keeps me from just blazing through the readings just to mark something else off my "to do" list.



Sometimes that growth means putting aside Given Names.  Selfish. Superficial. Judgmental. Hypocritical.
None of those things make me into the woman of God I'm called to be.  Its past time to confess them, and hand them over to the Lord.   He's got far better things in store for me.

I'm linking up (as is my standard Tuesday routine) with Marla's read along.  Head on over there to check out what others had to say about chapters 12 and 13.

Disclosure: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. If you click through to Amazon from Smart + Strong = Sexy, any purchase you make supports this site.

Character vs Comfort

We're plugging along on the Your Secret Name read along.  In Chapters 10 and 11 author Kary Oberbrunner continues with the parallel stories of Jacob, and Mr. Oberbrunner's own personal testimony. 

Marla has been giving us some great prompts for further discussion.  This week she writes:

On page 111, Kary writes, “With Jacob’s situation in mind, we might wonder why God allows his children to remain in painful places.” He says that one answer would be that “times of testing instill character development.” What are some other reasons God might allow his children to remain in painful places? And do you have a personal example?

I'm not sure where the idea got started that God's main purpose is to make His followers comfortable got started.  Crack open your Bible and show me one place where it says that.

Jesus certainly didn't live a plush, cushy life.  He was born into a working class family and in the last days of His life here on Earth He was abandoned by most of His close friends, to die a horrible death.

Maybe its a lesson I need to better learn, because its a topic that's come up in a lot of books I've been reading lately.  Whether it be giving up material possessions (Radical by David Platt) or giving up my pride (From Blushing Bride to Wedded Wife by Marla Taviano) or even stepping out of my comfort zone (Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall &Denver Moore ) the call of Christianity is to put off self and serve.

Having said all that, I will reiterate my point from last week - its easy for me to stay.  I'm not the one struggling from week to week wondering how I'm going to cover the bills.  (When my parents were in this situation they made a careful effort to keep my sister and I in the dark.)  I've never been abused or homeless. 

Sure I've had heart ache.  There was that time I rebelled against God and dated someone I knew I shouldn't.  While I can't be certain that ache outbreak wasn't a smite from God, it certainly cleared up once said bad boy dumped me.

I've lost beloved grandparents, who'd lived long full lives and died of illnesses brought on by old age.

My one experience with true pain - that moment where God has to hold you because you don't have the strength to stand - ended in a beautiful miracle of God.  My sister, at the age of 27, suffered congestive heart failure after the birth of her first child. 

She spent several days in Cardiac ICU and had to have pounds of fluid drained from around her heart.  While her husband and my parents stayed spent as much time as the hospital as they could, I stayed at home with her 6 day old baby.  I'd never baby sat, or even really been around small children.

My best friend was knocking on death's door and I was alone, with no one to comfort me but this creature that kept spitting up and pooping. 

And the Maker of the Universe.

I have no clue why we got a miracle.  Why God chose to resort my sister's health leaving behind no ill effects.  But I know without a doubt God used those days to change me.  He opened my eyes to my ability to serve despite experience or even willingness. 

I can only pray that the next time one of those devastatingly painful moments come - I'll better know how to rely on Him for strength and wisdom.

Disclosure: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. If you click through to Amazon from Smart + Strong = Sexy, any purchase you make supports this site.

Praise God!

First off I want to let you know that my mother came through surgery well and is already at home.  I appreciate all of you for saying a prayer for a woman you don't know!  (Well I suppose technically you've never met me either, but you know what I mean.)

She gets her pathology report tomorrow, so I would appreciate your continued prayers for her recovery.

One thing I've always had a (semantical) problem with is when people praise God for good news.  I get the idea behind it and I am very appreciative she came through well.  Even recently, someone in my circle lost a parent after a routine surgery didn't go as it ought.  I know that I should be grateful for her situation.

And I truly am.

But even if her situation had went horribly wrong, He is still worthy of my praise.  He is still just and good and kind.  (Easy for me to say sitting on this side of the surgery right?)

Today is week 4 in the Your Secret Name  by Kary Oberbrunner read along, hosted by Marla Taviano.  Mr. Oberbrunner (in quotes) then Marla (she's just Marla cause we're cool like that) ask the following:

 “How could my recent experiences harmonize with God’s preordained plan?” Have you ever felt like this?

I know that God can use any situation in my life to bring him glory.  He's dealing with me (harshly if you ask me, but then again I'm probably just a slow learner) that even my daily life can be used to fulfill his plan.  There are things that I don't want to do to serve my husband much less my "neighbor." 

I've prayed and committed any part of my life, anything that Jesus would need to reveal Himself to the hubs, all the while thinking of all the grand scenarios God could allow.  Never thinking that maybe its today that He wants from me.

My husband is spoiled.  Rotten.  He's an only child to a stay a home mom who loves kids (and would have had more if given the opportunity.)  He's use to being served with a smile.

Now I can see some of you out there.  You're already bristling.  This is 2011 - how dare you be expect to serve your husband.  I'm right there with you, so in many ways I hold out.

Until I see the little things he does to serve me, that I don't even realize (and he doesn't even consider). 

Its not effort that makes him grab my feet for a quick rub as we lay on the couch, but love and habit.  Its not an obligation (to God or me) that he volunteers to go downstairs and make sure the stove is turned off just to ease my mind.  Its love.

Serving people, looking out for them before yourself is what you do when you love someone.

I love my husband.  I claim to love God.  Yet my husband, who's not even sure my God exists, is able to simple do these things for me that I would object to on principle.

So to make a long answer short - I find it very difficult to believe in practice that God can use the every day to fulfill His will.  Which is tantamount to doubting God. 

How embarrassing.

I should be praising God on a daily basis for the opportunity to minister to my husband through the ordinary.  Sometimes I wonder if my husband's life has been too easy, and that's why he isn't a believer.  Both sets of his grandparents were Christians, but he didn't grow up in church.  His life (excluding the whole hemophilia thing) has been easy peasy.  His blood condition caused huge doctor bills and his parents worked hard to pay them.

He's never had to rely on God.  And because of that, he's missed out on the blessing you get when God comes through for you.  That feeling that when everything around you is falling apart - you have Someone...not just someone but the Creator of the Universe...there to hold you up right.

Maybe that's what it means when James says to "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds..."



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Chaos in Search of Order

My life isn't going as planned.  In some ways its going better than I could have dreamed and in some ways I'm too worried about how to get it back on track to enjoy where I am.

With a bathroom remodel that's a month over projected time (with no end in sight), a tiny little hiccup like not reading the current chapter for my Thursday's read along group seems insignificant.  Being the perfectionist that I am, it feels like incomplete homework or something.

To read posts by people who actually read chapter 6 of @stickyJesus, head on over to Michelle's blog.  From her post, it looks like this chapter will hit me hard where I struggle a lot - comparing myself to others.  I hope to get caught up tonight, but if not I'll definitely have both chapters 6 and 7 read for next week.

I would like to take a moment though, and ask for prayer.  Not for me, but for my family, friends, and friends of friends.  I often get caught up in the little things that go wrong.  Truth be told I'm very blessed to live such a cushy life.  Jay says I'm bragging when I count my blessings on my blog, and I certainly don't want to do that. 

I just often need a reminder of just how good I've got it.  Looking into the blog-o-sphere quickly shows me.

*If you've seen the #prayingforjoanne hash tag on twitter but weren't sure who Joanne is or why she needs prayer?  Please check out her web site.



Wife and mom Joanne had a major stroke last week and her husband Toben is updating her blog with status updates on her condition. 

*Penny's aunt Betty..."has a very aggressive type of cancer, small cell cancer, I believe it's called. It's in her lung and her liver and her kidneys and her brain. There is no cure. There is a hope for remission, though..."

*Jamee lives daily with chronic illness, yet she doesn't let that get in her way of living life.

Also I'd like to ask for prayer for my mother.  She's having surgery to remove her thyroid on Monday.  Its supposed to be a fairly simple procedure, but I know she's scared.  Fear of complications, how she will fill afterward, and the terrifying "what if this doesn't fix it?"

Please let me know if you have a need you'd like me to remember.  Those of you who left requests pre-marathon, please know I haven't forgotten them.

Dear Lord,

I thank you for the many blessings in my life.  Forgive me for getting so caught up in myself that I fail to see them.  Your grace and mercy knows no end, and for that I am grateful, because I sure need a lot of them both.  I ask you to remember these wonderful ladies.  You know their lives, you know their struggles.  Be with them as they fight these battles.  Be with their families as they look on, grasping for ways to help.

We are weak creatures desperately trying to grasp on to something to keep our lives from spinning out of control.  You promised to be our Rock.  Forgive us when we feebly try to fix things. Give us the strength to turn it all over to You. 

I love you.

Amen

Disclosure: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. If you click through to Amazon from Smart + Strong = Sexy, any purchase you make supports this site.

Your Secret Name - Read Along Week 3

Before you go off in search of weeks 1 and 2 on my blog, save your time.  I have been a bit of a slacker and while I have been reading along to the book Marla selected, I haven't made time to post.

Forgive me for diving in mid-stream.

I think because I come from such a “functional” family and have had so few real “problems” in my life that I can sometimes pretend that life isn’t messy, that there aren’t people suffering very deeply from all kinds of physical and emotional wounds.

Marla made this observation on chapter 5 of Your Secret Name by Kary Oberbrunner.  I have to say I agree with her.  I was brought up in a Christian home.  We didn't have a lot of money, but we made do. 

One of my most traumatic memories of high school was the time my dad's truck was in the shop and he had to borrow my Papaw's (who'd been dead for over 5 years).  It was a 1980 model Dodge pickup in white (or was it ivory? who could tell it was so dirty) with a bright orange tail gate.  It had just been sitting on the farm collecting dust chicken poop.

I had to forumate a plan to keep from being seen getting into the redneck mobile.  I had my dad drive around the pickup circle, only lightly tapping the breaks where most parents stop.  Following my specific instructions, he then drove to the gate of the school (the less used of the two) and waited on me.

I would see him come through.  Wait a few minutes (so as not to be obvious) and then walk to where the truck was parked waiting on me.

Yeah, I had a rough life.

So its easy to see why I get caught up worrying about the little things in life.  For me, its always only been little things.

I even forget sometimes I'm married to a man with a major blood disorder.  He went in for a check up a few weeks ago and I thought nothing of it.  When he called with what the doctor told him, I panicked.  His blood clotting factor had gone down a percent - and for someone with clotting factor in the low teens already, that seemed to be a cause of concern.

(For reference, normal people have clotting factors in the 90 percentile range.  The paper-cut-and-their-dead hemophiliacs are in the <1% range.)

He'd also shown a loss in range of motion in his hip flexor.  That couldn't be good could it?

Jay is so careful to act normal - hiking with me, playing football with the guys - I forget he's not. 

Turns out its nothing to worry about.  Clotting factor can vary daily but a percentage or so.  As for his range of motion, due to the injury he sustained in high school, he's lucky that he's not walking with a limp.

But you know what?  Even if those things had have been bad, worry isn't the answer.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

As far as chapter 7 is concerned...being stripped of everything, for God's glory.

I have, or at least felt like I have, but its gonna sound so pathetic to you when you read it. you're probably not even gonna believe me.

Not so long ago, I developed a obsession passion love of running and losing weight.  The more I worked at it the better (and hotter) I got.  I had smokin guns and 6 pack abs.  I had this great hobby that relieved stress and tension and made me a better person.

But it also made me a selfish person.  Instead of focusing on God, or how I could help others, I constantly worried about how many calories I was consuming in a day.  How I was going to get both work outs in that day.  And if I only got in one (or God-forbid none) I berated myself for being a lazy sloth.

Then one day, by Divine appointment (I'm not a believer in chance), I had blood work done.  I was severely anemic.  My doctor instructed me to stop all training.  The only exercise I was allowed to do was that which didn't leave me out of breath.  Unfortunately, that left a whole lot of nothing for me.

It was like a smack in the face.  My life revolved around training and losing weight.  With one moment it was all taken away from me. 

Sure, I still had my home, family, job, and material possessions.  A modern day Job I was not.

Except in my heart.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21

I needed that smack in the face.  Truly.

After a month or so of searching, the doctors filled me up with iron and B12 and dismissed me without an official diagnosis.  They didn't know why I got sick, but I was officially better.

Now I won't go so far as to say that the anemia was me being smited by God.  A medical "smack down" if you will.

But I won't go so far as to say it wasn't either.

Shifting my Focus

Last night,while reading my homework for today (chapter 3), my husband said "You've been reading on that book a while."  Of course my pride had to correct him.  I'm reading a chapter a week, just as I'm "assigned". 

(Yes, I was that annoying kid who got to grade papers while everyone else wrote their times tables a million times as punishment.  I'm also a perfectionist and a pleaser while I'm getting my major faults out there.)

I love how God works.  Without the Radical read along, I wouldn't have met Marla.  Without Marla I wouldn't have been introduced to the @stickyJesus read along hosted by Michelle.  I wouldn't have known about this book, which would be a tragedy.

This book isn't anything revolutionary.  Its not full of deep spiritual thoughts or 12 perfect steps to Jesus.  But in laying out the simple steps of living for God online, its teaching me what a poor job of living for Him in real life I'm doing.

And that has the potential to be life changing.

Yesterday, I got some great encouragement from my Sisterhood friends regarding my recent weight gain.  God spoke to me through those wonderful ladies.  Do the right things (little things) and the rest will come. 

God has lectured me about this before.  I shouldn't be superficial (which is what my weight loss quest is).  I shouldn't be so caught up in me. 

So yesterday, during my run, I made an effort to change my attitude.  Starting with prayer.  Can you believe it actually worked?  Of course you can, I'm sure you've seen it in your own life.

I started out depressed because running tights just aren't flattering when you've put on 15 pounds in 6 months and haven't bothered to buy new clothes.  Within a tenth of a mile I was praying. 

One blogger I read regularly had emailed me asking for prayer for a specific issue in her life.  Wow.  For someone to contact me with that sort of request.  I spent the next few moments bringing her request before God.

Then I moved to my friends (both IRL and online) who are currently pregnant. 

Then on to my parents who are both dealing with medical issues right now.

I took the focus off me and put it on praying for the needs of others.  And it was the best run I've had in a while.

Most of my online relationships are formed via blogs, then extend into twitter.  I hope those of you that read/follow me know that if you need me I'm just an email away.

I'm not the best prayer in the world, but I'm praying to the One who created the universe.  While I am nothing, He is everything.

Thank you for blessing me with your friendship.

@stickyJesus Read Along!

I wasn't the most faithful with my blogging during Marla's Radical read along, so I'm excited to have a shot at redemption with Michelle's weekly homework of @stickyJesus.

There were plenty of statistics in "File 01: You were born for a such a time as this" aka chapter one.  But one of them caught my eye more than the rest, and that's because it hit close to home.  More accurately, its the reason for my home as I know it.

One out of every eight couples married in 2008 in the U.S. met via social networking.

Wanna take a guess as to when Jay and I got married? 
2008

Wanna know where we met?
Myspace (back when it was still cool)

I honestly thought we were a rarity.  Sure you see the eHarmony commercials where their couples met online, but you don't actually believe it happens to real people.  Especially in a land full of "hey u r hot wanna chat?"  Marriages don't come from that.

Ah...but they do. 

While on our first anniversary vacation, Jay and I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Napa.  We all had individual tables, but each of the 5 couples chatted to everyone else while enjoying our first meal of the day.  A few of the other couples there also met online.

Not sure why I just assumed it was a fluke. 

Facebook.  Twitter.  Blogger.  Message boards.

There all filled with real people.  Those real people  have real feelings.  Real needs.

Why are we tempted to be someone other than who we truly are when interacting with others?  In the bloggy land there seems to be a lot of putting your best face forward going on.  Maybe not yours or mine, but I wonder just how real some of the more popular bloggers can be.

Then again maybe I should remove the log out of my eye before challenging the speck in someone else's. After all my blog title?  Just who I want to be.  While I'm transparent in my posts that I'm certainly not the most confident person in the world, I didn't want to name it Awkward + Uncertain = ME.

In order to reach out to those people with real needs, we must be transparent. 

While a perfectionist, I am not perfect.

I'm a sinner.

I need the grace of Jesus on a daily, hourly basis.

We're promised that in our weakness, He is made strong.

If that's the case then He's gonna really be able to work through me.  And I honestly pray that's the case.