As a young child, I was always in church. My mom and dad, even as young parents, made sure my sister and I were in choir, children’s programs, picnics, revivals and any other church related activities. At the tender age of 7, God reached down and spoke His life into my heart, and I have never been the same after receiving the unconditional love of the Savior. We attended church schools and got an education that was proper and prepared us for college, if we so chose, and we did. Yes, we were both in the classification of “not like the others” in our respective peer groups. On the outside, I appeared to be a really great kid.

But living out the “not the same” was different. Once I walked the aisle and was baptized, I though naively I would live a clean, pure life with ease. At the age of 7, I didn’t know that profession of faith was only my beginning of a constant struggle of flesh and godliness raging at every turn.  I was a “good kid” in the eyes of the world. I was a decent student, tried to obey my parents and live a pure life. As I grew older there were challenges cast, but not in the same areas of many of my friends. I didn’t do drugs. I was not a participant in behaviors that would land me in detention or suspension from school. I wasn’t involved in the sexual awakening of some of my peers during high school. I saved myself for marriage and it was a decision I made by myself and contentedly. I wanted to be the stellar kid, and I was in many ways…but it wasn’t easy. Looking back I can see the struggle was in reconciling the new mind and body and life with the old Rhonda. I thought the two  were ok in coexistance, but I was so wrong. There was always an underlying draw to go right up to line that my Christian life had drawn in the sand, peek over it a little, maybe even stick one light little toe over the line…just to see what would happen. I didn’t break free of that pull until much later in life.

This struggle was deeply spiritual, and it took many years to realize it and what the root of it was. Although God had given me a new life, new hope, and new purpose, I had not laid down the old Rhonda, I had chosen to take her along into my new life.

In my 20’s and 30’s, I attended Bible Study Fellowship along with hundreds of women for several years. Daily Bible study became a way of life for me and I looked forward to meeting with my small group of friends each week, discussing the scripture assignments and marveling at God’s work in all our lives. We shared our struggles and successes, and for me it was a way to push down the old Rhonda, but never quite putting her away forever. I made her behave better, but she was still tied to me under the surface of what I allowed the world to see of me every day.

One week, we went in to listen to the lecture given by the leader of the branch of BSF I attended. I admired the way she could speak in front of a group and teach truths that I had not understood in the daily readings. She was a tool God used to bring those truths to life for me. One week, we were studying the passage of scripture where Paul spoke about “the body of death”. I can only say at that moment for the first time in my life as she spoke, I could feel my spirit quicken inside. I knew this was something I needed to study further to understand my own struggles in doing what God commanded but still wanting to cross the line in so many areas. I began to realize wanting to cross it was the same as crossing it in God’s commands.

So I began to study, and this is what I learned.

Paul wrote of the body of death in Romans 7:24-25.  “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

In Biblical times, when someone would commit a crime, the ruling tyrants in the area didn’t feed, clothe, house them in jails in many cases. If someone stole, the offending hand was cut off. A liar may have his tongue cut out leaving him mute for the rest of his life. And a murderer? That person may have to bear the body of death. As soon as the condemned was pronounced judgment, the body of the murdered would be chained tightly to the murderer, back to back in most cases, but face to face in others…lip to lip, heart to heart, eye to eye. This was done right in the courtroom in front of friends, family and curious spectators. The putrid, filthy, rotting corrosive body was never disentangled from the every day functions of the offender, and he was forced to live in the streets. The convicted then dragged the corpse through the alleys and thoroughfares , unable to hide from the stares of common folk, frightened children, and visiting dignitaries alike. One look at the stinking mass of humanity was enough to turn the stomachs of any who saw and made an indelible memory in their own minds. The humiliation was great, the grotesque image burned into the psyche of those who saw.

As the dead body continued to deteriorate, the gaseous emissions would reach the nostrils of those in close proximity, the body bloated and began to lose its parts to the horror of spectators. Retching in the streets became a common sound. The body of death began to eat into the body not yet dead, and start its devilish journey that would end quickly in the additional and sure demise of the one bearing the dead body.

And when I read those descriptions, I knew in my own soul, this was me. But at that point in my life, I was still wanting to control myself, by myself. And God gave me over to the body of death for a season.

I had watched God reach down and save me from a life of sin as a 7 year old child. I had even seen Him work as I presented the already fairly clean portions of me to the general public. I served among His people, I taught, I brought His songs to hundreds in many churches and venues over the years, I led women’s groups and Bible studies, I wrote articles for Christian magazines. Even after all this, there came a time the body of death I was carrying began to eat into the new body Christ had given me as a believer at a faster pace in new ways. Spiritual bondage had set in and I had chained it to my own life by my choices and subsequent rationalized behaviors.

As time went on and the old thoughts and sins would arise inside, I began to live more and more of a chained existence, and  I suddenly felt I could not break free . I made poor choices, I chose outright sinfulness in my lifestyle. I engaged in patterns that were tying me back to the old self. Although I was able to keep this secret life under a cover of a smiling, happy believer, I knew that the body of death I had been dragging around with me had begun to eat into my very body and I was headed to a real disaster.

Where there’s rotten fruit, there is a rotten root. I began to see so many attitude changes emerging, I began to pile on bad choice after bad choice in an effort to “feel better”. I began a relationship that was full of rotten fruit. The old saying “Our secrets make us sick” was never more true than it was during those five years of my life. The body of death continued to eat away at the beautiful life God had given me years before, and everything I was choosing was adding more and more chain.

Buried things will eat us alive, guilt makes us ill and can last a lifetime if we feed it. I had been feeding old guilt and shame with new guilt and shame for years. We are not truly set free until we rid ourselves of the need to impress people and even God with all our actions and self deprecating behaviors. I knew to be freed, I needed to have someone “with skin on” that I could talk to, confess to, be held accountable to. And God brought a miracle person into my life almost immediately when I began to pray to be delivered from the allure of my buried life. In the unconditional time spent with this friend I began to pour out the detailed sadness of many years, the embarrassment of the choices I had made, the longing to right the situation and remove myself from its grip. Confession was good for my soul, and God was the caretaker of my heart and mind through it all. He gave grace to the listener, I was never sitting in condemnation, I was never let to feel unworthy and my words were accepted just as I was. I worked out my struggle in the presence of this friend, and am so grateful God didn’t require I do it alone. God cut off the chains from the old Rhonda, laid her back down into the dust of the earth, while raising me back up to the new life I should have been living all along. I thank God He brought me out of that bondage. And I thank Him He is still in the business of cutting chains and healing. I regret the years wasted on the one hand, but thank God for that experience because I have been able to be the listening “chain cutter” for others.

God has shown me He is enough for me, and I am enough for Him. Much of the chain I had forged was in trying to impress others, looking for approval, seeking to measure up so to speak. I looked to others…the wrong others…to let me know I was ok. Some of that started in my childhood, but much filtered into my adulthood because the old Rhonda refused to die. I carried all the old grievances into my new life and it played out in all sorts of ways. Now I find myself looking back only long enough to remember how far I have come, as I tread forward confidently.

To stay on track, I do ask myself a lot of questions…

Why am I angry? Why am I wasting so much time in self pity? What makes me feel content and is it a godly contentment? Why do I shame myself for my past choices when God has been gracious to forgive me? Is He not my perfect example of forgiveness, even of self? Why do I have a hard time with rejection and have a difficulty believing someone can love me but still not agree with me? If I put down a sin years ago, why I am I resuscitating it in my mind? Dead is dead, dust is dust…right?

Today I may still have times of mental, emotional and spiritual trial but I know I never have to deal with self alone and in secret again. As I keep the word of God close in my heart, and gather godly friends with listening ears and good counsel close by as my bolt cutters, any chains I may attempt forge will easily fall away, and that loathsome body of death is left to perish in the dust. These days the fragrance of my new life is much preferred over sin’s big ole stink.

I am not normally a person who makes New Year’s resolutions. It is not because I have nothing to resolve, far from it. It is more that I tend to keep short accounts with myself in most areas.

 I am pretty organized and use my time efficiently. As a professional organizer for years, I researched all kinds of methods, teachings, studies, webinars and the like in effort to stay abreast of the most current tools to put a home or business in order. I taught classes and webinars myself on time and paper management. I set up retrieval systems with my clients based on their inventory and their personalities so they would not only be successful in clearing the clutter of their lives, but they would be able to maintain the system once my tenure with them was over. It was important I keep my own schedule in hand so I did not get derailed by my own little things while I was helping others with their big things.

I pay all my bills well before the date due. I watch my bank accounts daily, move money efficiently, and then tithe and pay the entire month of outstanding amounts due at the first of the month.

I am usually the on time person, unless caught by traffic or inhibited by others. I live with my kids and grandchildren so I may have to run a gauntlet or two on the way out the door.

I buy Christmas and birthday gifts all year long and am not forced to purchase during the heaviest traffic nor the highest priced slots, but can bargain shop and find really cool items. The only things I usually wait to purchase near the holiday or birthday in question are the extras I can’t say no to during the season, and they are put away for the following year if they are not age or time sensitive.

When I get up in the mornings, I read my emails around 10, then not again till mid afternoon, with a final reading before bed. I task manage most business related things this same way. I don’t “handle” anything unless it is urgent and I did this even when I ran a company with a staff of 18 and 200 customers. Most things these days are not termed as urgent so they can be handled in those 3 time slots easily.

Although now that I am retired my time is a lot more flexible by choice, I still pretty much work out in my listing area from 10 till 6 daily with no breaks or lunch. If it is a sourcing day for my business instead, it is preplanned far in advance and on certain days of the week.

I do use a daily planner, have for years. I also use highlighters, paperclip sections, and stick post-its all through the thing till it looks more like a messy scrapbook. But it works.

I have certain “assigned” cleaning chores I perform daily. I vacuum on one day, dust on another, etc. I usually tend toward easy meals when I cook, and I cook normally only on certain days with planned leftovers.  The leftovers coincide with the days I know I will be out of the house sourcing or running errands for a long time. I know I will have a good meal when I get home and not have to do anything but nuke it.  

So staying focused, particularly in the organizing area normally  comes easily for me. In doing a study years ago on the spiritual gifts, I took all the tests and so forth. It came up with the label of “administration” as my spiritual gift. It didn’t surprise me. I have pretty much always been the one with eye for detail and could implement paths of success without much thought when it came to the areas of cleaning and organizing.  I was a natural leader in these areas. I was boss of it, I owned it.

But then there was the area of physical health and care.

All my life I have been the yo-yo girl. Up and down with weight, an extremist one moment, sloth the next. I have lost 40 or more pounds at least 3 times in my 60 years, always putting it back on in record time without very much effort. Whenever I was on task with the weight regimen, I would walk for exercise, or go to a gym. In an effort to make myself obey myself and subdue my wretched longing toward food sinfulness, as Paul says in I Corinthians 9:27 ASV I would “buffet my body and bring it into bondage, lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.” I led women’s groups during the height of two of my weight loss sagas. I took on this verse as a sort of mantra, and it worked for a while. But then during some years of self reproach and general disinterest, the word buffet pronounced “buff it” morphed more into “buff fay”. I stopped walking. I stopped prepping my foods. I stopped cooking for myself and marked it up to a “busy schedule.” I am single, so with no one to cook for, eating out was the easiest solution to nourishment, or so I pretended. I do have arthritis and it is difficult to get up in the morning and head out for that brisk walk. My body groans no matter what kind of condition I am in physically. But that, like the food choices, was just an excuse….a reason wrapped up in a lie.

The truth was I wasn’t a very good boss of myself. And frankly that is as it should be for a Christian. We are not to do things by sheer fortitude and brain muscle. It might work for a while, but we are answering to the addict, and not the Counselor. God says a lot about self control in the Bible. He addresses all types, including gluttony. If He knows so much about it, you would think we would be willing to follow His leading without a second thought. But we assume we will be kinder to ourselves if we try to control everything, do it on our own plan, not bother Jesus with it. He has more important things to do than monitor our diet and exercise, right?

Last summer, I went on a 3 day sourcing trip. It was in June, the weather was scorching and it was the mid-point of the covid pandemic, but yard sales were opening up. So I attended a multi-location highway sale over one weekend with a friend. I had been very active in my estate business till the close of 2019 and had retired at the end of the year. From January till June, I was busy, but not as physically active. I was already overweight and was making a feeble attempt to get the weight back off, but had not really dedicated myself to success. We had gone through a huge home move, lots of craziness, and well…I was giving myself a break. And it proved to be a bad break with self control. Making my way through that 3 day trip was near toture.

In the months leading up to that trip, I was sitting most days for 8 hours and listing items online to sell because the pandemic had gone to priority one and we were all in lockdown. I set up my postal pick ups at the house so I was not even physically going to the post office any longer. Grocery store visits were shut down and food was delivered, so even the tiny exercise experienced during those tasks died. My arthritis woes kicked in even more because I had had a 400% increase in business during the lockdowns and was using my activity time a.k.a. walking slots for listing and shipping instead. Each day I would plan to get back on the wagon. Each day my physical body would decline. Weight rose, and all kinds of issues surfaced.

Then God sat me down even further through a knee injury after that yard sale trip. I couldn’t hold up my own weight to walk, dress, prepare food or anything for almost 5 weeks. My children were bringing me food at dinner time and helping with any other tasks as they could. I was sleeping in a recliner because it hurt too much to lie in the bed. I would stay up till 4 and 5 in the morning, finally falling into an exhausted sleep for 3 or 4 hours, then barely be able to drag myself on a walker to the bathroom and back. Showers were an hour process and even more exhausting, so they were cut down to twice weekly. Anyone who knows me knows I am a clean freak, so that was not fun.

I was sitting even more still than I did in the lockdown period by this point. I had a lot of time to think… and God had a lot to say. I am not normally a crier, but tears came often and unexpectedly. I started thinking about how I had come to my current physical condition. I realized I was experiencing MORE pain than I needed now because I had not taken care of my body prior to my injury. I may still have injured it, sure. But I would not have been down that long, scared, feeling alone. I had spent years sacrificing the important on the altar of the urgent by working on everything else but me. And God had stepped back and allowed me to be my own boss for a while.

So one day, I began to read the scripture concerning the body. My mind started to wander to secular programs on TV along with health articles. I ordered books from the library with all different kinds of food plans and techniques from paleo to pescatarian to intermittent fasting. By the time I could walk again, I thought I had this motivational gig in hand. I was gonna SLAY this thing! And then I stepped on the scale. I had gained a large amount of weight already during the lockdown, and the numbers were even higher now from my weeks of near total inactivity. Discouragement set in and I was pretty defeated in spirit.

But then God stepped in as boss once again. It wasn’t a dramatic “ah ha” moment, or a talk with a friend, TV show, or even a bible verse that wrought the desire to ask God to step in again. He just told me, in His own gentle quiet way, I was a crummy boss of me. He let me know, just through quiet meditation that there was nothing wrong with my body that a change of focus wouldn’t fix. He told me in my spirit to put down the cookbooks, turn off the TV and stop focusing on the wrong things I had been doing.  Instead I needed to focus on doing more right things, then just repeating those over and over without trying to control everything. He used my own inspirational words I had given to others over the years of leading women’s weight loss discipline groups…Do the next right thing.

And a deep Godly desire to simply do right was born out of that time of refocusing between June and September. My focus was corrected, and I sat back a bit and let God do the directing.

I started to study the Bible again. I began to embrace and enjoy more of the simple things. I cut my schedule back again and as my strength returned I began walking again. 10 minutes a couple of times a week is not much in the world’s economy, but it is a lot in God’s economy. Every time I chose to do right, I was stepping to the side, staying out of God’s way, and letting Him be the boss. I selected His simple path of eating whatever I want within 1500-1700 calories a day and  increased water intake a little each day. I am making it a set plan to get more sleep (still working on that one) and just enjoy all parts of  life more in general. If I had been boss I would likely be paying a high price for a food plan or the ingredients of no telling what kind of dishes, joining a gym, and everything else I did when I was boss before.

Since October I have dropped 20 pounds without much effort at all. That’s the fun news to share. The not so fun fact is there are around 50 more pounds lurking that need to be shed to be physically manageable and more active without as much pain. But where I end up numbers-wise is not my focus at all. My current physical situation, my regret over not maintaining my prior losses, my increased arthritic pain…none of those are to be my focus. Where I am now spiritually in relation to Who is my boss and what He is telling me to do…that is to be my only focus. If I take care of the “do”, then the “don’t” will take care of itself.   

Who is your Boss? Is it laziness, sloth, overeating, under-exercising? Maybe you drink too much, stay up too late, try to control others with your perfectionism. Are you attempting to boss those areas yourself by sheer grit and determination rather than just doing the next right thing? My future weight loss path  may look like a huge task to me right now and I could get a mite discouraged. But in refocusing when I feel the urge to control, I will gain the real prize of being spirit led in this journey. My only plan is focus on Jesus, take the next single step well, and keep telling myself this can be done. According to Desmond Tutu, even an elephant can be eaten one bite at a time.

I woke up with Hagar on my mind today. I really can’t say why. My devotional study has been in a different section of the Bible, my personal spiritual inner man (or woman I should say) has been comfortably reading the redemptive stories found in Esther and Ruth most recently, so no Hagar to be found there either.

But Hagar was on my mind.

So I started reflecting on this scriptural character this morning in a more directed manner. If I haven’t learned anything in this 53 years I have been a believer, it is to follow God’s plan instead of my own. I am not as quick in the shifting of gears as I should be, but I am better than I once was, so I will count this as noteworthy progress.

In reading Hagar’s story again, I was reminded about how hard her life really was in many respects. She was a slave, even more… an unloved concubine. She was tossed from Pharaoh’s hand to Sarah, then to Abraham, and ultimately found herself cast out by her master and mistress into the wilderness. The name Hagar means “wandering”, and her life certainly bore this out over her recorded storyline.

Hagar was never first in anyone’s life. Emotionally abandoned by person after person, time after time, she had to have shed many hot tears and internally questioned “what is wrong with me, what have I done to deserve this ill treatment?” Then the natural inclination to conclude “ I must be a very bad person, worthless.” Hagar is a heart-rending picture of all of us in our quest for emotional affection. We place the burden of our wants and needs in the hands of someone who will never be equipped to fill those needs…be it a parent, a child, a husband, a friend. We look for our own self worth in others, and when that doesn’t come, we label ourselves as worthless, and even worse, undeserving of love and affection.

Once Hagar began to experience desertion and abandonment by significant people in her life in the emotional and physical sense, her spiritual wounds grew very raw and deep. Her whole life, up to the moments in the wilderness, had been driven by others’ selfish choices and commands. Hagar had lost her own path in life far before she was cast out. She had elevated the opinions, beliefs and subsequent sinful actions of others above God and His word to her. His promises given to the family she dwelt with and served, fell on her deaf ears because their own fallible words and actions toward her screamed more loudly. Hagar had been introduced to the God of Abraham, she had to have heard the promises of God spoken in her presence as she went about her days of service there. But she chose to cast those pearls aside, as she was cast aside, and dwelt for a very long painful time in the wilderness, alone and fearful. She had a look at her circumstances and experiences, and then chose to believe man’s utterings, and not the word of the Lord concerning her.

Hagar had made a grave error in her thinking which drove her life in a different spiritual direction than originally intended. The people who had taught her all she knew about God turned out to be desperately flawed believers. Rather than looking at Abraham and Sarah as fellow truth seekers, she looked at them as truth-sayers. If they didn’t love her, care for her and spoke harshly to her…then that must become her own self truth as well. She wandered in the wilderness, finally giving up, weeping and afraid.

Hagar had been running a long time, more than once actually. She had run from Sarah physically when she was pregnant by Abraham and Sarah abused her, and then she was told by the Lord to return. Interestingly, she did as the Lord told her at that point. She went back, served in the household, her life began to come under submission once again. And then an event happened that changed her course and thinking again…Ishmael was born. When mistreated once again by Sarah, Abraham….the man who was supposed to be her protector basically packed her a bag and threw her out of the home, and Hagar was running once again. Each time she had a choice to believe man or believe God when her circumstances were presented and she had to obey the authority she found herself in service to on earth. Each time, she looked at her circumstances where she was placed and chose to believe earthly man’s words also, to her own detriment.

But God’s voice graciously came to her in that wilderness. She had had all stripped away by this point. There was no home, there was no protector, no champion. She had no friends, no sustenance for body or spirit. There was nothing between herself and the Lord. But God asked her the question she needed at her lowest spiritual and emotional point then. “What is the matter, Hagar?” Then immediately followed with “Do not be afraid.”

That was the moment, I believe, that Hagar’s faith became alive. Her circumstance hadn’t changed, her own feelings about it hadn’t changed. She had all the truths in head knowledge. Heck she LIVED with the family of the promise. What changed her?

But God.

This is what changes all of us…God pushes aside all the sad words, the unkind treatment, the abandonment, shame, spiritual wounds. He offers us eternal truth and unending faith in place of lifelong untruth and fear. Faith comes when you have something in your heart before you have it in your circumstances. There was a tiny fire within Hagar that had caused her to question her past. She ran from it, rather than face it. She hid rather than holding on to the real truth.

We do this, yes? We may even be believers, but we allow wounding of our psyche as the cruel words of others are accepted as truth. We base our feelings and emotions and wellbeing on those who are every bit as flawed and messed up as we are. We embrace shame rather than casting shame into the wilderness. Instead we banish ourselves to a life without hope while we run highlight reels of our past.  Over and over and over we see pictures in our mind of what someone said or did to us, poor choices we made, sins we chose over purity of body and spirit. We all have sins in our current lives or consequences of mistakes in our past that need to be dealt with and put away. That will never change until we enter our eternal reward. The real test of our beliefs comes in those times of our personal “but God” moments. We have to ask ourselves the right questions. What is the matter really? Why do I hear the words of others so clearly when they are not edifying and leading me to the Lord? Who do I choose to believe? Is God telling me the truth about me? If He is, why do I choose to live as if I don’t believe Him?

God will always leave a few weaknesses in us to leave us humble, that’s a fact. BUT GOD wipes away all the past, all the untrue words, all the emptiness and emotional abandonment. It is up to us to choose His sweet wooing over our sorrowful wandering. There comes a moment you are called to end the war you have with yourself. Be strong in the Lord, and He will fight for you….even if fighting YOU through the lessons of hard circumstances is part of His plan. When you come to your “But God” moment, be ready to move forward, and do not look back. Ask Lot’s wife how that looking back thing worked for her…

Happy New Year 2021!

In reflection, 2020 has proven to be a challenging 12 months to many in the world. We have seen so many “firsts”, and sadly so many “lasts”, and our minds are still trying to wrap around the events. A pandemic, racial and social injustices, riots and looting were in the news daily almost immediately after the Times Square ball dropped and 2020 launched. I think all of us watching, in person or on television had such hopes and dreams for the coming year. Little did we know, in the blink of an eye, the world as we knew it would radically change, in many ways forever.
As I have scanned posts by friends on social media all day today leading up to the 2021 launch, the biggest group have been those who have wished the current year away quickly. Most voices have spoken of the horrors and heartaches, fussed about the inconveniences and regrets that have upset their personal apple carts all year, and condemned this year as nothing short of hell on earth.

Maybe I am in the minority, this was a very good year in many ways and I am so thankful for it.

This was the first year in our current home where there are trees to climb (not me, the grandkids), bugs and critters to explore (again not me), and we have watched it transform inside as we placed our things, moved them around, decorated, lovingly arranged all of our necessary and unnecessary “stuff”. More importantly it became a wonderful haven to shelter in place. The children never complained about being away from friends. They learned to play differently, and so did we adults. I was here with my family, and I so realize I was one of the lucky ones. I could watch them play outside, was able to work while seeing them chase each other across the yard, involve myself in flagging the start of their foot races, and sit quietly outside in the early morning hours and listen to the cardinals call to each other, laugh at the squirrels rustling through the leaves, and feel the warmth of the sun on my face as I sipped coffee and drew in the quiet pleasure of the day.

I had retired from hosting estate sales in late 2019 in anticipation of moving, and when the lockdowns occurred, I had a garage jammed with all kinds of inventory just waiting to be listed. People came to online stores like mine in droves to purchase not only necessities, but also trinkets, games, puzzles…anything to make their quarantine a bit lighter and happier. Ultimately I experienced the best year in sales since starting an online store. I had nowhere to go, nothing to distract me, I was listing items all day each day and the inventory was going right out to eager customers and even a few movie prop companies. I had never employed the scheduled shipping from porch side offered by USPS, but did…and even now I rarely ever spend my billable time standing in a line at the post office anymore. This “inconvenience” turned into a benefit, as many other changes did in the last year.

I got to know myself better in 2020. I had wandered away from friends, and sadly away from God in my daily Bible study habit. Too many shiny new objects had grabbed my attention over the last few years, and my spiritual health was lagging far behind and secular pursuits had replaced the Originator and Fountain of true meaning in this life. As a result I could see some characteristics I needed to discard from my personality, gathered information and gave myself incentives for new habits I needed to form, and old good habits I needed to resurrect came back to the forefront.

I employed a food delivery service with prepped meals for a time and started cooking for myself again. I began studying foods, combinations for healthy eating, how certain combinations aid in the body’s systems. I began to slowly but surely lose weight just by making better choices for myself and spending time on my daily meals rather than letting hunger dictate my food diary and fill it with empty calories. I was a caterer for several years, and always cooked when my child was growing up. As I strayed from healthy practices, I also could see a coinciding slide in my spiritual health. Looking back, it is really amazing to see how that turned around with the choices I started making in food and drink.

As the lockdowns lifted I was able to spend more time with family and friends again and I noticed the quality of the time had changed along with a personal desire to fill more of my time with people and less with noisiness and things. Time spent with others felt simpler and richer, not strained or pushed. I noticed things about my physical home more as my spiritual home began to rebuild inside. That is a forever process, and it is changing quickly some days, and moving slowly others. But it is all at the Lord’s pace for me, and comfortable. I don’t feel compelled to do things anymore, I feel privileged to be able to clean my home, garden a bit, sweep the walk, and do the chores.

Then one day, God chose to bring a friend back into my life after many years…someone special who prays with and for me, someone who gives me guidance, someone who is on a journey toward physical and spiritual health also, and encourages me in both my own business and spiritual life. I am still marveling that this prayer I have prayed for some time now was answered in the way it was, at the moment it was, and through the person He chose. I had asked for “bread”, and God graciously did not give me a “stone”…I am so grateful for this one beloved friend who is an unexpected gift of 2020.

Then through a recent chain of events God answered one last prayer in an unusual way. I will share more details later perhaps, but suffice it to say I was feeling a deep need for a time of retreat alone to regroup, study, think. For the last few weeks I had been considering several places to travel to at the turn of the year and was about to book the time the end of January. But God has redirected me as of today to stay home for a couple of weeks, as I did in the first of 2020, and refresh myself while safe in my little hippie bungalow. I will take a retreat time instead within the home I love, surrounded by the people I cherish. I will have time to study, to learn, to listen. Coffee will fill my belly as the sounds of nature fill my ears, and truths wander through my mind. Simplicity is my chosen path for 2021, and this is a great way to begin.

As I turn the page into 2021, I am excited to know the great things I experienced and gathered in 2020 are going forward with me. I am hopeful and expectant that God will continue to build on my lessons of the past year and next New Year’s Eve I will have even more miracles to share and grand stories to tell. Who knows, maybe I will finally write that book I have been tossing around for many years now. 

I will mark the past year as living up to its name…2020. My eyes have been opened to new things, my vision has become more clear, the spiritual cataracts are falling away, and the healing has begun.

So here is a kiss of goodbye to 2020 and a kiss of hello to 2021. I pray for only the best for all who read…

Happy New Year and much love to all of you!