Learning To Live With Intent Towards Myself (aka: learning to love myself)

I plan to own my own life in 2015 and beyond, by learning to live with intent towards myself. Years ago I began to learn to live with intent towards others. Intentionally loving others, intentionally serving others, intentionally caring for others. But along the way I began to believe the lie that to live with intent towards others was enough. It was not. In the process, I forgot to love me, care for me, enjoy me. I neglected myself. I'm not talking about self-centered living. I'm talking about basic self care. Making sure I ate and ate healthy. Making sure I got enough sleep, exercise, took my medication, etc.... 

I have even come to realize that I have neglected myself by neglecting time with God. I felt guilty about ignoring Him, I didn't want to ignore Him, I love Him. But somehow it felt like self indulgance to take time for study and prayer that were not part of parenting. So in reality, neglecting Him, was also another way of neglecting myself. I denied myself the gift of spending time with my Heavenly Father. Of the peace, joy, strength, grace, patience, faith, that comes with having spent time in His presence.

I know I'm not alone. It's often a mom thing. We must learn to live with balance. My life has been out of balance and as I get older the effects of self neglect become more pronounced. So, I realize that I must begin to live with intent towards myself, the same way I live with intent towards those I love and care about.

Part of this journey towards living with intention towards myself is my journey to take control of my health as I wrote about recently. It's also actively pursuing God's call on my life, making time for me without guilt, resting when my body says rest, without guilt or condmnation, accepting my limitations, embracing my gifts, loving what is lovable about me and having grace as I change what isn't so lovable. Learn to be more objective about what isn't lovable.

It's not enough to do good things for myself because they are good for my family, I must also do them because they are important and good for me.

Blessings,
Colleen

The Only Thing That Remains The Same, Is Change

Our family has experienced so much change in life. I remember when I was a little girl, I did not do well with change. I hated it! I wanted life to stay the same forever! But the thing I've come to learn is that if things never changed, we would miss out on so many wonderful things and people! 

If things never changed I would not have most of the friends I have today. I wouldn't have my children or my husband. I wouldn't even have the Lord if things never changed. I wouldn't have the amazing experiences I've lived. 

Without change I wouldn't be the person I am today, and I like the person I am today. And the things I don't like, I can change! Ah, the beauty of change. 

We must learn to embrace change because the one certainty in life is that change will happen! Things will change, people will change, circumstances will change. Sometimes for the worse, but more often for the better. We just don't notice the better! 

We all notice and hate change when it's something bad. Losing a loved one, a friend moving away, etc... But there are lots of change we don't even notice. Like new friends! New experiences! New loved ones! That is change also. 

If you think about it there are many more good changes that happen in our lives than bad ones, they're just usually not as traumatic so we tend not to take notice of them, which causes us to view change as a bad thing. 

Change can also be scary. Sometimes change comes in the form of scary things. New jobs, new places, new people, these are exciting things, but also scary. 

Here are some things I've learned about change, 

God never changes. 

His plan demands change.

I can trust Him. 

I can trust change. 

Leaning on Him through change is the only way to get through some changes. Especially the big one, the sad ones, the scary ones. Trusting Him to see me through the changes that I don't want to go through makes it a little easier. 

There's no getting around it, sometimes change stinks! But sometimes change opens the door for amazing new adventures! And sometimes it opens the door for new loved ones in our lives.

Our families grow and change and what new blessings would we miss out on if things never changed? Our family has changed a lot and I am so thankful for each member of our family! Where would I freeze time? To freeze it in one place would mean losing out on the blessings to come. So no, bad or good, I have to accept change because stopping any bad change, also stops every good change.

Our family 15 years ago.

Our family 3 months ago

Our family 8 days ago

Are there changes in your life that you're struggling to accept? I know there are in mine. Today I am choosing to give those changes to Him and trust Him with them. I hope you will do the same. 

Be Blessed, 

Colleen

And don't forget about my giveaway that started Friday! 

http://www.craftilady.blogspot.com/2014/11/official-blog-launch-giveaway.html

Linking up to:

The Modest Mom
http://www.themodestmomblog.com/

What Happens When You Trust and It Still Goes Wrong?

So, about two months ago I wrote about my surgery and about trusting God with the results. Well as I continued to heal, or not heal well as the case turned out to be. It turned out that I was right to be concerned with the results. The surgeon messed up and now I have to find another surgeon to try to fix the problem because my original surgeon won't acknowledge his mistake. He ignores my complaints of the complications of the surgery, which are not minor, and has discharged me even though I have not healed, even after two months, and even though two months later his mistake causes me to still need pain medication.

 

 

 

The good news is that for the most part I am handling this ok and have found another surgeon to meet with next week to see if he can fix things for me. I am still putting my trust in God to take care of this and to work it all out for my good, just as His word promises.

 

I am clinging these days to Romans 8:28 and believing Him to turn this around for my good. I do appreciate prayers though as I will most certainly require another surgery to fix the mistakes.

 

I will keep you posted on what He is doing through all of this so we can all share in praising Him through this trial. I pray you are also hanging onto Romans 8:28 whatever you might be facing today.

 

God Bless,

Colleen

What do I mean when I say, "I'm trusting God"?

So, a few days ago I had surgery. It was, in some ways, an elective surgery, but it was one of necessity for health issues. It was something I had put off for over 20 years for many reasons. But as usual in my life, all the reasons were fear. 

Fear is something I live with every single day of my life. Fear has dictated a lot of decisions in my life. When I was little my grandmother used to say to me, "I don't know why you are afraid. When it's your time it's your time and there's nothing you can do to change that, so why worry about it?" Still, fear continued to haunt me. 

So, I had put this surgery off for all these years because of fear. Fear of not surviving the surgery. Fear of the outcome. Fear of the pain of recovery. Fear I would not like the results.

Finally my family asked me to face my fears and look into the surgery for health reasons. Of course I would do it for them. I decided that I needed to put my trust in God, which is where it should be anyway, and go forward with the surgery. 

I boldly proclaimed that I was trusting Him with all the details! I prayed and told God I would trust Him with the results. And so on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 I finally faced my fears, put myself in God's hands and had the surgery. 

When I first woke up I was a little concerned about the results, things didn't look the way I wanted them to, but I reminded myself that I had said I would trust God and so I would. 

The recovery has been much easier than I had feared. The pain is very manageable with the meds they gave me. I am not nearly as helpless as I feared I would be. 

However, two days after my surgery when I finally saw the results I was devastated! My worst fears in this area had been realized and I was very, very unhappy with the physical results. I spent the rest of Thursday in a state of sadness and depression. How could God have done this to me? I had trusted Him! I had put myself in His hands and asked Him to take care of every detail. I had told Him I would trust Him with the outcome. How could He have allowed a bad outcome?! 

That is when my struggle with the above question began to form. What did I mean when I said I was trusting God for the outcome? Did I really only mean that I was trusting Him to give me the outcome I was looking for? Sadly my answer was, Yes, that is what had I meant.

There were many unknowns with this surgery. There were no guarantees of the outcome, or of whether I would be happy with it. And once it was done, there was no turning back. Whatever the outcome, I would have to live with it. And so, for the days before surgery, I prayed and gave it to God. I told Him I would just trust Him to give me the right outcome. And I meant it, or at least I thought I did. But in reality, what I meant was that I was trusting Him to give me the outcome I wanted.  

In every way my surgery is considered a success. First of all is the obvious, I survived the surgery! This was not really a risky surgery, but there are always risks with any surgery and that is always the biggest fear for me. The surgeon is happy with the outcome. The reasons I needed to have the surgery have been taken care of and the medical part of it is a success. The only thing so far is the physical outcome. I really won't know the physical outcome for awhile, but so far it is NOT what I wanted. In fact, it is everything I didn't want. 

So now the question is, what will I do with my disappointment? With my devastation? I keep reminding myself that I am trusting God with it, but really I'm walking around unhappy and miserable, regretting my choice. So, that means I am not trusting God with it at all! I keep trying to figure out why God allowed this result. Possibly because He knows that in the end other things will change and I will be happy with the outcome. But that is really only me trying to make the results fit into my version of what I wanted. 

In the end I have to do what I said I would do. Trust Him with the outcome, even though it isn't what I wanted! And to do that means I can't regret my choice, I can't walk around unhappy and sullen. I can't sit around hoping that once everything is healed it will be better, before I choose to be happy. I need to make the decision to be happy with the results, whether I like them or not, because that is what I signed up for when I told God I would trust Him with the results!! 

As I walk through this journey of discovery about trust, I realize that it's not my first time around this mountain. In many other areas of my life, at many other times in my life, I have had this same struggle. I have told God I was trusting Him but then I was disappointed when I didn't get the results I wanted. Sometimes that disappointment has led to frustration, even anger, sometimes to unhappiness, sometimes to downright depression. As God has shown me now, each of those times I had not put my trust in God to accept HIS outcome, I had put my trust in God to make the outcome be what I wanted it to be, and that is not trusting God at all. That is trusting that MY outcome is the best and God is the magic genie that will ensure my outcome happens.That leads to superstition, which is the subject of another post that God has been working on with me. 

But this one is about trusting God, really trusting God. Trusting that He is true to His word. His word says He will always work things out for my good, that even when things don't look good, they are good. The real point of trusting is that when things don't look the way we want, we trust they look the way God wants. And we trust that is good. Even though it doesn't look like it. 

What's funny to me is that this is exactly the opposite of what church has taught me faith is. For years as I've struggled with this walk of faith and trust, I have known that really trusting God is knowing that He will do what is best but it might not look the way I want it to. When I talk about that people tell me that I am lacking faith. They have told me that faith means believing God will give me what I want! But God keeps teaching me the exact opposite! 

As Christians we often quote this scripture. We say we believe it. We boldly proclaim it! But what do we really mean when we say it? I always think I mean exactly what I say. When I say I trust God to work it all out for the best, I honestly think that is what I mean. But what I really mean is I trust God to work things out the way I think is best! And that is not what His word promises.

Faith is knowing God will do what is best for me. But what I think is best and what God knows is best, are not always compatible viewpoints. This is because God knows the end from the beginning, He knows me inside and out. There are many reasons why God's best does not always look the way we think it should, but trusting Him means trusting that He knows all those reasons and has chosen the best outcome. 

So, today I must choose to be happy with the results. Not because they are what I wanted, but because they are what God wanted. And in the end, that is what this walk of faith is really about. Trusting that what God wants is more important than I what I want and that His way really is better than mine. 

Be Blessed, 

Colleen

Learning to Enjoy the Ride

Wow has the roller coaster continued to twist and turn this year! Last year we moved to the high desert and started a little farm. I thought it was the adventure to end all adventures, but I was so wrong! I had hoped to record the journey here but life had other plans. As usual. As my friends say, my life is never boring! That is an understatement. Well, we just got internet back after many months without it. So, here we go again.


About 6 months ago I learned that I was going to have to undergo another surgery to repair some damage from my surgery last June. Before I could do anything about that we got into a pretty major car accident so the surgery is on hold while I try to recover from my injuries. I am so grateful that we were all able to walk away from the accident. Everyone suffered varying degrees of injury but we all walked away alive after hitting a semi truck head on so I consider us blessed! However, after 4 months I continue to suffer unbearable pain and extremely limited mobility. I have faith that eventually I will be healed, I have a great doctor who is dedicated to seeing me through and I trust him and his staff. But I am ready to move on now, and once again I am sitting and learning patience. The story of my life. I'm never heading in the direction I'm wanting to go in, and I'm constantly learning to trust and enjoy where I am today.


I won't go into details about all the unpleasantness of the past year, but it has been an extremely difficult year with many trials. I would love to say that I handled them all with grace and faith and was the epitome of a gentle Christian wife and mother through it all, but what's the point of lying? lol I did NOT always handle things well at all. Through it I struggled with anger, depression, fear, and did more than my fair share of murmuring and complaining. All things I thought I had put behind me long ago. But I continue the journey towards being the woman I long to be.


The newest chapter of our life is that we have moved full time into a travel RV. We still have two of our four children with us so we bought a two bedroom trailer with a bedroom for us and a bunkhouse for the kids. We can actually accomodate more of our kids if they choose to come, but for now it is just my husband, myself and our two youngest. We are excited about what God has planned for the next chapter.


And as this new chapter unfolds I continue to learn not to murmur, complain and focus on the negative. Some days are better than others, but I am learning. :-) Do you ever feel as though some days you have more of a stumble than a walk? I do! But I hope to continue to get more sure footed in my journey.


Years ago when I was struggling with murmuring issues the Lord showed me that the Israelites never got into the promised land because of their murmuring. I thought that was enough to teach me to control my mouth, and for awhile it was. But little by little I let the habit creep it's way back into my life. Recently as I have really struggled I decided to do a little study on complaining and lo and behold what I found stunned me! I found Deut. 28:47-48! Here is what I found:


"Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you." (emphasis mine) Wow. I think I would like to get a grip on my attitude now! lol


Here's the thing I've learned about attitude, if I don't get a grip on my attitude during the bad times, I won't have a good attitude during the good times either! It is shocking how hard it is to switch tracks once things turn around in life. I've also learned that it is definitely easier to get through the tough times with faith, joy and a good attitude, than with worry, fear and a bad attitude. Yet even though I know that, and have experienced that many times, I still struggle with it! I am such an Israelite!


So, my journey for the moment is to learn, yet again, to walk in joy and faith. And to enjoy where I am now, not continue longing for where I am going. I guess I am a destination kind of gal living a journey life. I am always focused on getting to where I am supposed to be, but what I believe God wants me to do is to learn to enjoy getting there! I hope you'll join me as I take this new chapter one day at a time.


So, for today I leave you with this thought: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding: In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Prov. 3:5-6


His ways truly are better than mine, all the time. And this stubborn girl is determined to walk in that!


Be blessed!
Colleen