Waiting For January

Hey there.  It has been a while since I have posted.  Throughout the month of December I had absolutely no desire to even think about anything to do with being healthy, surrendering to God, or this blog. I told Monica that I wanted to title this post "Bah Hum Blog" but I thought it sounded too depressing.  I'm not one to be down in the dumps but this month has just been weird for me.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of great things happened in December.  I directed 56 amazing kids in our church's Christmas Musical earlier in the month.  My husband and I also headed up a Christmas toy giveaway event where we were able to give 1,000 kids a wrapped gift, a new blanket, and a bag of candy.  We saw about 2,500 total people come out that night for the giveaway & they all had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.

By the time Christmas came I was exhausted.  We didn't even put up a tree until the week before Christmas.  I hate to admit this but here goes - while the boys were opening up their gifts I couldn't stop staring at the tree, imagining how quickly I could get it all packed up again.  I didn't even really enjoy the day like I normally do.  Christmas is normally my favorite time of the year and I just couldn't understand why I wasn't feeling it this time.

All month long in the back of my mind I have been saying to myself, "When January gets here, I'm going to really get in line and eat better."  I enjoyed November immensely when we did our 30 Day Challenge but as soon as December rolled around I felt out of control again.  Why is it that I can stick to a set of rules so well but I can't just do this on my own?

Monica and I are both reading the book Made To Crave by Lysa Terkeurst and we already cannot put it down.  She talks about the fact that God gave us the ability to crave for a reason - to have an unquenchable desire for more of Him, and Him alone.  It is such a trick of the enemy to twist this natural desire that God placed inside of us into an unnatural addiction to food or other things.  In the first chapter she says, "With Jesus, if we want to gain, we must give up.  If we want to be filled, we must deny ourselves.  If we want to truly get close to God, we'll have to distance ourselves from other things." 

I feel like in all of my "good-doings" this month, I have really lost sight of what is most important.  I had such a fire inside of me when we first started this journey a few months ago and I feel like I have let that flame go out.  I am praying that God will light that fire once again.

So, tomorrow is January.  I do love the idea of January and fresh starts and clean slates. I am not making any resolutions but I am committing myself to denying myself and following Jesus.

Oh, I almost forgot - Happy New Year!

Love,
Celeste