Pretty Amazing if You Ask Me!

 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Deuteronomy 8:4 NIV Bible

When they are about to approach the Promised Land, the Lord God tells them by Moses, that in addition to the Lord feeding them in the wilderness (v3), the Lord didn't let their clothes wear out and their feet didn't swell those forty years of walking to get there. That's pretty amazing if you ask me!

Equally amazing, but more on a personal level is the miracle the Lord God did for me! After giving up on diets, many of which, I had tried multiple times, I told the Lord, "If You ever want me to be thin, Lord, You'll have to do it Yourself, because I give up!" Actually, I wasn't really expecting anything to happen. I was just letting the Lord know I was giving up. That very same day, I no longer craved plate after plate of food. I no longer craved lots of sweets and other calorie laden foods. It didn't happen the day before or the day afterward. It happened later on the same day I prayed this to the Lord God!  Pretty amazing if you ask me!

The Lord allowed me a weight loss of over 80 pounds. I never knew the exact amount of weight, because there was a point sometime after I reached the 200 pound mark that I stopped looking at the scale, because I was fearful of what it might say. Not only did the Lord allow that weight loss, but He has allowed the vast majority of the weight to stay off for over 30 years! All of that has nothing to do with me! Sure I backtrack sometimes, but I am fortunate that the Lord has it on my heart, and shows me that I am headed down a slippery slope. After realizing this, and prayer, the Lord sets me on the right direction again and He can do the same for you, if you are willing to let Him! 

The Only Way to Win the Race

 Do you know that in a race all the runner run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24 NIV Bible

In that going to heaven someday is the biggest prize imaginable, it's the race that I want to run! Well, the only way for us to get to heaven is through our love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Fortunately for me, we can't get there because of how good we are, because I am a very sinful human being. I have let food and other things in my life become false gods, and not realizing this, I have turned to them for comfort instead of turning to our Lord and Savior for comfort.

Food has interfered so much throughout my life, by my not being the person that God wants me to be. Because of this, I became negative about myself and others. When I finally turned the control of my eating and the control over stressful things in my life over to Christ's very capable hands, all of this started to change!

I no longer felt so negative about myself or others, for if the Lord God loves me, I should feel loveable! I didn't feel the need to punish myself for not being good enough, thin enough, popular enough, or pretty enough for the Lord God loves me! The thing is, He love you too! It is well worth your effort to start putting your life into the Lord God's very capable hands!

Laughing at Myself

[God] will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. Job 8:21 NIV Bible 

Although this isn't exactly what Job was taking about, it sure was a good fit for me today! I was making pumpkin pies for the holidays. I had spent the whole morning making these, but in my opinion, the process of making them is truly a labor of love!

 I made two pies on disposable aluminum pans to take to our family and two in glass pie pans for for my husband. I put the pies in the disposable pans into plastic containers to put into my refrigerator. Well, I must have zigged when I should have zagged, because the pie in my left hand started to slip. Of course, I tried to catch it with my left hand while still holding a pie in my hand. Bad idea! I had pumpkin pie splatter all over my refrigerator, the floor, and the refrigerator door and shelves!

Fortunately for me, God gave me what I call the Peace Which Passes All Understanding! Normally, I would have been stressed big time, but all I could do is laugh inside. All these funny thoughts went through my mind. I've been wanting to clean my refrigerator for some time, so now I have a reason to clean it! I also wanted to clean off the floor, because I got flour on it while making the pies, but now I had a wet rag to clean it up! I smiled thinking, that fortunately, the Lord gave me the instincts to make four pies, so I still had two pies left! Then, I could help but laugh at how comical it must have looked to see me trying to juggle two pumpkin pies in mid-air! I am very blessed to have an understanding husband and an understanding Savior who helped me see the humor in a messy situation!!!!

How Can You Say You Love Me When You Won't Confide in Me?

 Then she said, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you've made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your strength."  Judges 16:15 NIV Bible

Of course, some of this doesn't apply to me, because it's when Delilah asked this of Samson. The thing is, it applies to me despite that. It makes me think that the Lord God is saying to me, "Debbie, how can you say, 'I love you, Lord,' when you won't confide in Me?"

I get so busy trying to control situations, that I find myself forgetting to put my life, my concerns, and stress into the Lord God's very capable hands. When I'm worrying about things, it's like I'm saying to Christ, "I don't exactly trust You to take care of my concerns. So, I'm going to try to control things and make everything turn out the way I think is best for everyone." I don't know about you, but that rarely works out well. Although I love the Lord so much, at times, I find myself slipping into old patterns of trying to resolve issues on my own. Fortunately for me, He is patient and forgiving and brings me back to refocus on Him, as Lord, and to confide my heart's concerns to Him.

This is one of the many reasons that I love reading the Bible from cover to cover. It allows me the opportunity to find things in the Bible that allow me to relate to the Lord God on a more personal level. I realize there are those who think the Bible is antiquated with all the thee's and thou's, but if you read the Bible with an open heart, the Lord God has many personal lessons within it that we can apply to our own lives!