Hear me Lord

Oh Sweet & Loving Lord, Hear my cry and please don't pass me by. I need help. I have sinned against you and I have dug myself into this deep, dark hole that I promised myself that I'd never see again. I'm not enjoying life anymore and I'm simply just going through the motions, drifting through life day by day. The things I once cared about I really don't care about anymore. I'm tired of pretending to the people around me that I'm ok. I don't want to pretend anymore. I want to be well. I'm begging for your grace and mercy, even though I don't deserve it.

Please forgive me and lead me out of this ugly dark place. I don't know what to do anymore. I am just sick of myself and the weakness that I am submissive to. I know that it is wrong and I can't go on like this much longer. Strengthen me Beautiful Savior to get out of this depression and help me get back on my two feet so I can be used by you. Please renew my mind, body and spirit. Have mercy on me and clean my heart. Clear my thinking and bless me with better self control. Help me to conquer this addition once and for all and bless me with wisdom so I will not be deceived.

In Jesus Name, Amen

The Lord is my Banner

I cannot fight this battle myself. I have tried, and I have failed many times. It' s only when I look to my Jehovah Nissi, the Lord My Banner, that I am able to succeed. It is He who provides the strength and the victory over sin and the flesh. Whenever I lose sight of my God, I am defeated.

Deuteronomy 20:3-4 (NLT)
He will say, `Listen to me, all you men of Israel! Do not be afraid as you go out to fight today! Do not lose heart or panic. For the LORD your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!'

Psalm 118:6 (NIV)
The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

We were not created to walk alone

This month I finally got my license and tag changed over from Oklahoma to California. Today I received my license in the mail and it makes me sad to see my picture. I look so sad (physically and emotionally) in my picture and not myself. Just looking at my picture, with all the other emotions going on in my head right now, my eyes start to water. How could I do that to myself? It's crazy to think that someone doesn't care enough about taking care of themselves and they would actually choose to do stuff to hurt their body. God gave me a wonderful and perfect body, but I'm not taking care of it the way that would bring Him glory.

I was sick a little bit last week and my boss, in his loving but what the heck are you doing attitude, asked me why I wasn't taking better care of myself. All I could say was I don't know....I'm trying....but I'm not trying hard enough, and I smiled and walked away. So much of me just was to spill it to him about my eating disorder because I know the power of being humble and transparent with people and getting it off my chest. I hate hiding things. He is an awesome guy and I would feel comfortable enough talking to him about it but it's definitely going to be a big step for me to do.

Lately I have definitely learned the importance of having good close loving friends around you whom you can confide in about everything. God is my best friend and He is the ultimate comforter and He has comforted me many times and He has never failed me. But striving to live a holy Christian life unto the Lord in a sinful world is extremely hard to do when you feel alone and you are walking alone. God did not design us to walk alone in this world. I have made friends out here in the church but I haven't had the opportunity to connect with him on a deep enough level where I can come out and openly talk about all my brokenness and pain. I'm one of those people who tries to be humble and open to people about my flaws and I am able to do that but I yearn to have a much deeper connection with people.

My random and crazy work schedule makes it difficult to be able to hang out with my friends because our work schedules are different and because they are also busy themselves. I'm in desperate need of a small group again. The fellowship of a small group is very powerful and I have experienced that truth myself. That is one piece of advice I could give every Christian who wants to grow stronger in their walk with God...Make sure you are connected into a small group with people whom you can relate to! You need to be around people whom you can help, as well as be help, and be around people who will hold you accountable. Accountability partners are key. Good news is that we are planning on starting a small group in January and I think they are even going to be gracious enough to have it be on different days each week so that I would be able to make it each week. (I work random shifts and I'm on a rotation schedule that changes each week)

Moving to California has its advantages and disadvantagres in the aspect of people knowing who I am. It was nice to have a fresh, new start in a place where I'm not running into people who acknowledge and bring up my old self. I'm a different person now and my past is my past. I'm not ashamed of my past and I let people know where I have came from but I don't like being around people who still acknowledge me as someone who is still in the darkness.

The bad thing about being in a place where nobody knows your background is that you could let your self go and not care about taking care of your body and they wouldn't think anything about it because that's all they have seen of you. They have nothing to compare you to and that made it easy for me to let myself slide. The people here only know me as the person I was when I came here in the beginning of June. They know I am Christian but I haven't been able to embrace the true person I am in Christ because I have been letting my bondage hold me back. They don't know my desires, my passions and my purpose because the whole time that I have been here, I have been struggling with the same battle.

I find it very embarrassing to tell people that it is my vision to be a personal trainer in a couple of years and in about 10 years open my own gym when I'm caring for the my body the way I am now. Health is my passion and I have a lot of nutritional and training knowledge (knowledge from experience amen)that it kills me that I can't help people with my knowledge because there is no anointing anymore because my sin. I miss the great joy I got from helping people to make wise decisions on how to take care of their body when I was taking care of my God the way that brought Him glory. How can I tell someone to do something when I'm not doing it myself....? I know that God will restore my anointing to help others in the area of nutrition and fitness when I surrender my nutrition and fitness choices back to Him again.

Although, the positive thing about me still being in bondage with food is that the longer I'm in the battle, the more I will continue to experience and learn which will enable me to, once I achieve victory over this battle, even better help others who have lived in the agonizing hell of an eating disorder achieve victory. God is not going to let my brokenness and pain from this battle go to waste! He will use it for His good, amen.

Spiritual Maturity

Earlier this week, Joyce Meyer was talking about something that really stood out to me and gave me some peace. She was talking about how we are God's baby. One example that she used to get her point across was about her daughter's relationship with her newborn twins. Her daughter is not going to be yelling at and be disappointed with her babies if they are not walking when they are 6 months old. She knows that there is a process in growing and no matter how long it takes for them to grow up or how many messes they will make, she will love them the same.

That is kinda like our relationship with God. He doesn't expect us to start out just running the race right off the bat. We start out crawling, and then we learn to walk a little bit. We do learn how to run but it takes time. He isn't going to be pressuring us to be perfect right after we have been born.

God loves us and we are no surprise to God. He already knows how many messes in our life that He will have to clean up. God sees our love for Him when we do things for Him, but a lot of the times what we do He has to go and clean up while we aren't looking. God will cover our tracks and sometimes, whatever messes we will make, He will hide them and we won't even know about it.

I dug a little deeper on the issue of spiritual maturity. I learned in 1 John 2 that there are three successive stages of the Christian life. John categorizes all Christians on this progression in their walk with the Lord in one of these three stages - little children, fathers and young men. These terms have no relationship to the length of time that you have been a Christian or even to the position that you may hold as a Christian. They have entirely to do with our progress in the Christian life, the process of growth that John is describing.

There must be a beginning in the Christian life, but it is only a beginning. We are intended to move on, to go on, to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior . This is a word for knowledge that has to do with knowledge that is gained by experience. Obviously, experience takes time. A father is one who comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ fully over a long period of time.

Christians who are young men in the faith, have moved beyond infancy. The major characteristic of a young man is that he has overcome the wicked one. They are in the process of maturity. One of the things that is true of them is they have begun to realize that our struggle is not really with flesh and blood. People are not really our problem. Our fight is with Satan and with his forces. The battle is with ideas, with attitudes, with temptations, with responses, rather than just those outward circumstances.

Another thing that we know about these young men who have overcome the evil one is that in the process of doing that, they have learned to live deliberately and consistently and step-by-step in fellowship with the Son of God. They have learned to walk at the direction of the Spirit. Although, we cannot do that in our own might, and those of us who are young men in the Lord at least know that much. We have tried everything that we can to resist in our own strength and we failed; but if we abide in Christ, as we walk in His strength and as we obey His Spirit, we begin to overcome the wicked one.

I believe I am in the young men stage and I'm growing and learning a lot of the things that I should be learning. The trials, the pain, the battles and everything else I'm going through is just a normal process that people have to go through to gain maturity. God loves me and He is not continuously disappointed in me all the time. God didn't make us perfect because if He did, then we wouldn't need Him to depend on. I need to quit being so hard on myself and quit being my own worst enemy. I need to start loving and seeing myself the way that God loves me. I will reach the father stage of the Christian life one of these days. I just need to be steadfast in my walk with the Lord and be patient.

1 Peter 2:2-3 (NLT)
"You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can grow into the fullness of your salvation. Cry out for this nourishment as a baby cries for milk, now that you have had a taste of the Lord's kindness."

The date

The date went really well. Very cool and interesting guy and he's also a real gentleman too. He brought me flowers and everything. We had good conversation throughout the evening and we talked a lot about God.

We started off the date by going to a church run program which was an outdoor community Christmas experience of what is would be like to be walking the streets of Bethlehem when Jesus was born. It was very neat and well done. After that we went and walked around the Wharf while we ate calm chowder in bread bowls. Then we drove around this little community looking at Christmas lights.

I had a really good time. It's awesome to go out on a date with a man on fire for God. I don't know yet how I feel about him but I think there is definitely potential. I'm just going to take it one step at a time to get to know him better and we will see where that takes us.

Now is the time

Ok, it been a while, a long while...over a year while, since I've been on a date but I have one planned for Sunday. This will be my first "real" date since becoming a born again Christian. I had a lunch date last December but I don't really call that a real date. My last real date was in August of 2004...how funny is that. I'm a little excited but at same time as a little nervous. I don't know him. My friend that I met at church has been trying to set us up for a while. I have met him once but at the time I had no clue he was the one she was talking about when she said she had someone in mind that she wanted me to meet. So it's kinda like a blind date which is a little scary in itself because I don't know what to expect.

At this time in my life I really don't feel like it's the right time for me to be seeing someone since I have all these issues with myself but I just going to make the best of the opportunity. God has been dealing with me for a while on this and I feel like He has told me before that once I totally surrender it all to Him, that the special one that I long so much to meet, is waiting right around the corner for me, along with all the other blessings He has stored up for me.

When I surrender to Him, it will free me to live the life I was created to live. I hate being held back and missing out on experiencing things that I could have if I wasn't in stuck in this situation. God has a good life planned for me but I need to stay on His path and not my own path. I'm very thankful though that by the grace of God, He is able to turn the bad into good and He make it serve only to the advancement toward perfection in Christ Jesus.

I am doing better at obeying Him and my mind set is slowing being changed. I'm starting to view food the way God intends us to view food but it's a process that I will have to take step by step, day by day. I'm in need of His strength so I won't be discouraged to give up because I don't want to have to pick myself up once again. This is the time to surrender it all and I feel like God is really dealing with me on this issue more than ever because it's time to move. I can't play around and stall anymore...now is the time.

The flesh vs spirit battle

The reality of how dependent I really am on God has been magnified the last couple of weeks. The longer I continue to choose to carry out the lusts of my flesh, the more the loving correction from God increases and intensifies, the less power I have and the more I see how much I can do without the help of God....which is absolutely nothing. I am and can do nothing without Him. I have no power if I'm not walking by the spirit and I reap rotten fruit. The loss of power and purity is an awful feeling to have.

I don't know why I act the way I do or do the stuff I do. That's not for me to analyze and try to figure out. All I know is that I'm a broken, messed up person without God. I must give my problems over to God and ask Him to help me change my ways and to help me have the desires He has towards my sin. The only hope of ever overcoming this battle...the driving, compelling, compulsions of the lust of the flesh...is to simply walk in the Spirit. You cannot offer a human solution to a spiritual problem. I must walk by the Spirit in an attitude of submission, daily, step by step walk, yielding to the Spirit. The power of the flesh is great, but the power of the Spirit is greater.

The corruption I'm reaping by giving into the works of the flesh is effecting me physically, mentally, socially and spiritually. The more correction I receive from God, the more I see how serious God is about me sinning against Him and the more reverent fear and awe I have of Him. I'm in a very dangerous place and He is not going to put up with it. Through this experience I see how much He truly loves me though. He is not going to give up on me and I have the scars to prove it. It amazing me to see how He works, even in the midst of my correction and punishment. He is a good God and I'm thankful that He loves and cares for me to correct me and I'm thankful for the grace and compassion He has given me to come back to Him.

"16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law." Galatians 5:16-18 (NIV)

Psalm 51 - (NIV)
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then there will be righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar.