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Today, is both a happy and a sad day.

Happy because, it’s finally my turn to share again. Today, is my second piece in the perseverance series I have been writing with my friends.  But it is also a sad day because, it means we have come to the end of our 8 week series on Perseverance.

Today I will be sharing about persevering in my journey to get healthy.  Check out my “Lessons from the Lake” video below on the topic, which goes along with what I share today on the blog.

*(Please note the video is not the same content as below, it just touches on a portion of the topic).

 

 

 

Together over the last 8 weeks we have shared insight, challenges, and our faith through our journeys of perseverance. THANK YOU for  joining myself, Mary GeisenHolly Barrett, and Patricia Krank  we hope you have learned from each of us and been encouraged as we each have shared our own stories of perseverance.

 

 

If you missed any of the series so far, you can check them out here:

Part 1 in the Perseverance series (Bravely Overcoming Fear) can be found HERE, Part 2 (Persevering in Recovery) can be found HERE,  Part 3   (When Prayers Remain Unanswered) can be found HERE   … Part 4 (The Sting of Rejection) can be found HERE ….  Part 5 (Wishing, Waiting, & Pursuing) can be found HERE … Part 6 (Turn and Face the Changes) can be found HERE … Part 7 (Persevering Through Pain to Freedom) can be found HERE

 

 

 

Perseverance to Health

 

Several years ago, as I was reading my Bible, I felt the Lord whisper a phrase to my heart  …

“Debbie, I want you to get your house in order.”

I don’t know about you, but as I read Scripture, sometimes God will speak something to my heart that at the time seems to come out of left field. Yet, is often something so needed in the moment.

Huh God? What was that again?

“Get your house in order.”

Say what?

“Get your house in order.”

OK God, I know my house is less than organized. I have piles of dirty clothes that need washed and even bigger piles of clean laundry that needed folded, but really? Can’t you see, I am trying to spend time with You and You want to talk to me about cleaning my house?  Seriously God, I didn’t know it meant so much to You. … But in case you haven’t noticed: I serve at church, I am trying to run a ministry, I have teenagers, we are never home, and you want to talk to me about getting my house cleaned?  In order?  What does that even mean?

I will admit I was rather frustrated with God, exasperated really.  I know it is hard to get the emotion and tone in someone’s writing but let me just tell you I had an attitude that day. I had no idea what God was even trying to say to me, I was just trying to do my duty and check off the box that said: spend time with God. Why would He interrupt me to tell me to get busy cleaning my house?

 

I don’t always understand God, but I wrote those words in my journal that day.  Probably a little darker and a little bolder than they needed to be out of frustration of not understanding and hurt that God would speak to me about cleaning my house and not something more spiritual.

 

 

 

I continued to ask Him to show me what “getting my house in order” had to do with spiritual things, and as I did, He continued to reveal His heart to me. Over the course of the next month or so, God revealed that He wasn’t talking about the house made of wood that I called home. Rather He was talking about my life, all areas of my body, soul, and spirit.

 

One day, when I was spending time with Him, He spoke to my heart and revealed His plans for me.

Debbie, I have things for you to do.  Not just here and now, but in the future., I need you to be healthy and strong in all areas of your life.  Your life, is a home for MY Spirit to reside, and I need you to take care of it.  I need you to take care of your body – get healthy, get in shape so you can do ministry for the long haul.  I need you to get your soul healthy.  You have wounds and hurts from the past, and I need you to get some healing so you can walk in the freedom Jesus purchased for you on the cross, then you can be a bringer of freedom to others. I need you to build up your spiritual muscles, so you know who you are and know what MY Word says. I need you to be rooted and grounded in love.  My love for you and My(God’s) love for others.   It is key that you “get your house in order.”

 

After that little conversation with the Lord, I took a dry erase marker and wrote these words on my bathroom mirror:

Get Your House In Order

Body Lose Weight

 

Truthfully, I thought losing weight was what it was all about and it would be the easiest part.  I would take care of the items He mentioned one at a time.  However, over the course of time, I realized that they were all interconnected.

 

 

I actually had to start with getting my spirit and soul (mind, will, emotions) healthy.  I needed to learn who I was in Christ.  I needed to get healing from hurts in the past and walk in forgiveness.  I found the more I got free from my past and healthy in my soul, the more I could believe the truths found in Scripture.  When the enemy whispered lies, I could combat them with the truths I knew from the Word.

 

 

 

Getting my soul and spirit healthy was directly related to my relationship with food.  I am an emotional eater; I celebrate with food when things are good, and when things are not, well, I drown my sorrows in food.  The journey to get my body healthy is one that I MUST choose every day to persevere in and through.

 

 

About the time God spoke to “get my house in order” was about the time I started to travel outside the country to minister.  I traveled to places that were hot and humid.  Places where I didn’t have the creature comforts of home.  Also, a few years into this journey to health I came home from a mission trip and got sick.  It was an 18-month long journey to discover what was wrong, and get back on the road to health.  For the last three years, it has been a journey to get my body strong, to lose weight, and to be all around healthy.

 

 

I have found, the more I feed my spirit, the more freedom I get in other areas of my life.  The journey to get healthy is one that will continue for the rest of my life. “Getting Our House in Order,” is about completeness in who God made us to be: Spirit, Soul, and Body.  We can’t have ‘order’ if we only work on one area, we must take care of the complete picture.  God doesn’t want us to only have healthy bodies, or healthy spirits.  He wants us ALL to be completely whole, in every area of our life.

 

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2. Do you wonder if God still speaks today?  Do you wonder if He would ever speak to you personally?  Do you long to hear the voice of God in your life?

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If you answered YES to any of those questions, then I have exactly what you need.  I now have an online e-course designed to equip you in understanding that God still speaks today, and He longs to speak directly to you, through His word, and others.  He longs to encourage you, strengthen you and comfort you.  The training on this site, is fully based on Scripture, and taken from my training manual Releasing God’s heart through Hearing His Voice. 

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Balancing the Warrior & the Princess We’re Called to Be

Who we Are and Whose We Are

Trusting God When it Seems Illogical

Will You Sit with Me? (Jesus is Calling.)

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