I am ready to make some changes in my life and I know there are other people like me. So I put it out there to see if anyone else wants to make some personal changes in hopes that we could encourage each other in the process.

This is not a fancy program, just a girl who wants to do life with other people. It’s much more fun for me to go for a walk when I have someone to walk with. It’s much harder for me to break a commitment to something if I know there is one or two or ten people rooting for me to succeed.
There is power in accountability when it’s used properly. It’s not meant to be a guilt driven system that makes us feel bad about our failings. It’s meant to be a support for the times we need it and a “high five” for the times we succeed.

There is no amount of accountability that can make you the person you don’t want to become. So this is totally up to you. It’s your choice how much you want to share about your successes and failures, it’s your choice to share what you want to talk about what you want and keep private what you want, it’s your choice how much you utilize this accountability to help you grow. No one will judge you for what you do or do not do and no one will question you. You give as much as you are able to and use the women who say yes, as a support system to see you be all you can be.

In turn you will do the same for other women. Be an encouragement to others who want to make changes like you. Let them know that you are thinking about them, let them know that when you said no to that piece of cheesecake you thought of them, let them know that when you went for that jog that you were inspired by them.

If you can do it, I can do it and if I can do it, you can do it. We can do it together.

How Can I Make Changes?
So what you have to do is decide where you want to make changes and set some goals for yourself. These goals could be incremental – for example, you may want to cut out sugar and bread. Start by cutting out sugar one week and then adding bread then next week.
I have broken up my changes in these categories

SPIRITUAL
EATING
EXERCISE
PERSONAL GROWTH
TIME MANAGEMENT
PROFESSIONAL
You may have other categories to add to this list.

You can make changes any way you want to. The only thing I would recommend is not trying to make too many changes at once. Take it slowly and make one major change at a time. I am going to take each of these areas and focus on them one week at a time. One week I will focus on eating and the next week I will continue with my eating goals and add in exercise.  Then the third week I will continue with the eating and exercise and add in my Spiritual goals ECT.  I will keep in mind my eating, exercise and spiritual goals right from the beginning but my success will only be based on my focus for that week.

We can communicate with each other through facebook since almost everyone replied through facebook.  I will send a message to everyone and then we will all get each other’s replies and can respond with encouragement. I will let you all know a couple of times a week how I am doing on my goals.

But the first thing we need to do is decide where we need to make changes. You might only have one area you need to make changes, or maybe you have 10 areas. It’s doesn’t matter, there is no formula or rules to this.

I will send you my goals for the week and give you updates on how I am doing with those goals and I encourage you to do the same.  I am hoping that this will make it a little more fun, as we will have each other to share our stories with.

Even though you may not know everyone in the group we all share something in common. We all want to grow, so that brings us together. You never know where an unlikely friendship could begin so open yourself up to be a help and support and allow yourself to receive some help and support from others who want to grow like you.

Feel free to invite anyone you know to join us and lets see what we can accomplish together.

So are you in?

I was sitting in an incredible message Sunday from Pastor Barry Boucher, who is also my Father in law. I began to think of how many times I have made excuses. I began to imagine if we as a church community walked in the fullness of the potential God created us with.

Life is busy. Kids in sports and music lessons, homework, birthday parties, friends, both parents working, personal hobbies, a hot vacation every year Ect. Ect. Ect. We were destined for so much more. You were created for more. I was created for more.

There is nothing wrong with those things. There is nothing wrong with sports and homework and friends, there is nothing wrong with parents both working and vacations. But if you have to trade in your purpose to have those things you are living way below your potential. Jesus died for so much more than that.

When I look at the world I get angry at injustice to children. I get angry at cultures who degrade women around the world. I get angry at human suffering at the hands of other humans. I want to make a difference in the lives of the people I touch each and everyday and one day I know I will have the chance to directly effect one or more of those causes around the world.

But in my world what angers me is when I see people settle for less than God’s best for the sake of convenience. We have no idea the power we have to change the world we live in and that is why all we have to look forward to is our next vacation. Why did Jesus have to die?

As I came back to the message Pastor brought it and challenged me to stop making excuses. I was created for more.

In my life one clear cut symptom is frustration. I notice things that need to change, and frustration begins to build on the inside. Experiencing frustration, in my life, can be a God inspired tool to initiate life, marital, parenting, or organizational change…if I allow it to work in my heart in a mature fashion.

As I said the other day, if I don’t handle frustration in a mature manner I become a complaining machine, outwardly steady, inwardly stewing.

Again, here is the big growth thought – no one around me needs to change in order for me to grow. My frustration will not be alleviated simply by others changing. That may be a small part of it, but God is doing something in me that is much bigger. Jesus spoke about it as “specks” and “planks”.

If I allow this holy discontent to grow inside my heart, and handle it in a mature fashion, the complaining changes to constructive criticism. A sharpening of my vision, a clarity to my thoughts, and a courage to initiate change, for the right reasons.

What are your symptoms? Do you know them? If you discover them, you discover untold opportunity for Christ-like growth in your life.

At the beginning of January I felt God whisper something to me. The essence of this challenge was  its time to grow in a few areas in my life. For whatever the reason, I had been making excuses as to why I couldn’t grow. None of the excuses washed. Some were more valid that others, but at the end of the day, my excuses were fruitless. Through this up and down process I found myself spending more time complaining than changing. I wanted other things or people to change, and could complain with the best of them, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t about that or them – it was me who needed to grow.

Complaining was childish and needed to be put away.
Changing isn’t childish, and it needed to be embraced.

Part of the process of parenting is to teach your kids the value of being responsible. Many times they complain that they can’t find a certain toy, when in reality the reason why that is the case is they weren’t responsible to put it back where it belongs. Our role as parents, is to help them change and become more responsible over time. What is normal and acceptable as children is capping and dream stopping as an adult.

If you want to see an area where you need to grow, listen to what you complain about most.

You don’t need anyone or anything else to change in order for you to grow.

Love does not come by wishing and hoping and dreaming… it comes from God because God is love.

It’s great to learn from others who have great marriages but it’s destructive for your future to compare yourself to someone else as a measuring stick and imagine that they don’t have the same problems that you do. Everyone has problems.

Jason and I have problems, we have lots of problems, but we also have God and so do you…

Listen to what 1 John 4: 8 &12  Says…

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love

12 if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

God’s love is supernatural and it makes miracles happen. Happy marriages are a miracle in 2009. If you need a miracle in your relationship today then receive God’s love into your heart. If you are single and need the miracle of someone to come into your life then ask God for a revelation of His love for you.

Live in His love, abide in his love, exercise his love, and give his love to others.  It’s sounds so simple and it is… but it isn’t. We don’t really think God’s love is enough. We would rather have what we see in the movies.

The Bible is a love letter to you. Read it, often, study it, and learn about the miraculous power of this love God is offering you each and every day.  For that is the only place you will fulfill the longing of your heart.

God’s love in you will enable you to love and receive love from the relationships in your life. One of the miracles of God’s love is the more you give it the more is comes back to you.

Do you believe that God’s love is enough?

I felt a freedom come to our relationship as I surrendered my ways to God. By Gods grace… having the ability to love Jason in a way that made him feel accepted, secure, and fulfilled lifted the tension that just became normal. You know what I mean… the tension of living with someone who you wished was just a little better. Once that tension was gone I felt a joy and freedom just having Jason around. The problem was in me, and as I learned to lean on God,  He filled me with his love. It was a gift, an incredible gift that was priceless.

And as if that wasn’t a big enough gift. I got another gift. I got the gift of a husband who now felt free to give me everything I needed in our marriage. Do not under-estimate the power of letting go and letting God’s love fill you. It will completely change the way you see the person you are looking at.

Can you imagine having all you dream of in your marriage?

As God’s love was being perfected in me I began to love in a way I never had before.  I started to see him with different eyes. I began to understand why he was the way he was and I started to appreciate him for it. I began to accept Jason in ways I never had before.

Before that… I spent so much time thinking about the past and the way things used to be and the way he used to be and I wanted it back. I didn’t know if I liked the some parts of this person he was becoming and I wanted the old him back. Why don’t we ever do this anymore? You used to be so spontaneous… You used to be this way or that way… I spent so much time in the past I couldn’t even see what was right in front of me.

A personal revelation of God’s love for me changed all that. I became interested in the man he was today, I longed to know him and understand him. I got on his team and became his biggest fan.  I began to support him and the decisions he was making for our family. Everything changed.

This revelation enabled us to experience intimacy in everything from the most mundane to our sexual relationship. You can’t even believe how much will change when you truly begin to accept one another for who they are today.

Learning to lean is about learning to love and appreciate the people in your life as you abide in God’s love. After all “If you love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. “

What do you need to let go of in order to fully embrace your spouse?

Lori and I had the “if only” syndrome when we first married.

I love you, but would love you more if only…

She would have compassion when I am sick.
She would like sex more.
She would like sex more often.
She would like sex more often in different ways.

Ok…I think you get the point, and that last one was a joke…sort of…you’ll never know

But the point is that the “if only” was the elephant in our relationship that was always there taking up a ton of space, only we never spoke about it.

Here is the huge takeaway that we have learned…

Lori didn’t have to change, I had to grow up.

Love is not selfish or rude.

I love you, but would love you more if only is both selfish and rude.

Any way I justify it, when I operate in that manner, I am not loving Lori – I am using love as a tool to manipulate or control.

The goal of marriage is to be able to fully lean on one another, in every way.

The “If only” syndrome isn’t something you can build upon. It has to be torn down before you can build again.