Having a Content Heart

A while back, I was reading about contentment in a Joyce Meyer devotional. She said: "There's nobody happier than a truly thankful person, a truly content person. The word content means 'being satisfied' to the point where nothing disturbs you no matter what's going on, but not satisfied to the point that you never want any change." Additionally, she also mentioned that, "contentment is not about fame or being well-known, how much money you have, your position at work or your social circle. It's not found in your level of education or what side of the tracks you were born on. Contentment is a heart attitude."

Content and blissfully happy!! 

I couldn't agree more! Contentment isn't about a feeling, it's about a way of being. Contentment is a result of thankfulness. When you're thankful, you really can be satisfied in whatever stage you are at in your life because you have a joy in your heart that can't be altered no matter what is going
on in your life.

I just felt like today was the day to share those quotes about contentment. I have been reflecting so much about how different and amazing this year has been. Even as I look on the terrible years before that, I can still say that overall, I have always been content because I've had the peace of God inside my heart no matter what. There have been lots of moments of extreme pain, loss, and sadness, but the love of God has sustained me and infused me with strength. Remember these verses:

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. - Philippians 4:12-13

Grace and peace to you, my friends! May you all be blessed with a heart of contentment! Thanksgiving is the key! God will infuse you and give you all you need! Be infused! God bless you!

Do You Want to Be Blessed or Cursed?

When it comes to whether or not we want blessings or curses in our lives, the answer to that is really a no-brainer. I can't imagine anyone saying, "Yes, I want to be cursed!" No. We all want good things for ourselves, our family, and to have a wonderful life.

If this is true, WHY do we still choose to be cursed? I have been pondering that ever since the other day when I was reading Joyce Meyer's daily devotional on the WONDERFUL Bible app on my phone. She mentioned that Deuteronomy 28 describes a blessed life and a cursed life. The difference between the two is obedience to God. Read it and see the huge contrast between the two! The one who listens to the Lord is BEYOND blessed and life is good, prosperous, and abundant. Then, it goes on to say how difficult, disastrous, and calamity ridden a disobedient life is. It's a very bleak, distressing, and depressing picture! Seriously, take a moment and read it for yourself!

After I read it, it really got me to thinking about my own life. I had always tried so hard to please God and be a "good girl". The closer I walked with God, the better my life truly was and I can honestly say, those were always the happiest times. Any time I wandered astray, that's when I saw things in my life fall apart and bad things happen left and right. I've never saw it more plainly than in these last three years. I've always had my faith, but I'll admit that it was by a thread for a good while. I'll tell you what, I've never had a more heart breaking, miserable, lonely, depressing, and horrific time than when I was so lost and losing hope in the Lord. My worst moments of my life have been during these past three years when my faith was so weak. However, I have noticed that my life truly began to get better again due to the profound and simple choice I made on Easter Sunday of this year to rebuild my faith. That day, I was talking to the boyfriend I had at the time. Our relationship was very new; we were about two weeks into it (I think). Unfortunately, that was all the further it would go because he decided that he didn't want to renew his faith. I had told him that I was watching church online and asked if he was going anywhere or doing anything for Easter. That's when he told me he believed in God, yet wanted nothing to do with Him. It was a heartbreaking thing to hear; especially when that is not the kind of thing he had originally told me when we got together. He assured me that he wasn't going to change his mind on it, so I had to make the painful decision to let him go because I knew that being unequally yoked never works and that anyone who chooses anyone over God isn't worthy of Him (2 Corinthians 6:14, Matthew 10:37-38).

It was that choice that started changing my life all over again; this time, for the better. I started out by watching my brother's church online and committed to doing so each Sunday until I found a local church home. Later on, I started watching Blackhawk Ministries instead and was considering attending there (even though it's a 45 minute drive from where I am). I hadn't been to church in a long time and even though I tried a few churches, I hadn't found one in which I felt like it was "home". Yet, I knew it was important to find somewhere local, so I went to a few churches last summer. It's funny where you end up because the place where I finally felt like I belonged was the one that my parents' go to. I have went a couple times, but didn't feel like I connected (and mostly because I think I just didn't want to). However, I feel like God wanted me there because on the Sunday that I went back, it was due to the fact that I missed the service of another church. I was driving to it, but couldn't find a way to get there due to the road construction. It was like God was literally road blocking me lol. I didn't want to just give up and go home, so I figured I would surprise my parents and show up at theirs since it was about time for it to start anyways. Not only did I surprise them, but God surprised ME. The church was welcoming, the worship was full of heart (it always gets me teared up!), and the people there just have an attitude of servanthood (as evidenced by the testimonials they were having from the youth group that day; it really blessed me and melted my heart). The church is all about love, serving, prayer, ministry, and missions. It's so genuine and does EXACTLY the kind of things a church SHOULD do!

Over the next few weeks, I realized that I knew I belonged there. Not only that, but my kids love it there and they have a sign language interpreter in the service that my son loves to watch. I was also able to jump right in and start getting involved when I heard about the Steps of Faith Walk that they were going to have. I was very blessed to take part in it (she ended up getting well over 600 pairs of shoes to send to Africa!). I love getting connected with people that I already know, as well as getting to know new people. This church family makes it so easy! I am so grateful for them and look forward to getting to know them all more!

It is pretty obvious to me that Deuteronomy 28 is right on! I am seeing how blessed my life is again now that I have renewed my faith and started making choices for Him again. As you've read in my recent posts, He has blessed my children and I with a new house and so much more! I just can't even begin to tell you all the ways that he has provided for us and how wonderful my life is becoming more and more each day! I'm leaving the life full of curses and entering a life full of blessings when I choose Jesus!

In Joyce Meyer's devotional, she says: ""you can get free from one thing and go on to another thing and another thing and pretty soon, you'll start to realize that you have some real authority in Christ." I am definitely finding the bliss and freedom of working on all the things I need to work on in my life. I'm embracing each stage and step; learning, growing, and changing (even if it's uncomfortable, painful, or difficult). Joyce says, "Don't live your life without the thrill of growing and changing or you'll miss out on the good things God can do through you." Amen! She couldn't be more right about that! She also suggests to, "Take some time today to visualize the person you want to be and start pursuing God's freedom. Because one day at a time, you and God can do anything!" Amen to that too!

Grace and peace to you, my friends! Take it from me, it's a lot better to be blessed than cursed; and it's within YOUR power to decide which of the two you want to be! Your heart, attitude, and willingness to lay down your pride and be submissive to the Lord is what will bring forth transformation, renewal, and blessings into your life! So, if your life is a mess, full of stress and turmoil, etc. pause for a moment to think about whether your choices have invited curses on yourself due to issues of disobedience in some way/area to God. Do you have an addiction? Do you fear/worry to much instead of surrendering control and trusting God? Do you hold onto hate and unforgiveness? What's the condition of your heart? Be honest with yourself and then bring it before Him and make those issues right. Make a choice to be a better you and have a better life through obedience to Christ. There truly is blessing and freedom in abiding in Him! Be infused! God bless you!

From the Inside Out

Last Tuesday, I talked about the first of Dr. Phil's 7 keys to weight-loss freedom: right thinking. This week, it's all about feelings (which often go hand in hand with our thoughts).

It's really important to get our thoughts and feelings sorted out if we are going to have success in our weight-loss battle. If you think and feel negatively about yourself, you will sabotage any chance you have at success. That's why I have also talked about Joyce Meyer's book Battlefield of the Mind; as well as The Lord's Table. It's CRITICAL to get your mind and heart in sync if you want to achieve victory! I can't even begin to tell you how much these books have helped sort me out and put things into perspective!

Many of us are probably aware of the fact that we are emotional eaters (at least at times). If you would like to take the emotional eating test, click here! For me, I have had lots of emotional reasons to eat. Sometimes, it was for no real reason at all other than boredom or "just because". Other times, it was because I was sad and depressed (or even in "good moods" too). It really wasn't hard to find an excuse to eat. It wasn't until I really started becoming consciously aware of my thoughts and feelings that I realized that I was eating rather mindlessly. If left unchecked, that kind of behavior becomes so automatic and you end up packing on the pounds before you know it!

Dr. Phil always says that it's not "what you eat, but WHY you eat." We have to examine our thoughts and feelings and the ways that we are connecting them with food. Then, we've got to separate them from each other. If we can do that, and deal with our thoughts and emotions effectively, we won't use food as a tool to manage our internal struggles.

Grace and peace to you, my friends! May you be mindful and aware of what's going on inside your mind and heart! Journal those things, pray, talk with a friend for accountability, and even get professional counseling to deal with any tough issues you might uncover inside yourself. You are on your way to better health; from the inside out! Be infused! God bless you!!

You Live What You Believe

For yesterday's media Monday, I featured Dr. Phil's book: The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. In it, he mentions 7 essential keys to weight loss success that I'll be featuring in these Tuesday blogs for a while.

The first key is "right thinking." I think most of us know that positive thinking is always better than negative thinking, but I don't think most of us realize just how much power our thoughts can have over us. The truth is, you live what you believe! If you are thinking negative, condemning, and defeating thoughts, that is what you are going to believe about yourself and the manner in which you'll behave in. It's important to learn and be aware of what you're thinking and to CHALLENGE the negative thoughts that have no place in your mind. Click here to view the types of "faulty thinking" that you might be prone to. Then, resolve to challenge those thoughts. Become aware of what you're thinking and evaluate it to see whether it's true/false and whether it helps or hurts you. Journal your thoughts and find out what's really going on inside your head!

Whenever I think about the difference between wrong and right thinking, I remember a book that I read in high school that dramatically impacted my life and changed my perspective for the better! It's a book by Joyce Meyer called: Battlefield of the Mind. She talks about how important it is to "think about what you're thinking about" because there are so many times that we fall into negative thinking patterns that go on auto-pilot and we don't even realize it anymore. I think she even mentioned putting each thought into a sort of "time-out chair"; putting it on trial and evaluating it. She cites the verse from 2 Corinthians 10:5 which says: "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every though to make it obedient to Christ."

Take your thoughts captive! Hold them hostage and hold them up to the knowledge of the Word of God to see if it lines up! If it doesn't, reject them and then replace them with the kind of thoughts that DO line up! Think on good things (Philippians 4:4-9) and renew your mind (Romans 12:2). If you don't, you'll stay stuck in the same destructive thinking patterns and you won't be able to accomplish anything positive. Take the Israelites in the wilderness, for example. Joyce points out how they endlessly kept going round and round the mountain instead of entering the promised land because of the rotten mindset they had. Their negativity kept them in bondage and their generation didn't even get to enter the promised land! How tragic (and unnecessary!). Why do we needlessly punish and deprive ourselves of success?! Thankfully, we don't have to! We CAN choose to think differently and transform our minds (and our lives!).

Grace and peace to you, my friends! Remember, take your thoughts captive and challenge them! Reject the sabotaging thoughts that may be plaguing your mind so that you can not only reach your weight loss goals, but ANY goal that you are aspiring to reach! Think on good things; things that line up with the Word of God! Watch your life change! Be infused! God bless you!