Sunday, February 13, 2005

The gift of being your self :)

Yesterday, one of my goals was to finish a book that I borrowed from Claudia. It was called "The gift of being yourself" by David Benner. I read a great deal of it while I was on the treadmill in the morning and finished it last night. I learned so much. I loved the quote in the book that said (paraphrased) "In order to love yourself, you must love God, and in order to love God, you must love yourself" That is so true. I have found that if I am not ok with me, I am not ok with God and vise versa. It's amazing how powerful it is to know yourself and your humanness and not hate yourself. There are ways, I assure you.

I know that we are supposed to crucify ourselves to our sinfulness but like the book says, we have to first know that sinfulness. I have recently became very aware of my own mortality and sinfulness. I live a life that is depraved. I do a lot of things that I am not proud of and learn very much from my mistakes. It's the classic example of a Bible figure. I love my God so much and long to obey him but it's the same story.."I do what I don't want to do." There is a very huge sin nature on this planet and it's alive and well.

I am currently learning so much about myself and my God that I can barely contain all of the information that I am currently processing. Either way, I am excited about learning more about God and more about Erica in the process. This world is a very lonely and scary place as a Christian but this I can tell you...it can be a great experience if we will make the most out of it and allow God to use us in everything.

Yesterday I achieved all of my sub-goals and had a very productive day and also a very restful day. After another full week of sub-goals, I am going to add a category of "Self Care" to them in order to maintain a relaxing life and a pleasurable place. Here are my sub-goals for today and my progress on them:

1. Read 1 chapter of a gospel book (matthew, mark, luke, or john) :not done yet...after this
2. Write journal entry stating 20 things I like about me (really like): right after this
3. Work out for 45 minutes at the gym: Did this at 11:00 this morning
4. Read one chapter of new book "Christian Counseling" --later tonight

Anyway, haven't moved a whole lot on my goals but going to journal right after my blog today. I hope you are all doing well. I am doing really well and finding happiness in small things lately. Today I was awarded by God a great moment this morning and to be honest, I felt God's love in it. I knew that he did it to encourage me and strengthen me.

Please be in prayer for Joel as he and his family left for Hawaii today. Please pray for safety in his travels and of course because it must be miserable to be in Hawaii :) Also, please keep praying for me in my search for a second job as I am very nervous about being out of work entirely for a whole week. I am very uneasy. I appreciate your continued prayers and will be praying for all of you as well. Send me an email or give me a call if we haven't talked. Have a great new week and here is my learning and thankfulness for yesterday:

Learning February 12, 2005:

1. I can be self-controlled if only I really work hard on it and recognize my weaknesses.

2. I am very caught up in one of my sins and I have to work harder to get away from it than any other.

3. My perfectionistic tendencies come from my family...for sure.

4. I am a very deceitful person and although I am ashamed of that, I embrace it as I know God loves me anyway and can only work with it when I accept it as who I am.

5. I love the idea of Valentine's day even if it's a hard day for me this year! :)

Thankfulness February 12, 2005:

I am thankful for a really productive conversation that I had with my mom. We talked about unhealthy behaviors, changing habits, behavior mod, and several other things of value. We talked about her and my need to get healthy and have hobbies of our own. We talked about our perfectionistic tendencies and how to overcome them and embrace happiness and basically had a great talk. I am very thankful for the open door to discuss things that are struggles of mine. Thank you Mom and thank you Jesus!

~Shalom~

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