40 days

Ok...I apologize. I WAS exaggerating. I really am not all that witty or funny or eloquent and doubt I am at all capable of producing the range of emotions portrayed by Sally Field or Dolly Parton or, even, Darryl Hannah. Forgive me. That realization led me to sort of refocus at least the short-term "goal" for this blog. (To show you how inept and uninformed I am...I just learned what the term "blog" meant two days ago...yes, humility is a good thing.) Anyhow...I think what I am going to do here is sort of chronicle the next 40 days...the highs, the lows, the triumphs, the failures, the epiphanies, the laughter, the tears...oops...there I go getting all "flight of fancy" again.

Ehem.

Excuse me.

I feel the Lord has led me to take these next 40 days and devote them to seeking Him, worshipping Him, aligning my life to Him in new ways. I've been listening to a series by John Piper on Worship and in it he espouses the idea that Life is Worship. As the scripture says:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
(1 Corinthians 10:31)

That really hit home for me. See, last July the Lord intervened in my life and delivered me from gluttony. It happened so gently and unexpectedly...yet purposefully and carefully, intentionally...that it was very much like turning a corner. No big drama...and for many, many months, no big struggle. Almost a year and over 80 lbs later there are still so many things that are just easy...but others that are not. Like regular exercise. I don't like it. I don't want to do it. I need to do it. What He showed me was that because He was calling me to this, to do it was to worship Him. That thought and the difficulty I was having exercising led me to think about other things that just need to either start or stop that I have had limited success in. After a time of reading and prayer...I got the following list:

For the next 40 days ...
I will not drink diet soft drinks
eat sugar free candy
or use the internet for anything other than downloading sermons or checking e-mail (i was getting caught up in reading celebrity "news" and looking at pictures of premieres and such).
I will not eat pork.
I will only drink water, tea or coffee and will limit my caffiene intake to 2 drinks a day.
I will exercise every day, even if it is just something small like dancing in my livingroom. :)
I will not turn on the TV (i don't have cable, but do watch movies or old tv shows sometimes).
I will use the "extra" time to read and get my house in order.
Finally, I will pray for my husband every day (for the Lord to raise up a godly husband for me, that he would use this time to prepare each of us to lead and submit respectively, that He would use these disciplines and others to make me more Christlike... that whoever this man is could see past the physical and see Christ in me...that Christ in me would woo him, so to speak.)

This isn't just about sacrifice or self-discipline...it is about setting aside things for His glory...to know more of Him...to learn just how satisfying He truly is. If it were just a list of do's and don'ts all it would produce is either extreme pride or extreme condemnation. Lord help me to keep my focus on you...keep the main thing the main thing!

This is day one. It is amazing how much you want something you "can't" have. But thus far His grace has been sufficient for me. I truly am looking forward to all He is going to do during this time.