Moving Forward... Onward and Upward!

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." ~ Sir Winston Churchill

 
So I finally met my goal weight and I am pretty excited about that.  Actually the stress of the last six months actually helped me in that respect.  I spent a lot of time fasting and praying, as well as working out to get through the stress. It actually helped and I am so grateful that putting my full trust in "the system" and God, helped a trying time,  have a positive outcome. I knew that it wouldn't be easy, but I would get through it. And I have...

I am looking forward to my two favorite times of the year, one Thanksgiving and the second Christmas. But I will be honest, neither one of them is for the reason why people think.  I am thankful for so many reasons.  One because I know that through everything that has happened in the past two years, God has been looking out for me.  I also know that He has had my best interest in mind.  It is nice to be rid of things in my life that as I mentioned in my blog post about David, that distracted me from what I needed to do. Even with it all and as I move forward, I am at peace.  So many things have opened up for me in respect to life, work, and family and I so grateful for this.  Job talks about his trials and tribulations, but we don't hear much about Job after that point. In fact, one could assume that Job's trials went away, but as we know, that our lives are full of them and I suspect that he still had little ones compared to the big one mentioned in the Bible.  It is how we get through trial and move forward that counts. 

This reminds of me when I first started running again and how it was so painful when I took the first couple of steps, but as things became easier and I kept on moving, I felt a sense of satisfaction.  Reminds me of the sermon today... The discussion of what needs to be done in order to move ahead and forward.  It was laid out pretty simply in reference to 1 Peter 5, which we studied today in church

1.  Submit our will to God and let go.  1 Peter 5:6 This truly means what it say... Let it go and let God deal with it.  He knows the past and the future and how whatever the situation will play out.  It is one thing to say, "God's will be done", but an entirely different thing to actually let it go and His will, not mine, be done.
 
2.  Strengthen our walk with God. 1 Peter 5:7 As I was running away, I found that I was drawn closer to God.  I was required to rely less on myself and more on Him to get me through the day or deal with the vicious words and comments thrown me way or about it.  I love passive aggressiveness, because behind it, it shows cowardice.  I vowed that I would be straightforward and not mask my own shortcomings under the guise of hidden implications. Point blank, I sinned, I admitted it and in the process others didn't.  That isn't my worry anymore. Once you put your eyes on God, the other stuff becomes less of a worry because your focus is on God. 

3.  See the work of God. 1 Peter 5:10 Recognize what God has done for you or how a situation could be much worse if God had not intervened through divine intervention.  I chose to let God show me what I have versus what I do not have.  Knowing and seeing this is great because I know that He has brought me out of situations and away from people, who want nothing but to destroy me. Words are words, comments are comments, but God's truth doesn't falter. I didn't notice this before because I was running away from the truth.  In my running from the condemnation that I felt, I ran away from the truth that is in the Word.

Quit simply leaving it up to God does not necessarily mean letting it go to where we act like nothing ever happened.  If it was that simple or that way, we would never learn from our mistakes. Rather we are supposed to learn, not make the same mistakes, but when we are tested with or confronted with the same situation, we are to remember what happened in the past and move forward, IN FAITH.

So how does this apply to my own personal life? The mistakes of the past, are the mistakes of the past because of grace.  I can stay buried in the mistakes of the past, or I can move forward.  In moving forward, I should never forget because the mistakes I made can act as a warning to others or offer encouragement to those who have tried to avoid mistakes, and failed. But first, before anything else, we have to be humble.  However this is cyclical, in that if we are humble enough to admit that we are not perfect, accept full responsibility for the mistakes we make, we are more willing to let God use us to educate others. It may not be as simple as it sounds and vice versa.

People have asked me why I have a blog, quite simply to educate others.  It first started out as a blog to educated about GBS and to truthfully tell the story of the time afterward.  This includes my own personal, physical, and other struggles to date.  I have been nothing but open and honest in the hopes that my own personal struggles, mistakes (some HUGE mistakes, which I have freely admitted), and triumphs would encourage, warn, and act as a lesson to others. There are things that I have learned to be Thankful in and grateful in, thus my earlier references to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I am thankful that I have people in my life who are gracious, kind, and loving, so that when others are not that way towards others, I can make an extra effort to do what others have done for me. 

Secondly, as Christmas comes, the birth of Jesus, I am also thankful. I am thankful that grace is in place for everyone; even me.  That we can say that we are not perfect, that we make mistakes, but regardless God is and always forgiving when man isn't.  I like how we tell people to let it go, but really what we are doing is stirring things up more than if we had just stayed silent.  Which is why I prefer using the phrase, moving forward.  Let us move forward, onward towards where God wants us to be in life and upward in our effort to better ourselves.

One last word:  as my last post mentioned, you will have people still on your case. In fact, I always laugh have people will go out of their way to find out what you are doing wrong, or what they think you are doing wrong, in an effort to continue to judge you.  Let them judge or be harsh. In order to know what is going on your life to judge you, they have to be watching you.  Let them watch, hold your head up high; because as you succeed, it will become painful for them to watch. Especially when they see that they have not broken you or brought you down to their level. Even though they may become or already are enemies, use that negativity for greatness.  The testing of your faith develops perseverance, so welcome those tests and know that the greatest thing you can do is move forward with your life, when others are still stuck. Use your testimony and your experience to encourage and strengthen others. And always be honest. Honesty is the best policy because when others lie to get themselves out of "trouble", when you tell the truth, you can be free of whatever is or has been dragging you down.  Know that truth and testimony are two powerful encourager.  Not only for others but for yourself. I know that I am encouraged daily by the fact that I am able to leave situations in His hands and be able to move forward, knowing that the outcome is God driven.