Under my own power

Today, when anxiety overtook me, I laid down on my bed for a few minutes and lost two hours... a friend I reached out to sent me a reminder about a verse I needed.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 ~Philippians 4:6-7

I prayed and started to feel a bit better, though not completely, but decided it was time to get back to life.

I ran to the store, came home and made the kids dinner. For myself I made a huge plate of veggies and hummus to help counter-act the last several days of not really caring much about what I was eating. (Seriously, I ate a small cake*, all by myself, a bite at a time**, over the last four days... I wasn't going to admit that, but hey, it's a blog about accountability... I kinda have to!***)

Then, realizing I also hadn't been on the bike in a week, I took off after dinner for a quick ride.

Honestly, I don't know much about the technical aspects of a mountain bike. When I started riding again several weeks ago, I hadn't been on the bike in at least three years. I know nothing about the gears on my bike. My first time back out, I played with them a little and found a setting that works okay for uphill and a setting that works better for downhill. Since then I've pretty much stuck with them. Uphill, click click, downhill, click click.

Tonight I set out, praise and worship music in my earbuds and the GPS set to record my ride. Uphill first, click click, then a downhill, click click, followed by a lot of uphill click click. Around the one mile mark I started to think maybe I should not try to break the 5mile mark today. Maybe I should turn around and go home soon. Then, just to see what would happen I started clicking through my gears.

Click click, pedal pedal pedal, nope.
Click click, pedal pedal pedal, hmm.
Click click, pedal pedal pedal... hey now, this isn't so bad...
Lets try... click click, pedal pedal pedal... this might work...

Wait, what? I just hit two miles? I think I could really do this next half mile or so before I turn around. I kept pedaling and ended up going over the three mile mark before turning around to head home because it was getting late... not because I was tired or worn out.

As I headed back home, click click click click click (mostly downhill) I was pretty proud of the distance I'd covered thanks to figuring out those gears. Then a thought occurred to me, "Hmm, how long have I been laboring up these hills on this trail under my own power when I had help right there that I wasn't using?"

I had the power of the gears right there, at my disposal, but I was comfortable with the way I had been doing things before. It wasn't that I didn't have faith the gears would help, I just wasn't even trying to use them.

That's when I heard it. "You do that a lot, you know... try to conquer life's hills under your own power, when you have Someone else right there, waiting for you to ask for help."

Really? I mean, can't I just go for a bike ride without learning a lesson? Apparently not today.
(That's not really a complaint though.)

I often think God is getting me through things, up and down life's hills. I tell others that God is getting me through, when really, I've just become so comfortable where I am with Him that I say "Yep, I've got my gears set right" and then I pedal harder. 

Today when that anxiety hit me, I asked for prayer and gave my own, "please make this go away" prayer for myself before I started focusing on those verses.

Still, I wasn't just letting Him handle it. I was trying to handle it myself. Find some comfort food, put on a warm sweater, crawl under the comforter in my bed, pray with my eyes closed and my head on the pillow... It wasn't until later, out for a ride, that I realized I had definitely been in the wrong gear.

Do I have an answer yet as to how to get myself in gear? Not really. Starting in the best place I can think to look... the instruction manual.

² Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 

³ For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  

⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

⁵ If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 

⁶ But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.  

⁷ Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 

⁸ Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

⁹ Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them.  

¹⁰ And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field.  

¹¹ The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements.

¹² God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

~James 1:2-12 

Don't read these disclaimers:

*It was a quarter sheet, fluffy white cake with heaps of butter-cream frosting.

** Sometimes three or four bites at once.

***Totally worth it, just sayin'.

How long have you been planning THIS!?!

Over the past several months, as I spend more time listening to God and less time listening to myself... He has begun showing me some of His plans. As He has done so, I keep thinking, "Really? Are you sure?"

While I was running on Sunday night and having a little conversation with God (it feels weird to say I was praying... because I talk to Him all day long... my eyes are open, my hands are often busy, and I'm almost never sitting still... but we talk to each other.) So I'm having this conversation and a memory pops into my mind...

Eight years ago I was living in "Christian Lite" mode... easy to do. Lots of people do it every day and I know I have, off and on, for a long time...

Anyway, not long after my youngest was born, I received a Christian Women's magazine in the mail. One of the articles I was reading about was especially interesting to me, but I remember having this inward conversation... "I could explain what she is trying to say in a way that more women would understand... but to be credible I'd have to stop living the way I am living..." and I put it down and never looked at it again...

Now, did this incident happen because I was ready to begin the journey then and I just didn't listen? Or, was this something that happened then... so that He could remind me of it now, so that I would KNOW it had been His plan all along?

I don't know. That isn't the question I needed answered... He answered the one I needed answered. I wanted to know He knew all of this was going to happen as STILL wanted me to do what I feel Him calling me to do.
He, in all of His PERFECTION knew each and every choice and mistake that I was going to make over the years... and He STILL called me to this.

Does speaking publicly still scare me to death? Yes. I can't even say I haven't considered turning and running and doing the opposite of what I know I should do. I could listen to the lies of the enemy that wants me to back down from this challenge...  But someone reminded me today... I AM NOT THAT GIRL ANYMORE... He chose me to do what I am about to do... and that means that if He puts me in an arena speaking to 5000, or in a small church speaking to 10... I can do it. Because HE SAID SO!

I also need to remember that I am constantly seeking His will now... and I definitely wasn't back then. So, when I mess up, it isn't the end of the world... it's all part of the process... He knows I'm not perfect... if I was, I wouldn't need Him...  So last night, when I totally blew up at my kids who were doing their best to make me crazy, He said... don't forget that one... it'll probably be part of a story you are telling others some day to help them get through this very thing...

Jesus is my personal trainer

Over the last year I have lost 65lbs... and have about 40 more to go. I recently took up what I thought was going to be trail-walking... but I was listening to Judah Smith preach (his sermon with a strong, steady beat in the music behind him) through my earbuds and couldn't help myself... when he talks about joy and freedom... I just want to run! I have never been a runner!

(From a t-shirt I saw online.)

I've added some encouraging songs with a strong beat to my playlist as well and it occurred to me today as I was out on a trail that there is something special about pushing yourself to your physical limits and hearing God's word (or talking to Him) at the same time.

My atheist friend would call it "lack if oxygen" but I know there is more.

Your lack of ability to keep up emotional walls just opens up places for Jesus to work where you haven't been letting Him in...

I think back to when I used to watch that TV show "The Biggest Loser" and their personal trainers would push and push and push the contestants until they broke... until they were sobbing and breathless and suddenly talking about all the hurts in their past and why they eat and why they rage and why they are too depressed to move on a daily basis.

Physical exertion can break the walls you've built within yourself. Sometimes it picks at the mortar, making it crumble a tiny bit at a time... but at some point for me there was a "boom"... there was probably a visible physical jolt, if anyone had been around to see it...  

When I had pushed myself to the point where I wanted to stop and sit in the grass and sob about every stupid choice I had ever made, every wrong thing in my life and refuse to ever move again... I had these words in my ears...

(Hit "play" on the youtube video to hear the actual song... you can hear why it would be good to run to.)

"You are no match for sin. You are no match for temptation... The only hope for sexual purity in today's society is beauty and majesty of Jesus. when your eyes and your heart and your emotions get captured by the beauty and the majesty and the loveliness of Jesus it will cause you to resist temptation and look only to Him...

Bondage, addiction, temptation, secrecy, pain... It must bow and it falls back at the mention of His great name. I am convinced that the blood of Jesus is the most powerful agent in human history... and it can set you free... for whom Jesus sets free is free indeed!"

Jesus' love is the answer to your pain.
Just Jesus.
Jesus plus nothing is the answer..."

(Jesus is Bringing Sexy Back; Judah Smith)