Simply amazing...

"A thousand times I've failed Still your mercy remains 

And should I stumble again Still I'm caught in your grace  

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades 

Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame 

My heart and my soul, Lord I give you control 

Consume me from the inside out Lord 

Let justice and praise become my embrace 

To love You from the inside out  

Your will above all else, my purpose remains 

The art of losing myself in bringing you praise  

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades 

Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame 

In my heart, in my soul, Lord I give you control 

Consume me from the inside out Lord 

Let justice and praise become my embrace 

To love You from the inside out"

                          "From the Inside Out" -Hillsong United

Again... Simply Amazing.

A lot of Nothing... yet everything I'm thinking about.

WW update... 2 more pounds last week. Once again I give the glory of that success to God. He is amazing and He shows me that over and over again. 

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I live looking forward to the next thing in my life. For example,  I have many countdowns going on right now.

*77 days until I leave for camp 

*29 days until I leave for Vacation in Myrtle Beach

*11 days until my Birthday

This is always been how I live my life. And when I don't have something to look forward I struggle with life, until I have something new to be excited about. Is this weird? Or does everyone do this? Hmm...

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So today at work two of my friends and I were doing a Bible study. It was about prayer. And it talked about praying and asking God to help you with everything in your life, even the small things. As we talked about this, I realized that a lot of the time, when i'm praying and talking to God, I only ask him to help me out with the "big" things. I think it's because in my head I think that he's far too busy solving real problems and doesn't need to be bothered with helping me have a good day, or whatever other thing going on in my life that day. But that's silly. I need to look to Him for everything and not look at anything in my life as small to God. Even if it's small to everyone else, to Him it's important because it's important to me. 

I love spending that time studying His word with my co-workers. I am allowed to grow closer to God and my fellow sisters while "working"... how amazing is that. I think sometimes I take for granted how amazing that is and how lucky I am to have that. I love learning more about God and his word, but also looking at who I am and really trying to figure things out. Every lesson that I have done I have walked away feeling like I have learned a lot about myself and I love that. 

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So lately I have been having a lot of crazy dreams. Most of the time, I don't remember my dreams but lately I have been able to. I've had a lot of dreams about the lump on my neck that i had removed. And at first I was confused about why I was thinking about this since everything was okay and I had moved on. Last night I was watching a show  where a guy was dying of cancer. And as I watched the show I began to get more and more upset and had to actually turn off the show because I began to cry. I think that that whole experience really changed me and really shook me, which is totally understandable. But I think that when I got the biopsy back and everything was okay I just thought that it was done. I am seeing now that that experience is going to stay with me much longer than just two months. 

I could have very well had cancer. And with my immune system the way it is, I would have had a hard time fighting it. I had that attitude through out everything and I think that is what scared me so much. I also think that with so many people around me being diagnosed with cancer lately and losing many of them, I wasn't very hopeful. 

With all of this being said, I think that my walk has grown in huge ways over the last 3 months. I had to trust that even if I did have something scary, that He was in control and had a bigger plan for me. I had to show patience and trust in his timing while I waited for over a month to get the biopsy results back. And In the end I had to take that horrible time and make it something that changed me for the better. I hate that I had to go through that. And honestly I have never been so terrified, angry, and depressed in my life. I think that I hid it well. I mean people knew I was scared, but most days I didn't want to get out of bed. It messed me up, and every time I see my scar of my neck I get sick to my stomach re-living it. But ultimately I know that going through all of that made me a better person some how it's okay. Maybe someday someone I love will go through a similar situation and I will be able to help them... I wish I would have had someone like that, but I didn't, and I got through it. I don't know. Long story short- that experience had a lasting impact on my life forever. I learned who my real friends were. That I am stronger than I ever thought possible. That people love me more than I ever could know. That God is good all the time, even in the darkness. And for that I praise Him.

Beauty...

7 Down...  a lot more to go.

 If you don't know what that means.. I'll tell you! I started WW a week ago today. I weighed in today and I lost 7 pounds my first week. I'm pretty pumped. I can't take all of the credit though..I have prayed everyday for God to help me with this, because it is something that I cannot take on on my own. But with Him I know that anything is possible.

I remember when I was younger (high school, early college), thinking about how I needed to change so many things about myself. I had a list of reasons why I was ugly and not good enough. And though I've kind of moved past those thoughts in my life, I found myself thinking about that the other day. My list was short, but to me it was the reason that no guy could ever fall in love with me. Here is my (old) list. 

1. I had horrible teeth

2. I had Psoriasis covering most of my body

3. I was overweight

So as I thought about this a week ago I realized that I was almost to where I wanted to be years ago (and honestly where I want to be now, I just don't look at it in the same way). 

I got braces, so my teeth are great. I'm managing my skin with medicine and lifestyle. The only thing left was my weight. 3 hours later I joined weight watchers. 

Please don't read this and think that I think that i need to be skinny and perfect to get a guy. That isn't what I'm saying at all. I think that when I made that list years ago in my head it was more about feeling confident in myself and less about finding a stupid boy. 

I didn't join to get skinny so that boys will like me. I didn't join to make others happy. I joined and am doing this to make myself feel confident and happy with who I am. I also feel like I'm wasting part of my life being unhappy with myself. God has made me beautifully in His sight, he's given me a relatively healthy body, and instead of loving myself, i've spent many years unhappy with his work. That's crap, and I wish I could take those years back. I can't. But instead I can work on "reshaping" his work back to where it should be. So that is what I'll do. 

I know not every week will go as easily as this week. Most people don't lose 7 pounds in 7 days. And trust me I'm eating and being healthy. My prayer is that not only will I lose weight but that I will get in better shape, feel better, and love my outerself as much as I love my innerself.