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Wednesday’s Wisdom from the Word – Whistle Blowing

If you pick up a whistle and blow into it, what happens?  The whistle whistles. You probably don’t remember learning how to use the whistle… I certainly don’t.  But as a mom, I’ve seen each of my 3 boys learn.  Its funny but all of them had the same experience.

They would pick up the whistle, do it correctly and make a loud whistling sound.  Of course this excited a small boy immensely and they would each try to do it again.  The thing is they now knew the whistle was going to make a sound.  So they all would put the whistle into their mouth and then instead of blowing the whistle they would try to make the whistling sound on their own and not through the whistle.  It would take them awhile to once again figure out how to let the whistle do the work.

Why talk about whistle blowing?  As I’ve been thinking about pressing on, I’m reminded of the verse in the next chapter of Philippians:  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (4:13)  If I can do all things, I can definitely press on to be more healthy, to be a mom who yells less, to be a wife who encourages more, to be a homemaker who takes better care of her home and to be a Christian who loves more.  But like my boys with the whistle, I need to let the whistle (Christ) do the work.  Otherwise all my trying will result in a muted imitation blowing sound.

So how do I let Christ strengthen me so that I can do all things?  I’m still figuring all that out.  But for today, after I post this, I’m going to spend some time reading the Bible.  Since the first 2 Bible verses that I’ve used in this blog came from Philippians, I think I’ll go read all of it to see what else God has to say to me through it.

Are you letting the whistle do the work?  I’d love to hear how you do.  If not, I’d love for you to join me as we press on and more and more allow Christ to strengthen us.

Training Tuesday – Pressing on in health

Pretty much my whole life I’ve been overweight.  I could blame it on genetics, after all a lot of people in my family have been overweight.  But the fact is that I’m overweight because I eat too much.  I eat when I’m bored, I eat when I’m happy, I eat when I’m uncomfortable, I eat because food is there, if I’m not eating I’m often thinking about what I’m going to eat next.  I have replaced my hunger for God with a hunger for food.

I know these things.   I’ve confessed these things.  I’ve battled these things.  I’ve had some victories.  But as I type this, I’m still considered obese.  A year ago I decided to embrace my imperfection and not worry about my weight.  Really I think I was just giving myself a license to eat what I wanted when I wanted.  That resulted in me reaching my highest weight ever.  I decided I didn’t want to stay that way.

I knew I was not going to magically wake up one day in a skinny person’s body with a skinny person’s mentality.  I needed to fight this battle.   I have not yet obtained and maintained a healthy weight.  But I press on…

“Not that I already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

I have no intention to write or share with you a weight loss or exercise plan.  I know how God has asked me to eat and be active today, but He hasn’t told me beyond that.  On Tuesdays, what I’m calling “Training Tuesdays” I’ll share my imperfections, my battles, my losses and my victories.  My desire is that if you share those imperfections with me, you’ll know you are not alone.  That perhaps some wisdom I’m learning in my journey will be exactly what you need to hear at exactly the right time.  (Ok… maybe my deepest desire is that one day soon I’ll be able to say that I am now at a healthy weight and wearing some really cute size 6 skinny jeans with knee high boots – hopefully they’ll still be in fashion!  Hey, I’ve already admitted I’m imperfect, so I might as well be completely honest.)