Beckoning Blooms

Friday, March 23, 2012

Never Give Up!


I recently hit a major mile mark in this journey to getting healthy. Actually my husband and I both achieved over 50 pounds of weight loss each! Hooray! Updated photos coming soon I promise! As a reward we decided that we each could have $50 cash to spend however we wanted. That may not seem like a lot of money but I am unemployed and as a full time student he has a part time job so let’s just say money is super tight. That $50 might as well be a thousand and it certainly felt like a wonderful treat. I ran across this canvas and had to purchase it. The message and the picture connected with me past, present, and future. Plus it matches my kitchen ;) Yes I put it right in front of the refrigerator and my supportive husband did not complain at all!
This idea of “Never Giving Up” or never quitting has been very significant to me since I began to really follow Christ at 24 years old. I remember being a student at Christ For the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas in the first week of October 2002. We had speaker that week that asked us to write in our Bibles “Jesus I Will Never Quit!” and put the date, it was 10/2/02. The message still stands out to me all these years later because it dealt with the raw and honest truths that this life is not easy at times. We all face moments of wanting to give up if we are really honest. I like to do everything 100% and nothing less. When I struggle with accomplishing something I have had a tendency in the past to just throw in the towel, give up, and move on to the next project, maybe it’s the perfectionist in me? What stood out to me in that message was that I will fall and fail in this journey of following Christ but I made a commitment that day before God that no matter what I would never, ever, give up on my relationship with Him. That is a commitment I continue to renew and to this day is written with dates in my Bible.

Never giving up translates very easily into this current season. In my post "Finding the path...to healthy eating" I describe my philosophy that dieting has a goal of losing weight whereas my purpose goes much deeper. I am following a path that I feel God has led me to get healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Allowing God into this area of my life and learning to honor God with my body is directly connected to my relationship with Him. I will never give up on my relationship with God and I trust that whatever path He places me on in life is so that I can fulfill my purpose on this earth. Therefore, I will NEVER GIVE UP NO MATTER WHAT!
Another part of the canvas that really spoke to was the target in the center. Do you remember my post "Targeting for Change"?  In it I share a visual used by Weight Watchers called the “Target of Change” which shows how we gradually make changes beginning with the external (Environment, Attitudes, Behavior) and eventually to the internal (Beliefs & Identity). The target posted below has hung on my refrigerator since we began this journey. So you can see why I was super excited to find a reward that had both the message of Never Giving Up and the Target for Change all with colors matching my kitchen right!?!?!



This week was a hard week for me. I don’t know if it was the rainy, cloudy, and generally gloomy weather here in Dallas. Or possibly the fact that I’ve suffered a bit of insomnia. My food choices were on plan and honored God; I exercised daily, took my vitamins, and drank my crazy amounts of water (lol). My mood and heart were just struggling for some reason unknown to me. We all have those kinds of days, weeks and possibly months don’t we?  I’m proud of the fact that even though my mood was “off” I pushed through and did not choose to use food as a remedy as I would in the past. By God’s grace I’m learning that even in the midst of an “off” week I don’t have to give into or turn to food. I don’t have to take on the “give up” attitude. He cares about those inevitable moments and wants me to learn to draw on Him instead of food. I found a really cool quote online by Fred Devito that says “If it doesn’t challenge you, It doesn’t change you.”  I am learning to welcome the challenges both big and small so that my identity can be transformed into a vessel in the Potter’s Hand that honors God!

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