A break from the work out routine!

Yes, I am still going to the gym three times a week. This is no lie! I am also drinking more water... more and more everyday! I want to go and get some water bottles at Wal-Mart to always have some ready in the fridge. Not the plastic disposable kind... I am way more orange than that! But the sports bottle type! I think I have also decided that I need to feel guilty about eating crispy chicken burgers. But I can't let my guilt over come me and make me feel defeated! I haven't had one since last week... but I crave em like they are going out of style!

Anywho... my intention on this entry is not to talk about weight or how I am doing on losing it!

I want to talk about God. I have been blessed to be in a small group type class on Wednesday nights and I have had a break through people! We are reading a book and then attempting a different spiritual discipline, of sorts, every week. This last week we focused on the love chapter in I Corinthians. And can I just tell you how the holy spirit helped me pin point a burden I have been carrying for a long time, and then he helped me into some freedom-ness! I can? Well GOOD! Get ready for some serious God stuff!

So... over the last month we have been going through he chapters in the book and I have slowly realized that I was living my life as if there was this great big check list in the sky that I was trying to complete every day! And when I hadn't completed it... I had let down God in some fashion and He lost an ounce of love for me. I know it sounds crazy out loud, because I know better! I can't even describe to you how weird it is for me to admit this! If anyone approached me and told me that they were living this way... I would sit them down and try to explain God's grace and mercy to them. But here I was... trying to check off the check list!

I also came to understand where it was coming from. Luke and I had a huge and profound loss in our family in February. Our cousin died at the young age of 12. It just doesn't make sense to me. I don't know that it ever will. But to cope with this loss... I started to try and please God in every way imaginable in hopes that HE would love me enough, see that I was trying, and that I was good so that i would never have to go through that pain again. Either from another loss in our families, or even my own loss of a child. And this is crazy to me too... because if anyone had ever accused me of thinking that Ron and Nan had done anything to deserve the death of their child... I would have at least slapped the crap out of them... if not gone to jail for murder! Seriously! Ron and Nan are some of the greatest, loving, and God fearing people I know and I hate that my thoughts and actions on the matter even suggested such a thing! But none the less... I was stuck in this good and faithful servant type mode in hopes that nothing bad would ever happen to me.

So this last week we were to go over the love chapter and meditate on it in different ways. And I kept being struck by, "keeps no record of wrongs." When I finally started mentally journaling about it, there was this moment of clarity where I realized that God IS love. And if HE keeps no record of wrongs... the where was this list I felt so compelled to check off?

Hello! I was keeping my own record of wrongs! (It just seems so obvious now!) PErfect love keeps no record of wrong! PRAISE THE LORD for HIS perfect love! If I am asked to love others, then I really need to apply that to myself too, right? RIGHT!

I cannot tell you how freeing that moment was! I feel like myself again. I realized I had been one huge Eyor (from Whinnie that Pooh) in word and deed for the last 8 months. Feeling so much pressure and having little joy in life! But my normal personality is so Tigger-ish! And Tigger is back baby! And jumping higher than ever!

Thank you, Jesus, for your perfect love! I pray you all know the good and beautiful God! He is mighty to save! Save us from ourselves!!!!!