Allow the Process

I am struck by the enormity of God.  Even as I say that, I realize how cliché that sounds yet I am living the revelation of his perfectness in all things related to my life.

Nothing is a mistake.  Nothing is in vain. Nothing is chance.  Everything has a perfect time in which events and circumstances take place, even bad events.  Even difficult circumstances.  Everything about my life is and has always been serving a purpose.  “But he knows the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold”  Job 23:10

I have been ruminating over the death of Whitney Houston.  Like the rest of the world, I was saddened by her abrupt departure.  Her death has affected me in a huge way.  Mainly because of her upbringing and her faith in God.  Her consequent struggle that so many of us Jesus lovers go through when trying to balancing our love for him and our presence in this world.  It is perhaps the most difficult of all struggles, living in the world but hungering and desiring to serve God with all our heart.  In the end, Whitney succumbed to the weariness of the struggle.  Something that many of us who have struggled understand all too well.   

The temptation to give up is astronomical and the courage it takes to stay in the “race” another day doesn’t feel like courage at all.  Rather it feels like mere survival. We know in that moment that we are on the edge of a cliff and one false move will cause us to go over.  We know that if we quit we will die, in one form or another.  That is why her death has been so difficult and humbling to accept.  Any of us, at any time, could succumb to the weariness.  There is a reason the Bible says, “the race is not given to the fastest or the strongest, but to he who endures until the end.”

I watched in stunned amazement as Whitney told Oprah her feelings about Bobby Brown in Oprah’s “Remembering Whitney Houston.”  Her words hit me in the face like a ton of bricks because I was coming out of the same exact emotional place and I could relate in every way.  Oprah asked Whitney if she was addicted to the drugs or addicted to Bobby Brown and Whitney replied, “he was my drug.”  She followed Bobby Brown down his path of addiction and spiritual darkness.  All because he was her “man.”  She went on to say that her voice and her success didn’t seem like a big deal to her.  It was a former life, one that she no longer lived and yet it was her voice and her music that the world thought of when her name was spoken.  How blinded we become when we forget what our purpose is.

If you have never been a slave to hope or a slave to love, you cannot possibly comprehend the ramifications of her words nor her struggle, but for those of us who have, it is easy to identify with and understand just how desperate and how hopeless she and many of us feel when our hopes and dreams become shattered.  Hopelessness is the number one reason people fall victim to suicide.

Here is the thing that I think many people miss in her story and in our own lives and the lives of the people we love.  It is our faith in God that keeps us in dysfunctional, destructive and helpless relationships and situations.  It is erroneous but it is done in faith.  

Now, I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking that my statement sounds like a HUGE contradiction.  But stay with me for a minute, I will explain. 

 

You see, for those of us who grew up in church, we were taught that God can do anything and that nothing is too hard for him.  We believe that, to the core of our soul and  because we have experienced his love and faithfulness to us, we trust him to be in control of our lives.  So when we are fall into or walk willingly into a unfavorable position, or when we find ourselves in situations that we want God to change, our faith tells us that HE will change our situation.  Our faith tells us he will deliver us.  Our faith tells us “if God before us, who can be against us.”  Our faith gives us grace to stay in situations we should not stay in.  BUT…..we do not realize this as a fallacy when we are in the midst of it.  We  are exercising our faith and we are still trusting God !

On December 18, 2011 I was given this revelation.  I too was in a similar situation as Whitney.  I am not by any means comparing our lives, but I am drawing upon the similarities of our faith, and the subsequent obstacles.  After all, we are pursuing the same God. 

I was in a marriage that I totally believed was appropriated by God.  For the first time I was at rest in my spirit and at peace in my life.  I had found love and it wasn’t just love that I had found, I had found a man who loved God, who was in fact a man, and who allowed me to be a girl.  That in itself is a profound discovery for any woman. However, love was not enough to keep our marriage together.  I was facing the great quandary of balancing my love for God and my love for my husband and not knowing what that looked like on a day to day level.

You see, I have never known God without struggle.  I have lived my life in survival mode.  My success, my looks, my disposition have all been a result of survival.  Suddenly, I am happy, from the inside out. Suddenly, I no longer have to struggle to support myself.  Suddenly, I no longer cry out to God in loneliness and heartache because I have found love.  I have found a husband who fulfills and satisfies me.   Little did I know that was coming to an end.  My happiness didn’t last long.  It wasn’t supposed to.  My dependency was on my husband instead of God, but I didn’t know that at the time.

When my marriage began to fall apart, two months into it, I continued to trust God and let him have control, or so I thought.  We split up, we got back together, we split up and got back together.  We filed for divorce, we called off the divorce, many times.  The whole time, I prayed, the whole time, I trusted God to intervene and the whole time, I kept trying to find ways to make it work.  I kept trying.  I kept trying.  I kept trying.  Until one day, the lord whispered into my spirit and said, “if you really trust me like you say you do, then you have to trust me in everything and let go of your husband, let go of your marriage and let go of your hope that it is going to work out.  Trust me to take care of your husband, and in the meantime, start taking care of yourself and get back to the position I have called you to.”

From that moment on, I have never been the same.  I realized that I was the one trying to make my marriage work by “works” by effort.  I wasn’t exercising trust in God at all, because if I had been exercising trust, I would have been able to surrender to the loss.  In that moment, I realized that I must trust God even if my hope was lost, even if my desire was dying, even if I had to be alone and face the failure of another failed relationship.  I had to trust that he knew what was best for me and that if I could let go, he would use if for the good at some future time in my life. 

But the grief was all consuming.  I was dying inside.  I had been mourning my marriage.  Mourning my hope of happiness.  Mourning my idea’s of my future.  I didn’t understand that my hope was in God alone.  It should have never been placed in my husband, but I was ignorant of that, until God revealed it to me.

I believe that is the great struggle.  We see things happen in our life and we view it as a fulfillment of promise.  A place of destiny, and it is.  However, just as God did with Abraham, when he required him to sacrifice Isaac, God will always require us to sacrifice what we value the most.  It is not some cruel joke, but rather a safe guard against our own demise.  Because every physical thing ever created will deteriorate and if our hope and faith and expectation is in the “thing”, the “person” or the “circumstance” then it will have the ability to devastate or destroy us when it deteriorates.  But if our hope is in God alone, then we are safeguarded against despair because he is our hope, he is our peace and he is the only real source of love.

So the process is the receiving of the thing we desire, the loss and surrender of that desire and the peace in knowing that God is in control of all things.

Today, two months after I received that revelation to surrender my marriage, I am with my husband at Buttonwillow Raceway watching him do what he loves, ride motorcycle.  As I sit and write this blog, I am amazed to realize that the 5 separations and three divorce filings where all part of the process to get me to this place of understanding and dependency on God.  We are together as husband and wife and I am forever changed.  God performed the miracle I had been praying for.  He saved my marriage.  But the miracle didn’t take place with my husband, it took place with me.  I changed.  I understand now what perhaps I was the problem all along.  God must always be my source of life and as long as I put him first everything else falls into place.

I think Whitney never got to the stage of surrender.  She stayed in the stage of sorrow and mourning for the loss of her marriage, the loss of her husband and the loss of her hope.  I am so sorry for her passing, especially because I know it didn’t have to be that way.  However, it has prompted so much reflection of my own life and has made me once again thankful for God’s grace and his mindfulness of me.  I strive to be ever thankful for another day that I have breath to tell someone else of his goodness.

“Without a vision, the people perish”  If we keep our eyes on the only eternal thing that is forever, God, then our vision will never wane and our hope will be eternal.  Lord help us all !

Living on Purpose !

This statement is going to sound like such a cliché and it is, but I would like to take a minute and talk about LIVING ON PURPOSE.  

Webster’s dictionary defines Living as:

1.  having life;  being alive; not dead: living persons.

2.  in actual existence or use; extant: living languages.

3. active or thriving; vigorous; strong: a living faith.

4. burning or glowing, as a coal.

5. flowing freely, as water.

Purpose is defined as :

1.  the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc.

2.  an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal.

3.  determination; resoluteness.

4.  the subject in hand; the point at issue.

5. practical result, effect, or advantage: to act to good purpose.

 

         So for purposes of this blog, I am going to define Living on Purpose  as “active, thriving, vigorously pursuing an intended and desired result or goal.

             I don’t know about you, but I have not been living each day on purpose.  Nope.  I have been going through the motions.  Life has been challenging the last couple of years and as a result, my vision has been clouded.  I have temporarily lost sight of who I am and where I was taking my life.  It happens to us all.  Totally unintentional but nonetheless sabotaging.  When life throws us a curve ball or we hit a bump in the road, it is so easy to get sidetracked from the goal.  Sometimes, it can take months or years to recover from an obstacle.

             Others of you haven’t had any upsets but have maintained a slow and steady course and reached the intended goal.  Now, you are just going through the motions of daily routine.  But, are you living on purpose?   Are you living intentional?  That is the question I have been asking myself for many weeks now.

Aristotle said it best “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” 

            All of us have desires of what we want or wanted to do with our life.  But very few people actually follow through and achieve their goals.  Have you given up on those dreams or are they still alive?  Has circumstances changed the vision you had for your life?  What do you have left that God can use?  What are you good at?  What do friends complement you for?  What do you love to do with your free time?  Is there something special your spouse or family members like you to do for them?

            These are the things you can use to make a difference and begin to live each day on purpose.  Sometimes it feels like we are all used up.  Maybe you feel like you have squandered a big portion of your life on people or things that didn’t really matter.  Or perhaps you have lived your life on purpose and have made a difference to those around you.

            All I know for sure is that in order to live each day to the fullest, we must first start each day like Aristotle said, with intention.  Intension then translates to an action which translates to a habit.  As nice as it would be to live carefree and commitment free that type of life is usually one without direction and purpose.  Some of the most successful people in the world are people who were organized, planned and set goals for themselves.

I have noticed in my own life, my lack of intension.  It’s time to dig deep, clear the cobwebs from my eyes and get my vision back.  I don’t know what that looks like yet but what I do know is that I have talent, and God given abilities and with him on my side, I can be anything I want to be!  How about you? 

                                                    Will you join me? 

                                                                                                                 

SEX

There are few women who love sex as much as I do but if you are single please listen to what I am about to say !

Girls:  If you want a guy to like you and then fall in love with you, do NOT have sex with him !!!  

Guys:  If you find a girl attractive and ask her out on a date, do NOT have sex with her!! If she has sex with you right from the start, then 9 times out of 10, you will dump her anyway !!!

Why am I saying all of this?  I am saying this because almost EVERYONE is looking for love and few people are finding it because they go about it backwards.  Do you ever wonder why dating sites such as eHarmony.com and Match.com are successful?  It is because the people who use those dating sites have to fill out an informational sheet about themselves.  Potential mates have to take the time to read that information before they contact them.  More time is taken getting to know each other through dating sites then if you were to meet someone that you barely knew for dinner.  The reason is because physical attraction usually supersedes getting to know who a person is and sex is the driving force to attraction.

For most of you who know me, you will know that I have been physically fit for most of my adult life.  Men have found me to be physically attractive and as I mentioned, I like sex.  However I have been unsuccessful in the majority of my relationships.  It took me years to realize that men where dating the physical person I was without ever understanding the mental and spiritual person I was.  It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t know me very well, it was my fault.  I made it too easy.  They were attracted to me, I was attracted to them and we had sex.  Period.  However, I was always lonely.  The attraction and excitement eventually wears off and then what do you have left?  In my case, very little because men didn’t understand there was more to me then my body.  When they realized I was pretty deep and intense, they left.

There is more to all of us then our physical appearance.  It doesn’t matter if you are attractive or unattractive, there is an emotional, intelligent creature in all of us that desires to be known and understood and loved for who we are.

What you need to look at is whether or not you like who you are as a person.  It is easy to fake it and get physical gratification for momentary happiness.  But if you are looking for a long and lasting relationship, you might want to think twice about how you go about finding it.  It really starts with loving yourself and being willing to wait for the person who wants to know who you are on the inside besides just what you can offer on the outside.

Sex was always supposed to be the icing on the cake.  True, intimate, mind blowing, rock star sex, (you can have intimate, mind blowing, rock star sex) comes only when two people are comfortable with themselves and with each other.

Several years ago, I went through a breakup that changed my life.  I thought the guy I was involved with was my perfect match. We share fitness together, we ate all the same healthy food, we had the same work schedule, we were very compatible.  Throughout the entire course of our relationship (it lasted 6 months) I kept feeling that I needed to just be his friend and not be his lover.  The reason was because he was 8 years younger than I was and he had never experienced many of the things I had already experienced in life.  This meant we wanted different things for our future.  But I was confused because we had this amazing connection and we were very physically compatible.  I couldn’t bring myself to face the truth that we had no future together.  I wanted to believe that we did.  

In the end, I was the one who lost.  I was the one heartbroken and I was the one who lied to  myself because I wanted to believe he loved me when really he didn’t know me very well.  My feelings where hidden from him.  The sex and connection was so good it controlled me.  In the end, the truth about our relationship is what surfaced.  Don’t get me wrong, we had a great friendship and that coupled with great sex made for one of my best experiences ever.  However, our lives where headed in different directions.  He is now married with a beautiful family and I couldn’t be happier for both him and his wife.  But I could have spared myself a lot of pain if I had been willing to face the truth early on in the relationship.

What I am trying to say is, wouldn’t you rather know in the beginning if someone wants to be with the true person you are?  Wouldn’t you rather spare yourself the rejection and humiliation that comes from a break-up?  Eventually, everyone’s true identify surfaces and if you take the time in the beginning to get to know someone without sex confusing reality, you might just find the relationship you where looking for.

My current relationship has been horrendously difficult.  Although we waited for about two months before having sex for the first time, we still struggle with knowing and liking each other.  Sex is still the easiest fix for us.  We have that part down.  The liking each other is what we don’t have.  Maybe, even as a married person, I need to take sex out of the picture and find out if my husband can like me for who I am.  Maybe he will but then again, maybe he won’t.  That is what I need to find out.  Just because we are married doesn’t mean we will stay married right?  People get divorced all the time and we have been close too many times to count.  Which is why I am writing this blog.  I am taking my own advice and going back to square one.  Being true to myself and making sure my spouse is in this relationship because he loves the person I am on the inside and just not the person he see’s on the outside.

What about you? Can you stifle the short term self gratification for the long term result?  I hope you can.  It will be worth it.  God knew this. That is why he wanted us to wait until we were married to have sex.  He knew that commitment is the preferred end result and if we have sex before we have the commitment, chances are a commitment may never come.

Crossing Over

I don’t know one person that is satisfied with every area of their life.  On the contrary, most of us have things we would like to change.  Whether it is our lifestyle, body type, relationship or financial status, we all have something that could use a make- over.  But change is hard and most people never become the person they desire to become because it is “too hard.”  It is either “too expensive” to eat healthy and join a gym, it’s “too depressing” to loose weight, “too hard” to say I am sorry for my part of the misunderstanding or just “too painful” to deal with the reasons we are where we are in life.  Regardless of what YOUR issue is, any change, no matter how small or how big is hard and it is painful.  Would it help if you had a guarantee that the pain would be worth it?  Would it help if I told you after you lose the 20 extra pounds you’re carrying around that you would find the man or woman of your dreams?  Could you do it then?  If it was a guarantee?

            I am here to tell you it is a guarantee!  I have been through many painful experiences in my life but I will share two with you.  The first is delivering my son!  For those of you who have never delivered a baby, you cannot possibly understand the pain involved in the process.  Those of you who have know what I am talking about.  Labor is the most intense pain I have ever experienced and during the delivery process, I told myself I NEVER wanted to go through it again, and my labor including delivery was only four hours long.  That is very short in comparison to most women’s labor and delivery.  Holding my new born son was worth it 100 times over.  Any mother would admit being willing to go through the pain again if it meant having their children.

            Eighteen months after the delivery of my son, I had to make the hardest decision of my life.  To this day, nothing has ever compared to the pain of having to make the following decision.  I left him.  Most people cannot ever understand how a mother can leave a child and honestly, it would have been impossible for me if I had not believed he would have a better life without living with me. Someday I will write about the circumstances that caused me to leave, but right now, the point is, difficulty often changes a person for the good. (My son and I are extremely close and he is about to start Bible College).

            Here is a scenario that most people can relate to. This is what typically happens for those who start a weight loss program.  Day one goes as planned.  Everyone wakes up excited about their new diet.  Day two is still going as planned but headaches are starting to set in.  By day three, four or five, fatigue and headaches are getting more unbearable.  This is the time when people give up and quit!  But what if I told you that headaches and fatigue is part of the process, but if you persevere, it will pass and then your body will begin to let go of the extra weight!  The problem is that most people cannot see past the pain!!  I have seen it a thousand times!  However, I have also seen the clients who did NOT give up and went on to lose over 60lbs. and 90lbs.  That is why I continue doing what I do because the people who are not afraid of the pain succeed and there is nothing better than watching their life transformed!

            The reason I am writing about this is because of a scripture I read the other night.  Something clicked for me. It is the familiar story about the disciples and Jesus in the ship when a storm came and almost destroyed the ship and killed the crew.  It is the place where Jesus speaks to the storm and says “peace be still” and the storm subsides.  (Full story found in Luke 8:22-26).

What was not familiar to me was verse 22. “……let us go over unto the other side…”  immediately after the decision was made to go over to the other side, the trouble came.  Crossing over to the other side is typically a reference to going to the next level or taking the next step. It’s about progression.  The disciples hit a storm that almost killed them and capsized the ship.  God was the deciding factor, as he always is.  With God, nothing shall be impossible! (Mark 10:27)

            My point is, that anytime you make a decision to go to the next level in your life and grow as a person to make positive changes, inevitably you will encounter difficulty!  It is a principle of the bible that does not change.  The reasons are many.  For one, difficulty always tests your determination.  How much do you want it?  What are you willing to do for it?  You must be able to stay the course no matter what obstacles come.  The other reason is because you will never fully appreciate success until you have sacrificed to achieve it.  It is the old adage that we cannot know happiness without sorrow.  It must cost you something to change. 

            The good news is that the struggle doesn’t last.  The obstacles can be overcame and the good times far outweigh the bad times.  If you can remember that struggle and challenge is a part of the process, it is easier to keep going without being distracted from the goal. 

            Finally, remember that only the strong survive.  What are you made of?  If it were easy to change everyone would be skinny vogue models right?  The truth is that it is NOT easy but the reward after you walk through the difficulty is something money cannot buy and no one can take away from you!

Just do it !!

           

Self Esteem

One of the things I have been interested in lately is the idea of self esteem.  Specifically how one obtains it and how one keeps it in the face of adversity.  I work in the fitness industry, as you know, and I have encountered many women, who, after getting married and having children, seem to lose their sense of self.  This is something that has always troubled me as a fitness professional and also as a women.  I have wondered many times what happens in this transformation from a single attractive woman to an overweight, self-conscious dependent wife.  It has boggled my mind until I recently came close to ending up the same way. 

            I didn’t grow up with self esteem.  I grew up with a lot of rules to live by and breaking the rules meant that love was withheld.  I was often punished harshly for not following the rules.  I lived my early year’s consistently wondering whether I was “good enough” and whether or not I would be accepted by my peer group.

            I found myself and consequently my self esteem when I was about 28 years old.  I went through a deep troubling grief that changed me.  Because of this period in my life, I was able to really figure out who I was, what I believed and what I wanted out of life.  Sounds simple enough but it actually was life changingly difficult.   However, grievous this time was, it was worth it because I finally found myself.  (Side note, change usually only comes out of pain).

                        One of the things I found that improved my self-esteem was fitness.  The ability to control my outer appearance and lift weights felt so great.  I had no idea that I could change my body and actually feel good about myself.  However, I have noticed that in relationships, our partner’s value for us seems to decrease over time and this greatly effects our self-esteem.  Women go from being the object of desire to undesirable.  It is not done purposefully but rather due to busyness of life, children, responsibilities and sometimes just carelessness.

            I watched myself get lost on that downward spiral of self acceptance as I slowly compromised my food choices, my workouts and the little things I did for myself.  As it was happening, over the course of 3 years, it was as if I was a spectator looking through a crystal ball, knowing how it all would end but feebly unable to stop the cycle. All the while, living out what I watched other women doing.

            So now that I am on the other side of that cycle, back to my old self again, and taking control of my life, what is the lesson?  It seems obvious enough, “don’t compromise.”  For better or worse, I have kept my sense of self and it has served me well, but it has been a lonely journey because now that I know who I am, I am less willing to sacrifice and change to fit into someone else’s life.   Although, if one is to truly enter a loving relationship it is impossible not to compromise.  There must be a balance and I think I have found it.  The key is to love yourself no matter what and do the things that make you feel like a woman.  I did a little research on “finding balance between self and family” and I found women who are successful in managing their active lifestyle in fitness, family and career do so by being highly organized and prepared.  They often get up early in the morning, before everyone else wakes up to do their work out or go for a run.  They also maintain a strong set of priorities that enables them to stay on task without getting easily sidetracked.  I also noted that many women who have found success in their family and self balance have supportive husbands that help with the distribution of chores and errands.

            I know it can be done, the question is, can you love yourself enough to want more then what you currently have?  Do you want to look better then you do now?  Do you even know what it feels like to be a sexy self assured woman?  I believe God equips us with the power to become anything we wish to become.  However, if you cannot imagine yourself as anything more then you already are, you will remain as you are.  BUT…if you want more out of life and you want to transform your life from the inside out, it is possible, you just have to chose it and then be willing to follow through with the sacrifices it takes.

            Good Luck and send me your questions or comments.  I would love to hear from you!