Cast ALL your cares apon me!

  I am currently reading this Amazing and life changing book called "Reshaping it All" by Candace Cameron Bure... yep D.J off of Full House. This book is about her weight loss journey and struggle with food but she mostly talks about her relationship with Christ and how that is directly correlated to her success. I feel like I can't get enough information from this book, I keep soaking it up and then going back and rereading passages because all the information is so obvious but for some reason I didn't get it before. It is funny how you can hear something a million times and then one person words it differently and then you have as Oprah would like to say an " ah ha" moment. Well I have just had one of those!
   I am going to say it.. " I am addicted to food!" I think I always have been, and yes it is kind of embarrassing admitting it but I know it is also important for me to do so. I was stick skinny for most of my life and NEVER had to worry about what I was eating until my late teenage years. But I do remember starting very young being obsessed with food. I was nicknamed the "food Police" at our house because I was always concerned about who was eating what and whether would be enough... especially of the naughty stuff. We never had a lack of food in our house so I am not sure where the obsession came from but I think it was probably my way of controlling something in my life.
   As I got older I became focused on what I was going to have for my next meal and "feasting" as a good friend of mine and I called it. We would stuff ourselves silly and at the time it was wonderful, but I was obviously in severe denial.... so fast forward to about 5 years and 80, yes 80 lbs later. I am like " oh, I got fat!" I wonder how that happened?  Fast forward again to another five years down the line. And although I have lost some of the weight, I am still working on loosing more. I am just now coming to the realization that I cannot do this alone.
   I have not been able to figure out for the life of me why all these years of dieting and exercising and weight loss plans I have never been able to take all of it off and keep it off, but I was missing a huge component. God! Hello, why didn't I see this before. This whole book talks about how we can't do it ourselves. That Satan uses every opportunity to make us feel weak and like failures and for me that is my weight. Every time I have given up because it was too hard or because I didn't see the fruits of my labor I let him win. If I give up every time there is a sign of trouble, I am missing out on the promise he gives us. God states that if I cast all my cares upon him, yes even my temptations with Ice cream and oreo's that  he will not let me fall. So here I am casting this huge struggle in my life Lord, I will not give up or let the enemy tell me I am defeated every time I don't loose a pound or make a mistake. You will be there to guide me and pick me up when I fall because I know I will.

C.S. Lewis wrote :A silly idea is current that Good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would be been like an hour later. This is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.

You can't always get what you want.... but you got what you need ~ Rolling Stones

    So in spite of the current economic situation I believe my plan next year will once again be working at Red Robin and substitute teaching. These two things aren't necessarily a bad thing at all however not really what I want to be doing. There are a few upsides... I get to spend more time with my baby and we get to put some money away, however with that said it also means I see Kavin a lot less, have a chaotic schedule that is not consistent and am constantly reminded daily of what I want and can't have! Trying at time, for sure.
    I am really trying to trust God with this whole not having a plan thing. I know that he will give me everything I NEED, but I also know this is not always with the everything I want. His timing is perfect, and yes I have to remind myself of this daily.... actually sometimes hourly. I like a plan... I don't like waiting and I hate not knowing what is going to happen so this is a big stretch for me. At the same time as me being afraid of what is coming next I am reminded of how he has provided for me in the past. When Kavin and I started trying to have a baby, it took seven months and I tracked everything, wrote it all down and month after month nothing happened until the day I truly, not half heartedly like all the other months said " ok, God I give it to you!" and that happened to be the month we got pregnant. Because we got pregnant at that time I chose not to look for a full time teaching position with a 10 wk old baby, and in turn have been able to spend this whole year only working part time and watching Kaleb grow. In turn again, I got to spend precious time with my dad as he was dying of cancer which I would not of been able to do if I was working full time. So... once again I am reminded of how he is great and just like he says over and over " I will give you all  the desires of your heart if you trust in me."
   So God, here I am trusting that you will provide what we need, even though it might not be what I want for right now!

Success is in the eye of the beholder

     I have always been a perfectionist by nature... wanting to do the right thing the right way even if that means that I have to do it 100 times which is all nice and good but it gets me into trouble because in a way I can never measure up to myself. I feel like I have to do and be perfect which is rediculous because there is no such thing, and you would think that I would of learned that by now in my 28 years of life, but I am still working on it.
    These last few years have been a difficult journey job wise for me. I got my Masters in teaching but for the life of me cannot find a job. With the economy the way it is now, the possibilities are zilch as it stands so it looks like for the moment I will be working at Red Robin and substitute teaching AGAIN. It isn't that these jobs are horrible it is just not what I want to be doing with my life. HELLO! I spent 7 years in college and I am working at a restaurant to show for it, kind of frustrating. Anyway, after this last bout of promising interviews where I was pretty sure I was going to get a teaching job, and then I didn't, I have started thinking about why do I NEED a teaching job so bad? The more I think about it, the more I realize that I feel like what I do... being a mom, working as a substitute and a server doesn't mean anything to anyone. Its not the picture of success! Success is.... having a career, retirement, benefits and the list could go on and on. A wise woman told me that "There is an art to just being", which got me thinking again. Obviously doing all the things that I am doing now is exactly where I am supposed to be in life, even if it doesn't measure "success" to anyone else. When God wants me to do something different, then he will make that clear, but for the mean time I am sitting right here.
      This concept of success is a thought I am going to have to mull around for a bit, because my perfectionist part of me just wants to do more... the problem with that is that more is never enough because once I have done more i.e. earned my masters or bought a house or had a baby, there is always a "more" to be done. I never measure up! With that said... I am working on it.
     Throughout this whole process in being in a place that I haven't exactly wanted, I have had a wonderful baby boy and gotten to spend so much time with him this first year.  I have been able to spend cherished time with my dad before he passed away. I am SO thankful for those things. This is time  that I will NEVER get back, no matter how "successful" I am!