Hebrews 12:7 - Endure hardship as discipline...

Standing at my counter while I make dinner, sweat drips off the back of my hair and onto my neck. It's Monday night and I just finished a really hard BodyCombat class. On Thursday, I ran the Turkey Chase 10K in 56min with my friend, David (@dcborn61). On Saturday, Joshua & I ran a 4+mile hill run and on Sunday, we hiked Stony Brook Park (and by hiked, I mean, climbed a LOT of precarious stairs up to the top of a mountain so we could see the falls pictured here). My muscles ache, I really need a shower and I'm starving, but man, I feel incredible.

I'm inspired to do something.

Evernote reminded me that I had notes from last Sunday (thank you for the sync from my phone!) and after reading through them, I realized that this is something that is obviously on my heart. Pastor Todd (@swirlyfoot) gave a sermon at Church in Bethesda about the saints. He talked about the tough things they went through to become saints but they were never all talk. They had action behind their talk & endured hardship. The sermon was pointed at getting off our butts & doing something instead of just talking about it. Todd told us that each of us could be a saint in our own right if we stopped just formulating ideas and went out to put them into action.

My initial thoughts for this post were about formulating a plan for the next month to get off my butt and show myself what I'm made of physically. The verse above, Hebrews 12:7, is the beginning of a few verses (seriously, go read them) that talk about how God is our Father disciplines us for our own good and and how even when our earthly fathers have done the same, we've respected them. Being able to discipline ourselves to action allows us to correct our own paths.

MIND:
Based on what the Bible is saying here, I know I must discipline my thoughts, my words and my actions to make sure I am wholly good and holy for Him. If I can do that, I'll be wholly good to everyone around me. Being a Christian is so much more than just going to church on Sunday and praying over dinner. And although some of you may not agree with me, being a Christian isn't about just telling everyone that God will save them. Being a Christian is about being an upstanding member of your community in everything you do. It's about who you are when nobody is watching AND when everyone is watching. Finding myself standing here knowing that I'm a leader in my small community, I know it's time to correct my path.

I've always struggled with prayer and downtime. I've always had a hard time just quieting my mind. Running helps  me quiet my mind (we'll get to that next) but otherwise, I'm a million miles per hour in thought. Being able to refocus my thoughts will allow me to be a better Christian AND a generally better human to my community. Ever been around yogis? They're incredibly peaceful to everyone around them. Hmm... we'll see how this goes.
 
BODY:
This goes back to me sweating and feeling amazing yet painful after a few straight days of working out. I'm disciplining my body to do what I want it to and it's respecting me for it. For the last few years, I've been pushing myself to do more but then I fall into a comfortable pattern and end up working out only 3x a week.. maybe. This year, running has become something of an addiction for me but sometimes what I put in my body (fried food, alcohol, etc) doesn't allow me to have the drive to get up and run the next morning. While in this space, I always wonder (even though I know) why I can't break the barrier that shows me what I'm really capable of. In order for me to see results from this discipline of my body, I need to get off my butt and make it a reality.

If you repeat a behavior over and over, it becomes a habit.

My plan is to make these two behaviors good habits. Thanksgiving is now over and Christmas is on its way. These aren't insane plans for having a killer body or being a Christian saint, but they are simple actions that I want to become a part of my lifestyle, not just a phase.

4-WEEK NEW HABITS CHALLENGE:
MIND:
- commit to praying every morning & every evening
- commit to 15-min of quiet time for just reflection every day
- commit to being in bed by 11pm & waking up by 6am every day
- commit to tracking thoughts on paper daily

BODY:
- commit to 30-60min of exercise every day
- commit to eating & drinking only healthy
- commit to stretching every morning
- commit to tracking exercise on DailyMile.com daily

Now that I've written it down and said I'd do it, it's on. I'm ready... are you?
 

Ever just sit back and wonder how much God loves us? Ever wish you could understand the love He has for us? I've been doing that the last two days. It almost feels like it's not even possible that anyone could ever love us that much.

Yesterday at church I sang a song called "How He Loves". I chose that song earlier in the week and felt like I absolutely had to do it. I have only heard it a few times and didn't know how to sing it very well but I led our congregation in this as a meditative song before Communion. I started realizing how terribly I was singing the verses and kept going back to the chorus... at first thinking that I should have practiced it more and wondering what people would think of how I was messing it up... 

Then I realized that I needed to focus on the chorus. It's so simple but it says:

"He loves us. Oh, how He loves us. Oh, how He loves us. Oh, how He loves." 

As soon as church was over I had the overwhelming feeling of not being able to draw in a full breath and not understanding why. I left as soon as the service was over and heard these words over and over in my head and started crying.

Today I got an email from a girlfriend who I had gone on a big trip with a few years ago. We were talking about how we'd been thinking about each other and she said she heard How He Loves Us at her church yesterday and was thinking of me since that was a song she introduced me to. I'm not sure that's just chance... God's in that. Right there in that. He knew I'd been thinking about this and made sure I knew someone else was thinking about me in this too.

I started thinking about the words of the first verse:

"He is jealous for me. Loves like a hurricane, I am the tree. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy."

He wants more for me than I could EVER possibly want for myself... have you ever thought about how much that is?! We humans want a lot in life but wonder if we'll ever attain it. God wants WAY MORE! Is that incredible?! More than we could possibly imagine. God wants more for me than even my mother... and that's saying a lot.

He loves us. Plain and simple. He loves us. 

Think about that... then start planning on what you can do to make your life live up to how amazing His love is for you.

When I was born, the first child in my family, my dad had only recently become a born again Christian. He was gung-ho for God and his faith is the reason I am still growing daily as a Christian. He has never let his faith waver in that God will take care of him and his family. Dad made such an impact on my faith. And I want to share more with you on my family's faith journey and also an incredible tithing story from the book "Crazy Love."

Growing up in WNY in one of the poorest counties in the whole state, we didn't have money. 6 people, 1 income, no more than $20,000/year for all of us to survive on and somehow we managed. My parents gave us each an allowance. 50cents a week. 35 to keep, 10 to save and 5 to tithe. I still appreciate my parents for how they taught us to spend, save and tithe.

I vividly remember Sundays when the offering plate was passed. No matter how much we didn't have, my dad always had a wad of bills to drop in that plate. I noticed that other families didn't put anything in the plate and wondered why my dad was different. When I was in my teens, I asked him why he gave so much to the church. He told me that God had asked him to and that because he was faithful, God would take care of us.

No one in my family had health insurance growing up until NY State passed a law that low income kids under 19 could have free health insurance. That happened when I was 17. With 4 kids to raise, my parents had complete faith that God would take care of them. Not once did something happen to any of us that caused my parents to worry about money. Oh sure, they worried, but they knew God would be there to listen. 

God listened and told our church that we didn't have money for groceries when my mother was too proud to even whisper that truth - grocery bags filled our porch without a note the morning my mother walked out our front door to go apply for welfare. The day the rent was due and we didn't have the money for it, God told someone to put cash in an envelope and leave it in our mailbox. No one knew we didn't have the money but God made sure to take care of us.

When I got older and established myself in a church, I would give halfheartedly and not because I wanted to, only because 'God told me to.' I didn't give because I felt called to or that there was something to give for... I wasn't even sure if the church would spend 'my money' the way I thought was best. I heard a song on the Christian station the other day that reminded me of myself back then. The lyrics say: I try to stay awake during Sunday morning church, I throw a twenty in the plate, but I never give ’til it hurts.

As most of you know, last April I lost my job and decided to restart my business instead of finding another job. Shortly after that happened, a friend gave me the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. It's a book about God's crazy, relentless, all powerful love for us. There was a part of that book that talked about tithing and told a story of a man who lost his job and although he really wanted to keep giving the church what he had been, he didn't know if he could since he didn't have that income. He did a lot of praying and decided that instead of giving what he had been giving, he would give double and put his faith fully in God. 

Obviously that struck home with me. I had just lost my job, knew that I wasn't going to be able to pay myself any sort of salary from May to December due to taxes and the fact that growing a business doesn't happen overnight - I had no idea what I was going to do. I loved my church, this church... and knew I needed to keep giving, not just of my time but of all the resources God gave me. I decided to take a huge leap of faith and be like the man in Crazy Love... and like my dad. I started tithing double what I had been tithing before I lost my income. 

Yes, it might seem crazy to you for anyone to do that… and you're right, but I had to eat, keep a roof over my head and forge ahead with this new business while still paying all the bills. It takes full faith to do something like that and I wanted to know what that faith felt like.

When I did an assessment of last year's finances, I found that I had given 60% of my overall income to the church or other charities throughout the year... without anything more than my business just paying my living expenses from May to December. I never once went hungry, I didn't lose my apartment, my dog didn't die because I couldn't feed him, I had everything I could have needed and more. How? God took care of me. Little miracles. Teresa even had a chance to observe God’s gifts as they emerged.

Teresa saw the IRS put unexpected money into my checking account JUST when I wasn't able to buy groceries and gas. She saw my friends taking care of me. She saw the forgotten $3,000 from my retirement fund come through and pay employees when they needed it. She saw people remove themselves from my life and my business without the burden of unemployment.

God takes care of us... if we let Him. I am living proof. If you want that faith, the faith that you know God will take care of you, you have to trust Him and know that whatever you do ends up giving to His work and will go to exactly what is needed most. So I invite us to take a few minutes now and envision all that we are thankful for… and all our needs that have been met. With these gifts in clear view, how can we ‘throw a $20 in the plate but never give til it hurts?’

I love this church, you love this church; we’ve made it our home. Tithing isn’t about obligation, it’s about supporting the community we’ve built here. Don’t give because you feel like you have to, give because you know God is faithful to you and the rest of us.

--

Originally given as a talk at Church in Bethesda to the faith community during worship service. Huge thanks to Jill Foster for reviewing & providing me with incredible feedback. 

FAST: I will stop 'spending' for a year. From 10/10/10 to 10/09/11.

My dad is a spender. My mom is a saver. I realized at 30 that I take after my dad. My mom taught me to be a frugal shopper, only buying what I need and only really spending money on quality items. My dad was always taking us to lunch or buying flowers for my mom or giving more than I knew he could to the church.

I'm not a shopaholic nor do I spend outside my means. I'm a big giver when I do have money and often find great things for my friends or family and give more to the church when I have it. Every once in a while I'll go on a little splurge but I've never been in debt. I have no credit card debt, no outstanding loans... I also never have any money.

I buy quality clothes but not designer stuff. I make sure to have staple items in my closet for all occasions. I rent an apartment with a roommate and never buy ostentatious things. I have driven and paid off the car I bought 6 years ago and have no plans on an upgrade any time soon. I have a dog that I am quite self-sufficient with between cutting his hair and bathing him myself. I do trade to get massages and my hair colored. I do my own nails. My roommate & I keep our thermostat low in the winter and high in the summer. I know how to keep my grocery bill down. You get the point.

All of those things would typically mean that I could easily save money. Yes, living in the DC area (man, it's expensive) & being a new business owner (sacrificing salary & spending savings to get things started) are two of the biggest reasons for not saving much lately but there's something more than that.

What caused this epiphany? Two things:

1. A girlfriend told me a story about a neighbor of hers who can't stop spending. Patra told that neighbor that if she didn't buy one piece of clothing for a year that no one would notice.
2. A 23-year-old girl I know lost her job, her car & her home and decided to sell everything else and go on a tour of the US to write a book about the homeless in every state and she's doing it! Check out www.shaykelley.com

A switch flipped in my head and I looked around me. I have a closet stuffed full of clothing that all fits and works for every occasion. I have all the electronics I could want (camera, laptop, phone). I have a normal set of bills but nothing I'm paying off. Aside from the daily life stuff, I already have absolutely everything I need to comfortably live for a year.

As a working American, I have access to anything and everything I can possibly need or want. If I lost it all, what would I do? As a business owner, I have to trust myself enough to make sure I keep income flowing but do I really need to keep spending?

Spending money on things I don't absolutely need has stopped today. No more Starbucks, no more weekend trips to my parents, no more online shopping, no more wine, no more purchasing for myself or others, etc. I have everything I need and if I need anything, I can make gifts or borrow items from friends.

I will set a monthly budget & stick to it for the following things:

• bills
• toiletries
• groceries
• dining out
• tithing

With the money I hope to save over the next year, I want to:

1. Take a real vacation
2. Give more to my church
3. Put money into my retirement
4. Build a savings

This is something I need to do if I want to do the things my heart longs to do. Working 7 days a week and never seeming to save is getting old. It's time I started acting my age and started thinking about my future. Being healthy physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially will allow me to be the woman I set out to be.

Saving starts now!

When I was growing up, every night my family of 6 would sit around our dinner table and pray for our food. Every Sunday we would go to church for service. Every Wednesday we would go to church for activities. Once a month was communion. As kids, we were obligated to do these things because my parents enforced them. When I left home, I felt like they were things I was still obligated to do.

When did you realize your faith was just an obligation? Have you ever thought of it that way? Do you honestly feel like you have a choice in your religion or are you just going through the motions? I'm talking to all of you with whatever religion you believe in.

Not long ago the song More Like Fallin' in Love by Jason Gray came on and I heard the words so clearly that it had me shaking my head yes. The song was about how it's not easy to be 'religious' but that our faith should be more like falling in love with God than obligation.

I've never been good at following rules. I've been told that if someone tries to put me in a box, any sort of box, that I will get out of it as quickly as I can - that I can have rules put on me or I'll break them just because they're rules. It's the same way with religion. If I feel like I'm obligated to do something, I probably won't end up doing it. Being a Christian often feels like a prison, if you don't look at it the right way. So many rules, so many consequences, so many requirements and restrictions. It goes against everything I am at my core.

Love is something we humans are always searching for. Acceptance, someone to tell us we're beautiful, someone to wrap us in their arms and take care of us, to give us the feeling that we're doing the right thing. I've been struggling with love and acceptance since I was a kid. I want to be loved but at the first sign of it, I flee. I've realized that's how I am with God too.

Instead of being obligated and required to believe & act a certain way, I want to feel like I'm falling in love with Him. As soon as He starts showing that it can actually be like that, I go back into the mindset of 'fine, I'll just pray every day, do my devotions and go to church and He'll love me' when all He wants me to do is let go. He wants to sweep me off my feet and show me that I am loved with a deeper love than a human can feel.

In the same way, marriage is something I feel is an obligation, not something that's sweet and wonderful. I feel that our society tells us that we should go to school, fall in love and get married. It's the course of life and is 'just the way we do things.' As much as that has changed over the last 30 years, it's still something many of us look to do since we don't feel we can be alone. Since this seems like a rule, it makes me want to run away... fast.

Maybe if I stopped looking at my faith as something I have to do and start looking at it as falling in love, I'll see the emotional growth I've been needing in my personal life to allow myself to be open to loving a human rather than running from it. In the same sense, if I stop looking at marriage as an obligation and focus on the falling in love part, it won't seem so terrifying. Why can't we just enjoy the falling in love portion of everything we do and stop focusing on the outcome and requirements?

Guess that's just how it starts... as food for thought.

More Like Fallin' in Love - Jason Gray

Give me rules, I will break them
Show me lines, I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet

Its gotta be
More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
Its like I'm falling
Its like I'm falling in love

Give me words, I'll misuse them
Obligations, I'll misplace them
Cuz all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free

Love, Love
Deeper and deeper
It was love that made me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me

I write a lot about relationships - friends, love, family, God, and work. Life has us wrapped up in relationships, most of which are good but some are not the ones we should have. My life has consisted of lots of incredible friendships, hard family relationships, a back-and-forth God relationship, good and bad work relationships and terrible love relationships for the most part.

My dear friend, Diana, told me that I need to let go of the bad relationships and move forward in my incredible ones so I can find the peace I need inside myself. This is such a big struggle in my life. I tend to reach out for the relationships I shouldn't have because they are a challenge and I like to fix things. I end up getting hurt badly by them but go back again and again. I have too many of these relationships in my life right now and can't find a way to walk away from them.

I keep a little devotional book on my desk at the office called Hope for Each Day by Billy Graham. It's a short verse with a 1-page devotional, quick and easy. This morning I walked into my office with a headache, miserable at myself for not going running and had to deal with a lazy employee which just ended up making me really angry. I was also thinking about relationships I have in my life right now that I know I need to walk away from.

The devotion for today reminded me that God knows everything and puts things in our way to show us He's really there. It reads:

Accept God's Freedom
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  James 4:8

One day a little child was playing with a valuable vase. He put his hand into it and could not take it out. His father, too, tried his best to get the little boy's hand out. but all in vain. They were thinking of breaking the vase whtn the father said, "Now, my song, make one more try. Open your hand and hold your fingers out straight as you see me doing and then pull."

To the father's astonishment the little fellow said, "Oh no, Daddy. I couldn't put my fingers out like that because if I did I would drop my penny."

Smile if you will - but thousands of us are like that little boy, so busy holding on to the world's worthless trifes that we cannot accept God's freedom.

What "trifle" is keeping you from God? A sin you won't let go of? An unworthy goal you are determined to reach? A dishonorable relationship you won't give up? I beg you to drop that trifle in your heart. Surrender! Let go and let God have His way with your life.

I believe that God is in charge and really knows my pain and misery in these. I do have relationships that are sinful, dishonorable and painful. They cause me hurt and headaches and I need to let go of them so I can move forward in the way God has asked me to.

What relationships are you still holding onto that you should let go of? Take it to Him and ask Him to help you remove them. I'll try to do it first and let you know how it goes.

A local radio announcer had a 'positive tip of the day' a few weeks ago:  "Your private life says more about you than your public life." It really got me thinking about the things in my life that are private, things I would hate for others to find out about.

One of my dear friends, Rashmee, passed away suddenly recently. She was here, then she wasn't. Gone without warning. Her little light left this world and a mark on all of us left behind. She was such a darling young woman who gave so much to the people around her. Her life was marked by having so many people who loved her. When she died, I started thinking about everything she left behind unfinished or hidden. Did she have things she hoped no one would find? It wasn't her time to go. Did she have relationships, emails, pictures, things that she didn't expect anyone to ever see? I doubt it. She lived in a clean life with clean friends and a loving family. She had nothing to complete, just a lot of living to do.

My life has come under serious scrutiny by myself. Looking at every aspect of who I am, what I am, where I am, what I have, everything - has really made me stop and think about where I am going. If I died today, would people find things they didn't know about me? What would they think of me? Would their perception of me change?

God asks us as Christians to live our lives in accordance to His gospel - to walk as Christians in all aspects of our lives. Rules for Practical Christian Living is found in Ephesians 5.

Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. - Ephesians 5:15-21

Being a Christian and walking in His light, without losing our inhibitions or who we are as true Christians, is all He asks. 'Do not get drunk with wine' is not just warning against drunkenness, it's telling us that when we get drunk we lose our discernment and act in ways we wouldn't if we weren't drunk. Excessive anything is not living the way He has asked us.

Walking on a straight and narrow path allows us to face the right direction, continuing along in the way we are supposed to and in every aspect of our lives. It doesn't just ask us to be public figures as Christians, but also in our private lives. Recently I've been hearing a Christian artist say that it's easy for us to confess our sins to God but it's not easy to tell others of our indiscretions. We should tell those around us about what we've done so we can have more desire to change our sinful ways.

Think about the skeletons in your closet, the things you want to get off your chest, the things you have hidden in drawers or boxes so no one finds them... all the things someone might find out if you died suddenly. Are you prepared to leave behind the memories of who you are and what you have? Think about it and start cleaning out your life. I'm cleaning mine out. As much as I am a Christian that doesn't mean I have nothing to hide. Why would I want people to know about the sinful person I am?

Thank you, my dear little Rashmee, for making things more clear in my life. Thank you, my heavenly Father, for listening to my sins and forgiving me for them. Thank you, my friends, for listening and supporting me through all of life's changes and decisions. Now it's time to make it happen.

I am constantly surprised at the vastness of God’s love for me.

About 18 months ago I decided I wanted a solid group of Christian women in my life so I started a monthly women’s bible study at my church. The group now has 30 people with at least 10 people in attendance every month. This month has been especially hard for a lot of us and our study was about encouraging ourselves in the Lord based on Psalm 6. David had many tough times where he felt God had left him only to find He was right there the whole time.

One year ago on May 1 I started working for myself full-time again. I had a laptop, my old job’s promise of referrals and my God-given talents at networking. God has provided so much over the last 12 months – an office, many incredible clients, steadfast friendships, mentors, employees, and so much more. There have been valleys and mountains and I feel like I’ve accomplished so much for having started with nothing. But right now I feel like the biggest failure.

There are so many doubts, so many fears… and the knots in my stomach just keep growing. I don’t know what to do about all of it. The doubt ebbs and flows as does the worry. It’s hard to talk to anyone about it because I feel like I’m falling apart but then I say something to another entrepreneur and they give me that knowing look. Every one of them has been through exactly what I’m going through. “Been there, done that, still wear the t-shirt.”

Entrepreneur for life – that’s me. I will never work for a boss again but I’ve realized that the boss I do have is the most powerful, most successful, most driven boss anyone could have. He holds me when I feel like the world has left me standing in the storm alone. I doubt God is taking care of me but He’s got bigger plans than I can even think of.

At the bible study on Monday I let it all out – all the fears, the tears and the worry. The reception I received and love I felt was astounding. I felt they took my worry and cast it to the sky so God could dissipate it for me. The next morning I walked out my door to find a plate of homemade brownies with a poncho that said ‘so you can dance in the rain’ – the dear girl who has a life full of worry was able to give me a sense of hope and love. This group I started so many months ago has given me back way more than I could ever give them.

The song ‘Your Hands’ by JJ Heller keeps playing on my radio – the words flow through me like God is pouring Himself into me. At the study someone said ‘we have to pour ourselves out so God can pour Himself in.’

“When my world is shaking heaven stands.” This is a daily reminder of God’s love.

--

Your Hands – JJ Heller

I have unanswered prayers
I have trouble I wish wasn't there
And I have asked a thousand ways
That You would take my pain away

I am trying to understand
How to walk this weary land
Make straight the paths that crookedly lie
Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave Your hands

When You walked upon the Earth
You healed the broken, lost, and hurt
I know You hate to see me cry
One day You will set all things right

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave Your hands

Your hands
Your hands that shape the world
Are holding me, they hold me still