These past 11 months are finally coming to an end. I have been on an emotional, spiritual, and physical journey over this past year. I have over the course of this year changed in so many ways; all good I promise. We were told at the beginning of the race that this journey we are about to go on will be much more impact-full if we go to God with our hands always open instead of keeping of fists tightly closed. This image inspired me to always keep my fists wide open to all the possibilities, the changes, the struggles, and all around anything he needed me to do. This journey was not easy, but it was definitely worth every moment. It was worth every moment, every celebration, every heartbreak, every burden,even every lie the enemy told me. These were all worth it because each moment gave me the time to press in, grow and spend time with my creator and bond and be with him at every moment of my living, it has been beautiful.
Over the time of the race my spiritual health has grown immensely, I have pressed in and done all that the lord has asked, whenever he asked of me; I kept my hands open and my heart open at all times and constantly had a teachable spirit. Over this past year the Lord showed me so much but there is one area that he has really repaired and showed me so much beauty and grace. During this year I had to endure hurt and heart break in the form of realizing that I didn’t love myself the way God did. To anyone on my squad or anyone back home that would shock them to hear this about me. I am a very confident person, but my confidence was used to mask my true feelings towards myself and to try and convince myself of the things I wanted so badly to believe about myself. But the Lord has been showing me 3 HUGE truths in my life that I can believe and without a doubt know about myself.
I AM BEAUTIFUL
I AM WORTHY OF LOVE
I AM NOT A BURDEN
I love and live by these words and these truths spoken into my life, and have the inspiration to share the same truths with everyone and anyone who will listen. I feel a passion and purpose to go and tell everyone I meet ‘God loves you! You are beautiful. You are loved. You have purpose. You are not a burden. I know these things to be true because God told me’. The enemy has tried to use these lies to destroy my relationship with the lord, but I wont ever let that happen.
Becoming spiritually healthy with the lord over the past 11 months has also lead to being physically healthy as well. It was very intriguing how the two are actually linked. I have hated my body, hated the way I looked, and constantly wanted to change things about my self. I have tried diet after diet to try and be skinny or just slimmer. But once I learned that no matter how I look on the out side that if my insides were not beautiful and reflecting the lord, then my outside would not as well no matter how I physically looked. Becoming spiritually healthy made me see myself through God’s eyes, I am beautiful no matter how I look, but I wanted to take care of my body in the way that he was calling me to.I didn’t go on a crazy diet and start killing myself by working out like crazy, I decided I will no longer live to eat but instead eat to live. I had decided I no longer wanted to feel the negative ways I was feeling, I was taken care of spiritually and now was time to be taken care of physically.
I over time cut down my over eating and ate smaller portion sizes, I ate what I knew my body needed and not putting food into my body until I felt full, I worked out when I felt my body needed it in small settings (15-30 minute work outs) and I took care of my body the way it was screaming for. I can honestly say that I FEEL healthy, I FEEL happy, I FEEL better about myself. I have never once lost the weight i lost because I wanted to lose weight, it wasn’t about the weight, it was about the my body the temple and how I wasn’t taking care of it. I never once saw or stepped on a scale during the race, I based everything off of how I felt and what my body needed. I never lost the weight in the past because I was never spiritually healthy, I would never really lose the weight because I was carrying more than physical weight that I needed to lose first. Today, I found a scale, and I stepped on it… to see what God has done to my physical health because of spiritual health watch the video below.
