Redefining the Journey

So I thought it was about time I updated the blog again.  Its been 5 weeks this time since I did.  If anyone is still following along on this journey I do not know.  If I have let those who are or were following along down I am sorry.  Alot has been going on these past few weeks.  NOT in the area of weight loss, BUT in the area of the journey to a better me.  As for weight loss I am at 320 today.  That is still 25 lbs down from my original start weight but a few pounds up from where I had gotten down.  I titled this post Redining the Journey because I have realized that there is so much more to this journey than just weight loss.  YES , I am still morbidly obese, YES I still NEED to loose weight, YES, I still want to live, to loose weight and to be a better me overall.  But I am finding there is alot more to this journey for me than just eating less and working out as much as I can.  First and foremost is learning balance!  I say learning because I do not have that figured out yet.  I have found I can track everything I eat and work out and focus continally on the weight loss, or I can focus completely on the kids and trying to keep the house in order and family life going.  And to be quite honest I can't do even BOTH of those things well.  I can do the kids and all their needs and activities awesome, but then the house falls apart, or I can get the house in great shape but only if I skip things they need and spending time with them.  Balance!  I have to come up with a way to do the KIDS, the husband who gets lost in it all, the beautiful grown daughter who yes is in the KIDS but also as an adult child is also in another area of wanting and needing to spend time with her on a different level, the mother living with me, the house, the food journay, the working out, etc etc.  I am just not very good at any of it in reality.  And in addition to all that in the inside me, the Tamijoy way down deep inside all the weight, all the pain of the Fibro and such, inside all the feelings, worries, etc.  The one that is a child of the living God.  Who at one minute can say I am a princess because my Father is the King of Kings!  and the next minute I am awful because I am failing my Lord, My husband, my children, my mom, my home, my church, and everyone who was cheering me on in my journey.  I am failing my own self.  Its a strange thing.  I have been praying and praying for the Lord to help, to reveal things to me, to change me, to mold me.  Well, little by little events have happened in the past few weeks that I can say without a doubt that the Lord has His hand on me and is showing me and guiding me.  I need to change, that is so true.  My weight needs to change, my balance needs to change, my health needs to change and the little child of God deep inside needs to change.  God is showing me I need to start on the inside and work my way out!  God began healing me from the inside out many years ago from alot of things.  And yes I am free from the bondage I was in at that time, I am healed in ways , or maybe I am still healing on a daily basis and am not there yet.  Not sure completley.  But I know that all that had to happen for the Lord to bring me the blessings I prayed so hard for and I feel I am in that place again.  Back before a symbolic line in the sand was drawn for me to step over and only look back to see how far God has brought me, well.  I am at that place again in life.  First and foremost I need to work on my relationship with the Lord, and with my family.  I spend so much time telliing myself what I should be doing, feeling guilty for not doing some things, or not being able to be at Church, or this or that or the other thing.  Being a Christian, a child of God, is not about religion, its not about being in Church every time the doors open or even which Church you are in, its not about reading such and such verses out of obligation or sticking to such and such schedule that I ahve decided I have to do to be a good Christian.  It is about a relationship with the Lord!  Relationships have ALWAYS been hard for me and as much as I want to be the kind of Christian woman I think I am suppose to be, I put up some walls myself and other events have put up some walls.  So the true beginning of this joureny to a better me needs to be drawing closer to the Lord.  As He has been revealing this to me He has also brought about events that have put me in places to really work on who I am in HIM!  He totally changed all my plans for what I thought this year would hold for me and the kids!  One is MOPS!  Mother's of Preschoolers International Ministry!  I thought I was looking for a co-op or for some activities for Noah for his school year.  I spent so much time looking at what I thought his needs were.  The Lord promptly blew up all my plans and through no other possibility than the hand of God flat out let me know that we needed to do MOPS this year.  Even at that point I thought it was about NOAH!  And right before the first meeting I began to think, maybe it is a bit about me too, as a bonus.  Then the first meeting came and I saw more and more what MOPS year focus was and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was about ME!  Noah gets the bonus!  So that is a huge blessing in our lives right now.  Then I get invited by a very very dear friend, who actually was involved in my drawing a line in the sand to step over so many years ago, invite me to join a twice a month Ladies Bible Study on women of the Bible and how they impact our lives as women of God today.  And the Lord strongly said YOU are to do this!  :)  So I signed up and that begins on Tuesday Night :)  Very excited to see what the Lord has to show me through that.  Right around that same time some online adoption friends began talking about an online Bible Study that sounded so great and I thought that is so neat.  And then they began a FB group that they will all discuss the Bible study and such and I again thought how great but I am fixing to start a Bible Studay and I have MOPS and so much on my plate and all.  Well the Lord kept putting it before me about the Online Study they were doing and how many adoption friends through the years with special needs children were in it and it became obvious to me the Lord was wooing me to that too!  And through shaking fingers I signed up and bough the book for the study!  WHAT have I done?  MOPS, an in depth online Bible Study using the book UNGLUED, and the local Ladies Bible Study!  Have I lost it to add so much to my plate that I already have going??  Well, maybe!  lol but I really feel like the Lord has written my schedulue for this year and what HE wants me to focus and spend time on.  In addition to all that he brought a new friend into my life who happens to be a Christian and of Chinese Heritage and we will be helping each other with the boys every other week on the weeks we don't have MOPS.  Noah and I will be learning some Mandarin, and we will help her with learning to homeschool her son and we will experience worship in Mandarin as well as english!  :)  Now I am sure if you have even read this far you are wondering how this has anything to do with a weight loss journey!  Well, I think in the long run it will!  and of course the Journey is to a better me, and being spiritually better, being the woman of God, HE has for me to be, is definitly a better me!  My prayer is that all this time with the Lord and working on my relationship with HIM and to be able to have a better relationship with my family and with Church family, friends, etc that it is all going to work for good and help me to do better with the weight loss too. 

Another thing I felt the Lord impress upon me was the weight loss journey became about trying to please others, to have a good number to come and share so I could get atteniton for look how good I am doing.  I have a bigger need for afirmation and attention than I realized!  Now is that bad per say, I am not really sure.  BUT it needs to always include the Lord and what HE did to help me do what I am doing.  I am nothing without Him!  I also allowed myself to be affected too much by what some thought about me and how I was doing, I felt that the care from them was conditional on how good I did in the weight loss, the working out, the tracking, the eating, etc.  None of those are good things for me.  Because then when I let folks down it affects me so negatively and can make me so down and feeling awful.  I need to find my identity in Christ and if someone is proud of me for something I do in the weight loss journey then YAY!  That afirmation and attention is an awesome and motivating bonus and that is all good!  BUT if they are disappointed in me, if they do not understand or agree with me or a choice I have had to make, then so be it.  I know that I am doing with the Lord would have me do and NOT allow myself to get depressed or to try and figure out a way to make someone else proud of me.  Not sure if this is making any sense at all, but basically it is all things inside me that need improvement and need to be dealt with on the journey to a better me!

I wanted to share this from the first chapter of unglued with you all because it spoke so loudly to me this morning:

" Imperfect Changes are slow steps of progress wrapped in grace....imperfect progress. "
also:
"Progress.  Just make progress. It's okay to have setbacks and the need for do-overs.  It's okay to draw a line in the sand  and start over again-and again. Just make sure you are moving the line forward. Move forward.  Take baby steps, but at least take steps that keep you from being stuck.  Then change will come. And it will be good."

HOW perfect was that for me!!!!  It had a connection to an important event in my past!  ONLY GOD would know that!  Lysa Trrkeurst who is the auther of Unglued and penned those words to herself had NO CLUE God would use those words so loudly for me and I am sure others as well!  So many areas of my life have been covered by that quote above.  As for the weight loss journey I guess I am saying I am drawing a line in the sand a little further ahead that it was back in December.  25 lbs closer to the 200 lbs weigh loss goal, a little smarter, a little more educated, and definitly knowing more that the weight loss journey can't be separate from me, from the journey of life for me period.  I have to work on ALL of me for any of me to change and become the better me I long for!  If you have been following along you know the butterfly has become a symbol for me for this journey!  I am not the beautiful butterfly yet, but I am emerging and transforming and on the journey to that butterfly!  All of this, the steps back even, the changes, the pain, everything is a part of it to bring upon the transformation!  I pray that this is making sense and that somehow , someway, some day this can help someone else too.

 

 

So, I pray you will continue to follow along on the journey to a better me!  Sometimes the updates may be about weight loss!  and I pray that it will happen little by little as I begin to figure it all out, and sometimes it will be about how I did this or that exercise or got to work out childcare and timing to go back to the gym, or how I learned this or that thing about myself or that I have something on my heart to share!  :)  I pray that you and others will follow along!  I am very human and I must say I DO want support, encouragement, cheering on in weight loss, and in just life, and friends in the journey!  I am striving to remember that even though I am not the beautiful transformed butterfly yet that I am a new creation in Christ now.  He saw potentional in me and HE loved me at my heaviest and will love me even if I fail and never loose the weight, He will love me if I can't figure it all out, but He will also help me to see what is most imporatant and give me the strength I need to do this.  Joyce Meyer said something this morning about not loosing sight of what you are learning in the journey!  I so recieve that.  YES there is a goal, but the learning is in the journey, the faith is in the journey!  Once you are there you don't need the faith anymore!!! 


Hope this is the right song! The computer I am using to post this has no sound card in it so I can't listen to music anymore. My laptop screen died so I am not handling that well. Anyway, hope this is a good version but this song speaks alot about the climb!! the journey is the climb!

Thank you so much to anyone who read all of this!  I need you guys! :)  Please post comments!  Please follow along!  I pray that someday I can be the beautiful healthy butterfly and I look forward to sharing the journey with you  :)

 

God bless,

TamiJoy