Say to this mountain

ok, so those mountains I talked about....

Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's coming up on a half century. Maybe it's just that it took this long for the Lord to get through to me that I was circling mountains too many times and it is time to stop, turn north and get going. Whatever it is, it became really clear to me awhile back that there were things in my life that I needed to address and stop circling the mountain. I had actually circled them so long, I was wearing ruts and am having a hard time climbing out, but climbing out I am. The first of these mountains was a mountain of pride. I had become so entrenched in my own pride and supposed strength (oh and all my own strength, of course) that I fell flat on my face when not by my own strength, the Lord hauled my sorry behind out of the rut and I fell on my face in humility. I had pridefully resisted pure and simple love that Christ offers. Not that hadn't known Him personally before this, but I was hanging onto my supposed strengths and knowledge and it took this fall to show me my real condition. I am so glad He doesn't leave us to circle our mountains.

I am ready to turn north in from another mountain I've been hanging onto...the hold that food has had on me for several years. I grew up thin. In fact, so thin that my brothers had great fun at my expense with comments about the strings that were hanging on my dress...oh, sorry, those are your legs. Well, you get the point...I need not go on. I was even a fitness instructor in my late 20's and early 30's and was in totally top notch shape. I never thought about calories unless I was thinking about making sure I was getting enough as I taught back to back classes.

After having children, well, if you are a mother, you know...or at least if you don't, don't tell me. I do not want to know that all the weight just fell off of you as you nursed your child and sipped on milkshakes! Seriously, with 3 children in 3 years, well, let's just say that I was probably sipping the milkshakes during naptime and the weight was NOT falling off. Having the girls between the ages of 33 and 38, my metabolism was already barreling south at a good clip and then shortly after the last, I was diagnosed with hypothyroid. What was left of my metabolism took a nose-dive and crashed and burned and didn't take any spare calories with it. It was gradual, but the weight began to climb.

I am not morbidly obese and my weight really has nothing to do with this...as such. It has more to do with why I have a weight issue at all. It's because food has become my drug of choice and it's so totally acceptable in our society and almost frowned upon to not eat a huge plate full at every pot luck we attend. We sit and listen to pastors talk about the strength that comes from the Lord, the fruits of the spirit...not the least of which is self-control and then we host huge potlucks and joke about how huge our bellies are from the mounded plates of food we consume. So many would argue that we shouldn't be making a spiritual issue out of this. Surely God doesn't really care about THIS! I have prayed, studied and prayed and prayed some more regarding this. I believe that if I am praying and seeking His will and it is continually on my heart, it is because He is asking me to change this pattern of self-destruction. Is it not self-destructive to continually overeat, gain weight, continue to overeat and gain weight? It is destructive to the body no matter how you look at it. We are His temple and we are defiling that temple. It is no different than drugs or alcohol. All things are permissable but not all things are beneficial. Food is permissable and we should not be declaring any food outlawed but we do need to consider the idea that some foods are not beneficial to our bodies. They are destructive or they are just not beneficial. Is the wisdom of the Bible somehow not applicable here? of course it is! Why then, do we ignore the sin of gluttony? The Bible speaks on gluttony over and over and over again an yet we politely skirt the issue....sadly we often joke through those verses and move right along. It's more comfortable for everyone. I've sat through countless sermons where when that issue comes up, there is a joke made about it...something about Baptist knowing how to eat well or Presbyterians being the best cooks or well, you've heard the same, I'm sure.

The Lord has clearly shown me that as I have prayed and prayed, all along in His words was the wisdom that He gives us for life. It's there. Black and white. Self-control in food consumption is not easy. We have to eat, right? It's not a sin, right? right except when you eat beyond the needs of your body...then it is gluttony. 5 pounds, 10 pounds? 50 pounds? doesn't matter...that's why I said no matter my weight, it's the heart that must change before I can feel free from this issue. It's knowing that the Lord is good and that He cares about us to the very core and those things that weigh us down spiritually need to be addressed and He holds us close and loves us through it all. I have felt the need to make this issue public because I realize that if I silently fight my battle and never share what the Lord is doing through it, then I have not given Him the glory for this that is His and only His. As I lose weight out of obedience to Him, He alone should receive the glory because it will be by His strength and none of my own strength that gets me there. It's more about obedience than weight loss this time around for me. I want to know Him better. Lysa Terquerst of Proverbs 31 Ministry was asked once how to get closer to the Lord and she responded by saying that the way to get closer to the Lord was to give up something you want and look to Him, spend time with Him. I am realizing that as I have begun to cling to Him for the strength I need to resist overeating, I have MORE OF HIM. How cool is THAT!?

Do you love me? You know I do... Do you love me? Yes, Lord, you KNOW I do. Leisa, do you love me?

Do I? Do I really? Do I love Him like I love the world? Do I love Him like I love the THINGS of this world? I've always thought the answer was "of course I do!" but I'm realizing that I didn't really have a clue what that question really meant.

Sin...Iniquity....Elisabeth Elliot in her devotional in my inbox this morning said

"Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity" (1 Cor 13:6 AV). Let us be willing to call iniquity what is really iniquity, rather than to call it weakness, temperament, failure, hangups, or to fall back on the tired excuse, "It's just the way I am."

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a right spirit within me. (Ps 51:10 AV)

The Psalms have been speaking to me this week. First it was Psalms 5:1-3 "give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation" Expectation? Do I pray expectantly? really? This morning at the close of worship, we quoted responsively Psalm 51. "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have a I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge"

There's that word "iniquity" again. We try to wash over sins and excuse them away by saying we are weak, or we look around and compare ourselves to others and it's almost always easy to find someone that we can at least say is worse than us whether it's true or not and we somehow excuse away our "little" sin. The word iniquity kind of tells it like it is...no excusing, no white-washing, no efforts to diminish the seriousness of what it speaks of. Sin, iniquity, wrongdoing, whatever you call it at any given time, it is is disobedience to the God of the universe, who loves me. Why would I "want" to excuse those things away or try to see them as not so bad or maybe even justify them so that they don't look like sin at all.

This morning....it's very raw. I was weighed down with the weight of the world when I got up....just stuff...you know?...that stuff that is weighing on your mind when you wake up in the quiet of the morning and that's when you worry the most? yeah, that stuff. It was raw....really, really raw. I went into worship in the farthest thing possible from a heart full of worship. The music began and I melted into a puddle...tears flowing. I couldn't sing...only listen to the voices around me...the words to the beautiful songs. Music speaks to me....deeply. Always has and when the Lord wants my attention, He almost always uses music in there somewhere. He made me to respond to song. I love Him for that..I love music. Anyway, back to this morning....my heart raw, standing between my two youngest daughters with my husband and oldest there also. I couldn't control the tears but was trying and actually thought I was pulling off a pretty stoic look. My eyes were closed...the song was being sung..tears were welling up, spilling over, and I was doing a pretty good job, I thought, at mopping them away before they rolled down my cheeks. Like I said I had my eyes closed so I could hear the words without distraction....He loves us, oh how He loves us...oh how He loves...All of a sudden I had arms wrapped around me...not around my waist like I would have expected from my 11 year old when she wants a hug back, but up, completely around my body, arms and all...a bear hug....a hug that says I love you and you are everything to me and for a moment it was Jesus. He had me in a big huge bear hug. He was holding me at a moment when I needed holding. And then it was Anna, my wonderful tender sweet Anna...she had her arms thrown up and around my upper body (took some doing even though I'm not tall, she's still small up to me and she has never hugged me that way before) It was obvious that she had felt the need to not just show me love but to hold me. I stood there, wrapped in the love of Jesus through the arms of my 11 year old who was sensitive to His leading to be His arms and put them around me in such a way. So, I am grateful for a savior who loves me...who sees my tears even when I am trying to be stoic and wipe them before they show and then use a little girl who means the world to me to bring comfort to me. Jesus loves me, this I know...Do I love Him...oh how I want to love Him...Iniquity? Mine...remove it Lord, please, as far as the east is from the west...make me obedient...I love you enough for obedience....give me strength to resist tempation that I might show you Lord my love for you.

Turning North

Well, I have never considered myself a writer and yet as I left church this morning, I thought I couldn't get home fast enough to put some thoughts down in type. They were literally bursting at the seams to get written down. I decided that since today has been a day full of reflection that it was a good time to begin this blog. If for no other reason than to allow me the outlet to express my thoughts somewhere. I chose the name Volviendo de Norte, Turning North because as the scripture says in Deuteronomy 2:3 "You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north", I have been circling my own mountains long enough and it is time for me to turn north. I will get more into those mountains in coming posts but for now suffice it to define my blog at this point.