Tempted? Tired and Hungry? Cadbury Mini Eggs? TFW

Happy Wednesday, Faithful Weigher's. Our meetings yesterday were so uplifting and encouraging to perseveres on this path that God is walking with us on.  We have been talking about temptations and satan's lies around us.  Well, for those of you who read the Daily Bread, today's verse is Matthew 4:1-10. It states," ..the tempter came to Him, (Jesus) when he was tired and hungry."  Hmmmm....this is right where I have been these past few days.  In this state of mind and body, "escapes" around us look so good to us, don't they?  My most recent example is this happened yesterday. I am feeling very tired and worn from not being able to sleep a good, solid nights sleep for over a week.  I was hungry because it was already after 1:00 pm and I realized that I had not even had a protein bar for breakfast and it was past my "normal "eat when I'm hungry" time which is usually about 11:30ish.  Well, I was in Aldi's grabbing a few needed grocery items when in the midst of the boxes in the last row, hardly visable to the scanning eye, I saw that they had bigger bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs.  You know, the little milk chocolate eggs with a hard shell.  Well, they hopped their way into my cart!  Ohhh, they would taste real good with my afternoon coffee.  And the did!  I was rebuked by my friend when I said I "sinned" when I bought them. Yes, she is right. It was not a sin to buy Cadbury Mini Eggs.  It was not a sin for me to eat them with my afternoon coffee, knowing that it was part of my "fist full" of food that I needed to nourish me.  However, I realized this morning after reading these verses in the Matthew and the comments in the Daily Bread that when I was tired and hungry, I zeroed in on that purple bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs!  Hmmm... satan tempted Jesus with bread.  He tempts me with Cadbury Mini Eggs!  The truth is that he is still in the business of tempting us when we are tired and hungry!!  We still need to be responding to him as Jesus did!  He spoke God's words back to him.  May be encouraged by this today, as we seek the Lord for what we need today and trust Him to supply those needs and not that which tempts us to satisfy us for a moment.  Wow!  I think I got it, Lord, for today, that is.  I will continue to trust You for my needs for tomorrow.  Blessings on this Wednesday, my sweet Faithful Weigh Friends.

His Time, A New Word! TFW

I trust that you are looking forward to spending some time in the Lord's house today.  I know I am!! This is my first favorite day of the week.  The next one, of course, is "Ministry Tuesday". :)

I learned a new word today!  If you are like my husband, you may already know it.  I probably should have already learned it, but as we know, we come across things, words, ideas and even more importantly, truths in God's Word us when His time is right.  How do know that "His time is right?"  With the curiosity of what a something means!  I had to have read this word, on this day, in "Jesus Calling" for the past 3 years. I usually mark down meanings, aha! moments and underline phrases that "hit" me on that particular day.  However, when I read this word today, I immediately said to myself, "What does that mean?"  I also noticed that nothing was written above it or that there were no arrows to the margin with a definition.  Huh!  It was "His time" for me to dig a bit deeper into this thought today.  So, being the woman of the techno world that I am...ha ha...I grabbed my cell phone and asked Google what cacophony meant.  She, yes, a woman's voice responded that it means a "harsh mixture of sounds."   Aha!!!   In the context of today's devotions in "Jesus Calling", it made perfect sense.  In the study that we have been doing with our Faithful Weigh book study, it now makes even more sense.  God's time was right! I love it!  IF you have "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young, it is a MUST READ.  If you don't then I will share the verse and thoughts with you.

It is a verse that I have come to love and have found such joy and peace through over the past few years.  Zephaniah 3:17, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."  When God's time was right the first time, I read that verse and was in AWE!  Most of you know that I LOVE to sing for the Lord. I am always in awe what He does with the songs He gives to me to share and with my quivering body and voice.  Knowing how intimately connected I am with Him through singing, it just blew my mind that my God, the God of the universe, would sing over me and rejoice over me with so much more intimacy than I could ever imagine.

 It is a testament of who God is!  

Ok, back to my new word, cacophony, and why His time was right this morning.  The words of Sarah Young, "The voices of the world are a cacophony of chaos, pulling you this way and that.  Don't listen to those voices; challenge them with My Word."  Bingo! Right on, Sarah!  She must have been reading our handouts and learning of the temptations and lies the world so freely gives about who we are, what we look like and what we should be eating!  As I wrapped my mind around this whole revelation of becoming aware of this cacophony, I realized this important thing about me and my relationship with God. (Even before I read the rest of today's words in Jesus Calling.)  As I have sought the Lord in more areas of my life, He has given me more and more of these "aha" moments.  In these moments, I am drawn closer to Him and am learning more about who He is.  Then I read the "rest of the story" and it was right on.  She says, "I love to reveal Myself to you, and your seeking heart opens you up to receive more of My disclosures."  Amen and Amen!!  I have found this to be so very true!  As I sat, in this silent revelation, I realized that the closer I draw to My God, the more the sounds of this world become a "cacophony of chaos." Chaos that I used to think was normal and even more sadly, the truth!  It is clear to me now why His time was right this morning.  I wasn't here at this place in my relationship with the Lord a year ago.  I had read over these words without even a thought about all of this.  Isn't God amazing how He works everything for His purposes and glory?  Even the timing of our Faithful Weigh studies and the work He has done in my heart over this past year that brought new meaning to me today with a "new" word, cacophony.  

I trust that you, too, are seeking the Lord with an open heart and listening to His still small voice. To do this, we must shut out the voices of the world around us and be still and know that He is God. (Psalms 46:10).  In this stillness, you can almost hear Him rejoicing over you with the most beautiful, intimate voice you have ever heard. Oh my dear Faithful Weigh Friends, listen to Him and not the cacophony around you.

May God bless your worship to Him this day,

Mary Ann

Emotions and our journey through them! TFW

Happy Wednesday, you all!  Yep...we were blessed by our meetings yesterday as we continue to work through some tough sections of this chapter on emotions!  Yikes!  Yep, we all have them, God created them, but most of the time, we abuse their purpose.  By this I mean we mistakenly think that they are ours to control.  My prayer request for this week is that I will be able to stop for a moment and recognize what emotion I am feeling and remember just who IS in control.  God, not the emotion.  Like I said, some tough ground we are covering but these very things could be pushing us to eat when we are NOT hungry.  Emotions are not bad or do they need to be ignored.  Perhaps we need to figure out their origin and ask God how to use them for His glory?  The Daily Bread talked about all of the hardships that Paul endured in 2 Cor. 11:24-33. Can you even imagine the emotions he went through time after time?  I could relate to their statement for the day at the bottom. "The journey is as important as the destination."   Wouldn't it be easier to just take a pill and get to our "goal" weight and stay there?  Yep, it sure would be!! However, the journey we are on is transforming us for His glory!  Instead of fussing over what the scales tells us from day to day, let's be more about the excitement of His transforming power in our lives and thank Him for the work that He is doing in our hearts.  We, too, can echo Paul's words in verse 30, "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weaknesses."   If you would like to learn more about what we can boast about, go to my church's website, www.pybs.us, and listen to Pastor Leo's sermon on Jeremiah 9:24, "..but let him who boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am Lord, who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the Lord."   I am so thankful for this journey God has on us together.  May you seek Him this week within your emotions.  He is there already, why not ask Him what He would like you to do with them?  He has the answer!  He IS the answer!  Blessings to each of you, my sweet Faithful Weigh Friends.

New Year's Eve 2014 - TFW

As another year comes to a close, I can't help but sit in my quiet living room, gazing at my tree shining through the darkness and feel the peace around me.  Not the peace of the quietness but the peace in my heart, knowing that I am not doing this life alone.  Knowing that the presence of the very God of the universe is right here with me.  He holds my heart and soul in His capable hands and this is why I get to experience His amazing peace that I cannot find anywhere else in this mixed up world. We all need these time to step out of our busy lives to sit and know that He is God. That He is here. That my life is but a vapor in His timing but that His timing is always perfect and that is why I am right here.  Here in this crazy world of busyness with the unending things that entice us to take our eyes off from things above as we continue to listen the lies that we so willingly learned over our lifetimes.  I am so thankful for the past few years that God has seen fit to show me more clearly how these lies so readily shaped what I have believed and my actions and reactions.  He has shown me these things through sermons at my church, the women's bible studies, my personal devotions with the Scriptures, Jesus Calling and the Daily Bread.  However, I have to say that the "rubber hit the road" in our Faithful Weigh meetings and book studies.  God saw fit to bring His truths home to my heart by meeting me right where I thought I had "control" over.  Wow.  Was my thinking ever wrong!!  I am so thankful for each of our Faithful Weigher's, whether there in person at our meetings, receiving our emails or Facebook posts.  God has used all of this and our interactions with you all to reshape my thinking.  To bring forward the lies I have believed so that I had to deal with them.  Some of them so very deep in my character that I didn't even know they were lies.  Our defense can be that "this is who I am"!  But God...in His almighty, sovereign wisdom and design of our amazing bodies, knew different.  If we truly believe and desire the words that we repeat from God's word, "to be holy as I am holy", we must surrender each and every one of those beliefs based on the lies of this world, to His truths.  His truth will set us free and we will be free, indeed.  Ahhh...with this progress I have made...in my eyes it may seem great...in God's smiling, all-knowing eyes, He knows I have far to travel but that my life is reflecting more and more of His truths.  What a blessing to look back on this past year and to actually realize the changes He has made through this avenue of my eating!  Who knew that what and why I put food in my mouth is a very reflection of my trust in Him!!  Wow....I have so far to go but I am so thankful for the journey with Him and each of YOU, that I have been blessed to travel this past year.  As random as my brain thinks, this thought just came to me!  Have we ever wondered why an onion smells so bad and strong that it can force our tear ducts to leak?  Aha!!  God knew that as we "peeled off" the onion layers of the lies we have believed, that we would weep with surrendered hearts and then realize the joy and peace when that smelly stuff is thrown in the garbage!!  (aka...as far as the east is from the west!)  Whooohooot!  Praise His Name for the amazing work He has done in our lives and with this knowledge, we have hope in the days to come because He is faithful and His way is true!  Hence we came to this wonderful weight-loss support ministry that God has blessed Laurie and I to facilitate for Him.  The Faithful Weigh!  My prayer for this New Year of 2015 is that this journey we are walking, even though it may feel like we are trudging along, may bring you the hope that God is with you, that He is for you and that He will keep you close to Him as you continue to surrender your layers of onions to the amazing truths, peace and joy that awaits us along the way.  Many blessings to each of you, my sweet Faithful Weigh Friends.  I truly love you all in the Name of my Lord and Savior.  Mary Ann

The Light of the Christmas Star....

I have always loved the picture of the little shepherd boy gazing heavenward at the bright shining star over Bethlehem.  The light that announced the coming of God's only Son to save a lost world from the darkness of sin.  I, too, want to gaze heavenward at the Light of this world each day that God gives me on this earth.  To allow His Light to seep into my heart and illuminate every dark shadow with His presence.  To bring me the joy and peace that we hear so much about this time of year.

One morning recently, I got to thinking about God's light pouring down on me and the shadow behind me from His light. 

First, that His light shines down on me, almost like a spotlight with a circle of light around me, to show me the next step.  If I try to look beyond the circle of light, it is dark.  Where the footstep in the darkness may lead can only be imagined.  I am only to take that next step on my path of life, that God is allowing me to see by His light.  If I choose to turn away from His light, then I will be taking those steps in darkness of my own shadow.   Because I am His child, He does not remove His light from me.  I create the shadow from His light behind me when I think I can do things my own way, in my own strength.  I came upon this verse in my pondering.  2 Corinthians 4:6,  "For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."    "Lord, help me to walk only in Your light that shines in my heart."

The second thought that rolled around my thinking was that when God's light shines on me, it also reflects off from me.  When I thought about the science of light bouncing off from objects it hits, it was a clear picture of God's light bouncing off from what He is doing in my life WHEN I am keeping my eyes focused on Him and walking in His lighted path for me.  The purpose of a light is so that one can see the way.  The purpose of God's plan for me is to reflect His light and His glory to those around me who may be struggling to keep their faces lifted towards God's  light of hope or may be choosing to walk in their own shadows.  One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 3:5 that says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding."   I have learned through many years of walking in God's light and trudging in my own shadow, that trusting the Lord for my very next step is the only place that I can find hope, peace and joy that the angels sang about in the lighted sky that night so long ago.  The song that God brought to me to sing for our Christmas Eve service tonight is the "Christmas Star" by Cece Winans.   These words say what my heart is thinking this morning.

 "The greatest gift that God could give became the Christmas Star.

There's a light that shines on everyone, 

Burning brighter everyday

For the souls who search for peace on earth

It's the Christmas Star that lights the way."

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to each of you and may you lift your face to the only source of peace and joy, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Internal Cues, Rest, Hunger, Fullness & Trust! TFW

Happy Friday, Faithful Weigher's.  I  trust you are having a good week, so far, trusting God for your internal cues.  As we continue to discover the amazing design God created in our bodies, we are learning about even more of His perfect design in our Bible Study on Hebrews at PYBC.  This week the focus was on REST!  I know...you all don't have to tell me to "listen to it".  As for you that know me, God has to "slap me upside the head" at times when there is something He is bringing to my attention. :)  He does this by bringing this topic to me in many different ways.  Last night, the dvd study was so good.  This morning, Sarah Young, the author of "Jesus Calling" must have called up Lisa Harper and coordinated the exact topic and day that I would be watching the dvd and reading the devotional!  How dare those two connive on my behalf!  :)  All kidding aside, this is a serious topic for most of us.  Sarah says in JC this morning, "I built into your very being the need for rest.  How twisted the world has become when people feel guilty about meeting this basic need." There you have it.  Another area of God's perfect design of our bodies that we easily overlook or ignore the signals it is giving to us.  To me, this brings another layer to the phrase we have been using a lot in this book study.  "To listen to our God-given internal cues."  I, for one, need to also listen to these cues, to rest!  However, as we have learned this week and last that hunger pangs and fullness is subjective, rest also is.  It means different things to different people.  First, I "rest" when I am in God's Word and writing in my journal in the morning.  This is my "spiritual rest".  It might be a half hour, it might be 2 hours.  I so look forward to my morning coffee time with my Lord.  My "physical rest" to me is sleeping at night, of course, but "rest" in the other part of my life is sitting with my hubby or a friend, chatting about stuff over a cup of coffee.  I know..my brain isn't resting...but this is what I enjoy doing, this is what I lament that I don't have more time to do.  However, as I listen to my internal cues for hunger, fullness and now tiredness, God is teaching me to rely more and more on Him and to trust Him more and more in the moments of my day.  It is from Him that I will learn His meaning of these cues for me.  I desire that my cues will be subjective, not to what I perceive but to His will and plan for me. To bring Him glory with my life. Ya know, I am so grateful that God has brought me to this time of my life, with all the hardships I have endured. Without my journey with Him thus far, I would not be where I am, right now, learning of His amazing design and will for me.  I am excited to be right where I am and to keep walking with my Lord!  Trusting God in more areas of my life that I didn't realize I had "control" of.  Are you praising God today for the journey He has brought you on?  Are you excited for what He is teaching you right now?  Is your desire to be subjective to God's design and will for you?  As I read over the prayer request that we had this week at our meetings, the underlying need I see is that we trust God in each of our areas of need.  He is worthy of our trust!  Blessings for the weekend, my sweet Faithful Weigh Friends!

Is It Really that Simple? YES! TFW

Happy Friday, Faithful Weigher's.  It seems like it's usually on a Friday that I feel that I need to reach out to you all!  I really missed being at our meetings the past week.  As the saying goes, "You never know what the day brings".  This seems especially true in my world!  Thank you for your understanding and prayers for my daughter.  She is not doing what she "thinks" she should be doing but I think that she is improving a little each day.  The 6 to 7 weeks of healing seems like forever in her thinking, as a working mom with many responsibilities.  It certainly would for most of us, too.

So, what a handout, huh?  I especially liked how Dr. Rita explained what God says in His Word first, in our last week's handout, and then gives us her thoughts on the lies of dieting that the world has led us to believe.   I have to say that I have read the verses she gave to us last week many times over  many years.  I thought that I understood them enough but in the light of these points that she made this week, perhaps I didn't understand how they pertain to God's plan for me, my own body and way of thinking!  They were "good for Bible day people", I must have reasoned.   Until I read these  things about what diets really are and what they do to our bodies and our minds, it made those verses and the very creation of our bodies even more clear.  God said that "It was good".   The world has told us that "It is not good, you need to do this and that to make it good"...and I am one that bought into many of these, too.  You would have thought that with all of the wonderful book studies and insight that God has given to us in the past 2 years of TFW, that those things which I held onto that hindered me would be discovered and done with.  Well, think again, my sweet friends.  There are more layers to peel of this onion!  I was reading in another book, unrelated to this topic, that we so easily get wound up in the world's idea of "life" with all of its needs and must haves, that we smother the amazingly simple truth that God has for us.  That we can have freedom in Christ, peace that passeth all understanding which He promises us when we live our lives in His presence and for His glory.  The stuff of the world is so much harder to follow than seeking God in the moments of our day.  Dr. Rita talks about the bondage we are in and how food becomes our "boss" and so many other areas of our lives that are affected by the lies of dieting.  I have been there and I have coached many clients through a rigid dieting process.  I know now why God allowed me to do those things.  For such a time as this, He allowed me to do all of that to bring me to a point of seeing much more clearly how my thinking and desires bought into these false hopes.  Yes, with willpower and money, they worked ...for a while.  Then the process got "old" and the money was gone and life returned to the way it was before I was enticed to "the last diet I would have to ever be on".   I know this now...if I hadn't been there and done that, I wouldn't understand where I have been as clearly as I do today.  As I counted grams of protein, carbs, fats, calories and adhered to a restricted list of allowed foods, I admit I had to seek God's help because on my own, I would have quit the hour after I started.  I admit that I was at a point with physical pain that I knew I needed to do something drastic to change where I was and to improve my health without medications.  I can now understand why God allowed that particular program to come before me and allowed me to be successful on it , changing the way I eat and ending a  progressive health issue.   I didn’t' do it without His help.  I thank Him for that and for improving my overall health through it.  But I thank Him even more, looking back, for the experience I had and the opportunity I had to help others, to enter into their worlds and see their hearts, the desires, their hopes that they thought this program would bring to them.  For some, it didn't last even a month.  For others, they were successful in their goals but when they stopped, they have gained it all back and some even more.  The reason I feel God allowed me to go through that experience?  So I could more clearly see the truth that God had given us at creation and that He is faithful in His promises.  So that I could more clearly see that when we put our hopes and dreams into things of this world, we will be let down.  So why do we go on this path of the world?  Why do we allow our minds to be so strongly influenced by the world's lie of what is good for us?    I think we need to be active in learning what is healthy for our bodies and to eat good, wholesome foods and exercise as we can. This world has "fed" us many food items that are filled with things that are not good for us and have created a lifestyle that is much more sedentary than what we were created for.  Please don't think that I am saying that we can sit in our recliners while we nibble on an apple and call it good!  But what I have come to understand and can see more clearly is this.  Why do we go to such great lengths to follow the rules of a man-made plan when God's plan is so simple.  He created man in His own image and said that it was all good.  (Genesis 1:27,31)  It's really simple.  In simple, child-like faith, just say "Jesus".  When you don't fully understand what is before you, whether you are truly hungry, or if you are attempting to fill a void inside your heart, just say "Jesus".  God is faithful and He will draw you closer to Him in your moments of your day.  There, you will unsmother the peace and freedom in Christ that we read so many times in scriptures.  He's right there, just say "Jesus".  Blessings, my sweet Faithful Weigh Friends.