Ok, so Los has pimped me. Now I will return the favor, as well as get on board with his “Fat Ragamuffin” club. Los has lost like 30 pounds, probably more…doing Weight Watchers but most importantly, he has gotten healthy. Seeing his before and after pictures and videos, you can see that even a lazy worship leader can lose weight. (I am kidding on the lazy part, the guy is a crazy mad-man).

So I too, join hands with the Fat Ragamuffins. Although I wouldn’t consider myself obese, I am going to publicly display my lowest, wedding day, highest, current, and goal weights here – and what I am doing to get there. As a female – this is scary! But I want to be healthy and FEEL healthy too. I DARE YOU to do the same. Yup, that’s a dare.

• Lowest = 128 in 2002. This was NOT healthy for me. I am almost 5′6″, and athletic (well, was). I was really bony and this was during a stressful time in my life. I was not eating properly at all.
• Wedding Day = 140 in 2003. This was and is my ideal weight. I felt great, looked great. Then we were married and made brownies every week…that led to…
• Highest = 167 in 2006. This was right before Scotland in September. YIKES. I was not feeling good, my gallbladder was acting up, and I certainly was not eating healthy.
• Current = 154
• Healthy & Goal = 140-145. Weight fluctuates you know.

I lost some of the weight after having my gallbladder surgery – not eating very much for a couple of weeks helps. But once my appetite came back, and then the holidays, I gained 8 pounds BACK (thank you stupid snowman cookies), putting me around 162 for New Years.

So, I started this “water diet” – which isn’t much of a diet at all. You drink a full glass of water before, during, and after each meal and supposedly the weight comes off. I have changed my eating habits and have started exercising too, so in the last few weeks I am 8 pounds lighter and back down to 154. I figure a couple pounds a week and in a few months I’ll be back down at 140-145ish. I haven’t seen a number in the 140’s in over a year!

I’ll post updates every Tuesday.
Do you wanna join in?

so, when you pray for your spirit to be broken, and expect it to happen. it does. it is the whole “sorrow without despair” thing i mentioned last week. my heart has been put through the wringer lately in many aspects:

• my gifts [how and where and when am i using them? do i even know what they are or am i wishing?]
• my creativity [i am feeling extremely lacking in this area]
• my work [lots of projects, no time, desiring to get ahead of myself]
• my freelance [i want to do some volunteer work, but i have so many bills to pay...]
• my estrogen [why do girls feel they must compete? not just in the looks area, but in all areas of life? and maybe it is not girls in general, but just me? why must i compete? it's stupid. i feel like a dog that wants to piss everywhere to claim my territory and get all offended when someone crosses over]
• our finances [we are paying our bills, all on time, but are left with practically nothing at the end of it all. our needs are met, but it gets scary, and there never seems to be an end in sight]

So all of these areas that have been pressing on my heart lately. Squeezing out every last bit of integrity I can muster just to ask myself:

“do you mean what you say…when you say you’re committed? can you be patient? humble? can you trust? really?”

I have been reading 1st Timothy lately. Probably four times in the last week, hoping to pull some encouragement and insight from Paul’s letter. Absorbing it. And trying to remember it.

On another note, I had a nice surprise on my door frame after our staff meeting. It was one of those little Dove chocolate wrappers and someone had taped it up for when I returned. It said:

Make a list of your dreams

I’m sure this person meant this as an encouragement, and it was – as much as it is funny, as I am the queen of list makers (color-coded, mind you). But what stood out more than the quotation was the trademark:

Promises Message

It was just another reminder that I am promised a future, that He will take care of me, all my anxieties listed above, and whatever dreams I may or may not list. I am promised a unique gifting. I am promised so much – even when I can’t make sense of any of it. Even when it hurts as I am trying to figure it out.

What are you promised?

you are so fragile these days, my dear.
like a sickly woman, frail
your skin
paper-thin
bleeds easier than it should

when you are slighted,

you grasp zealously to my heart

and weave your spindly fingers through and through.

i have learned today:

slow down, and be sensitive

in more detail… you never know what someone may be going through at any time, no matter how well you know them, or how often you see them. i bumped into a friend this morning and razzed him about his indecision on attending my birthday party next month. then he shared a very serious prayer request with me. and although this person knows me well enough to know i intended no harm in my incessant probing, if i would have taken the time to say, “hey, what’s up. how are you anyway?” i bet you a little more of the Spirit would have shown, and a little less of me.

so…i am going to continue to work on being less cynical. less sarcastic. and a little more sensitive.

all a girl needs

to get through the day

is little cup of peace

i like to call

chocolate pudding.

I can never think of a time when i have prayed for sorrow. Invited true brokenness into my life. Usually, it comes as an unwelcomed guest. However, during my devotional time last week, I was thinking about the life of Joseph. I read this:

God never uses anybody to a large degree, until after He breaks that one all to pieces. Joseph had more sorrow than all the other sons of Jacob, and it led him out into a ministry of bread for all nations. For this reason, the Holy Spirit said of him, “Joseph is a fruitful bough…by a well, whose branches run over the wall” (Gen. 49:22). It takes sorrow to widen the soul.

My prayer that night was one I would never have expected to pray. I’ve prayed to be broken before, but never to the point of sorrow. Praying for sorrow?

When most people think of sorrow, they think of grief. Dispair. Negativity. Sadness. But the sorrow we should pray for is sorrow without despair.

If we had never fallen, or were in a glorified state, then the strong torrents of Divine joy would be the normal force to open up all our souls’ capacities; but in a fallen world, sorrow, with despair taken out of it, is the chosen power to reveal ourselves to ourselves. Hence it is sorrow that makes us think deeply, long, and soberly.

Ecclesiastes 7:3 says:

Sorrow is better than laughter,
for sadness has a refining influence on us.

But what about joy? I think the more refined we are through sorrow, the greater the joy we are able to experience.

What do you think?

I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new!
Saint Augustine

so here i am, taking care of some freelance in my office, space heater 6″ away from my leg…sipping on some “rooibos sunshine” loose leaf tea. my coworker dalton and i have become addicted to rooibos, and there just happens to be a loose leaf tea shop a few miles from the church which has probably a hundred kinds of loose leaf tea. so we have our little tea station in our communications workroom. i’ll admit, we’ve become tea snobs.

earlier today, as i was getting ready – applying eyeliner or something – one of those thoughts [that you know aren't your own] pops in my head and says, “Why even bother? You know you can’t compete.”

I knew exactly what this statement meant and where it came from. I seem to have my brain locked into this “22 years old is the perfect age” mindset. It probably was one of the best years of my life. And now as I creep ever-so-more up on 30, I realize that superfically, aging is something I’m not looking forward to.

You would never hear me say it aloud, but I am horribly competitive. A few years back, after a fierce game of Uno with the band Chris was in, we all went to eat. We talked about the game and I said something about how “I’m glad I’m not one of those competitive crazy people.” The singer, Steve, normally laid back and not too expressive, smacks his hand down on the table and says, “SWEET JESUS ANNE, YES YOU ARE!”

After Steve’s statement, the fact I had broken many a Super Nintendo controller in my youth, as well as chalking up several technical fouls during my high school basketball career, I realize – yes, I am extremely competitve.

This competitive nature also comes in the form of my appearance. The voice that snuck in unexpectedly today was pushing that competitive button – making me feel there’s no way I can physically compete with the beautiful, early-20 year olds that seem to overflow out of the Rockwall city limits.

Fortunately, a Voice much louder and more important reminded me, “Why do you need to compete, anyway?”

Eh. Good point.

Now if only I can convince myself to believe it…

to have breakfast with the jacksons.

although after seeing the below photo…

i don’t think you’d want to.