Daughter,
This is more than a "If It’s Monday, It’s Mama". This is a "Chose now whom you will serve…as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" letter to you.
For some reason, God has laid on my heart to share some "God via Mama" things with you. You decide whether or not you want me to publish this letter as I normally would on my Facebook.
From My Heart to Yours,
Put God first in your life/Grow toward Him
Make worshipping God a priority in your life
I know you work on Sundays and Wednesdays. I want you to pray God show you how best to change this schedule or to add other opportunities to worship Him (via Bible Studies, etc.). Not being in a worship service with your fellow brothers/sisters, regardless of the reason is like being on the desert with no water. You will eventually die. Maybe not physically….but spiritually and that kind of death would be even worse. Trust me on this. Pray God guide you….to a church family/home/study. You will have to search for ways to Worship….start searching now.
If you want to be "God’s Girl" and "God’s Wife" and then "God’s Mama", you must start now...
Right this very minute. You must not delay in this. Because this "being" all of these things is a practice your heart must make and your body must follow. You WILL NOT become these things unless you practice them daily. If you do not practice being this, you will not become it. Practice. Commit. Be dedicated. In fact, surrender…..your heart to being God’s Girl, God’s Wife and God’s Mama.
If you want a Godly husband, you have to be a Godly woman. You have to be a Godly woman now so that when a Godly man looks for you in this world, you will stand out! Don’t be afraid. Be bold!!!! Be His and ask God, if it is in His will at all that He send you a Godly, wonderful, loving man to marry!! But know this…..you must be Godly yourself because that is what a Godly man is looking for. Be open that he may look/be different than the picture you have in your head. God is good to surprise us!!
If you want to be a Mama, then as your Mama….I have to share this. We both know the steps you will be required to take to even have a hope of being a "birth" Mama. Painful as this is to say to you, I must….because it is what a Good, loving Mama would do. PREPARE yourself now. You cannot expect to ever be a mother if you don’t start preparing your body NOW to become one. Ask God to help you. Commit and follow through on getting back on your PKU diet. Start small. Commit big. Or Start Big and Commit Big…whatever it takes!!!!! Sis….there is no greater pain than wanting a child of your own and not having one. The only worse thing would be to wait until it is too late and then have to weep in great sorrow because you will never get the chance. Grow yourself into a Mama. Then, when your baby comes, however he/she comes, you will be ready. Think to yourself, "if I had a child, would I do this?". "Would I want my child to do this?" You will be 23 years old….still very young, but still getting old enough that the CHRISTIAN foundation of your life should be getting set. I humbly and sincerely believe that the best Mama’s are those who Love God first, themselves second and their family third. That is not how my generation was raised, but I truly believe that if you do not love yourself as a worthy child of God, you will not be able to love anyone else in your life effectively. Love yourself. Take care of yourself. Take care of your whole self: Spirit, Mind, Body. Start today and do not ever stop working on yourself…never.
If you want to live to see your Children/Grandchildren, you need to prepare your body now.
God gives us one body to live our lives in. In fact, He tells us it is a temple….sacred and holy and beloved by Him. My biggest regrets in my life stem around my not loving and taking care of my temple. I let the strain and stresses of life tire me out, wear me down and let myself "go" to the world. It is hard to come back from that, but you can. Do it now while you are young. It will never be easier than it is now to be healthy, but it is a choice. I was told often that my children need a healthy Mama to develop them into healthy children. There is truth in that. And, be real with yourself. You want it, too. You just find it hard to "do the work". Baby….DO THE WORK now!!! You need to accept yourself always, but you need to work to be your best self in all ways. I want to live to see my grand babies. I want to be able to run, jump and frolic with them (because they WILL ask you to). I want to skip with them, ride bikes and take them places. I can only do that if I am healthy. The quality of your time is important as the quantity!! I know you want to be the kind of Mama who can actively "play" with your baby…to run, jump and skip. To ride bikes and Disney rides. Work now to ensure that you will be able to do these things!!
"Go LEAN in 2013"….you know how our family has always chosen a theme for the New Year…this year is "Go Lean in 2013". I feel a sense of humility and unworthiness in talking about family because I struggle with it. Your Dad and I hurt our family through our behavior and divorce and at times, even now with our inability to consistently get along. You know my heart and see my efforts...I pray that I can continue to strive to do my part...It is my prayer that in time, he and I will be able to reconcile our relationship at least to the point where we can be fully kind, compassionate and Godly toward one another. I encourage you to do the same. You may never hear the apology you want from him….forgive anyway. Forgiveness frees your heart to be Godly. Let God handle everything else. Regarding your brothers – I am grateful that you seem to really love and care for your brothers. I am grateful that you realize that they are "growing" toward maturity just as you are and that some things you just have to "love them through". God calls us to love. Love them. Keep spending as much time with them as you can. I am proud of your ability to love and forgive. It is one of your greatest and most Godly traits. A person who loves and forgives demonstrates to the world the heart of God. You daily demonstrate God’s love.Love your family no matter what.
Work your Passion
You need to provide a good living for yourself and your family but you also need to work in a field for which you can be passionate. I promise you this. If you do not work your passion, it will eventually catch up with you. Work your passion and ask God to bless your work. I have met many people who, at my age, have left better paying jobs to do more "passion work" and they are glad for it! Money is vital to your survival. You cannot have peace of mind very easily if you are worried about how to feed your family. But, I sincerely believe if you work your passion and give to it as if you are working for the Lord that God will bless you!! And, if you do not know what is your passion…then, that is your fault. You can only know this when you ask God to show you! And, He will! In His time.
Get back on your PKU Diet
This is a tough one for me to write about because I know how you struggle, but God has laid it on my heart and therefore, I am going to share it. I love you enough not to be silent on such an important issue. Silence would be simpler…but, if I cannot share this with you, who can? Go back on your PKU diet. Commit. Stick to it. Sacrifice. Surrender. You have PKU. I am sorry you have PKU. No one truly knows how hard this has been for you. But, I do believe I understand about as well as anyone else besides you. You can approach it in several ways. Cold turkey back on track or slow walk to back on track. Whatever it takes…DO IT and baby, do it now. What are you waiting for? We both know that it will be hard. But, so what? I think of Mark Callahan and what he would give for something as simple as a PKU diet to treat our precious Jana. Or Tammy Nischan…don’t you think she would give everything to just have a PKU diet if that meant she could have back in her arms her babies? And us…baby Joseph. I would take PKU, cancer, and even give my own life to have baby Joseph back. Everyone has loss in their life. Your loss at day #9 was that instead of having a normal diet life, you will be very restricted to a vegetarian life. I understand honey, how hard it is, but put it into perspective…it is FOOD. You can have a wonderfully, lovely, fun, exciting and spectacular life and still have PKU. MANY others do it. You can too. We will help!! Let us know what we can do. I promise you this….the day you start, I will walk beside you, in front of you, behind you and with you. You will not walk this journey alone. Your brothers, Ian…and, I believe even your Dad, will step up to help. Start now. Don’t delay…seek God’s power and might!! I truly believe that going back on your PKU diet is key to your having a solid, healthy physical life. Other pieces of the puzzle will fall into place and most importantly, it will demonstrate that you love yourself…enough….to give yourself the very best care you can give yourself.
Physically Lean:
Mygoal is to get my lean body mass down to the lowest that I can which is healthy for my age/height. I will have to work hard…very hard to do that. I have been told it will take at least a year. ONE YEAR!!! But, I can tell already that the more weight I carry, the less life I will be able to enjoy. Being able to move around, bend, flex and frolic is important to me. I want to live another 50 years. I believe to do that, I must get lean physically.
Financially Lean:
My goal (and, frankly our requirement for our family) is to spend very leanly this year. I can do that for 365 days and so can you. I look around our home. What else do we need? How many make up bags does one need? How many books? How many magazines? How many clothes? And, in addition to committing to only purchasing what I need, I plan to slowly but purposefully, get rid of what I don’t need. It will take time, but I really want to rid myself of the burden of possessions and spend more time on people. I encourage you to be very lean in your spending and very big in your savings. To borrow for school the very very minimum you need so that you do not have big student loan debt! Save for emergencies. Save for future plans. Save. Save. Save. Yes, you need to "have a life" and have fun. But, we both know that we spend more than we need and that spending does not buy happiness….spending just buys things. Be frugal….on the daily items and be extravagant on the important things (such as giving to God). One thing I love about Ian…he seems to have a good handle on buying quality when he buys, but in being frugal in that buying. Appreciate more what you already have….and be generous to give to those who do not have.
Socially lean:
Having had approximately 60 days with no Facebook, we have discussed that it has actually been a blessing to have a "fast" from Facebook. There is a reason for that blessing…I "think" more. I internalize more. I am calmer because I pray more. I am hurt less by the writings of others. I probably hurt others less with my writings. I know you enjoy Facebook, but I encourage you this….take a half day and go through it and remove people with whom you do not have some sort of HEALTHY relationship with. I read the other day that staying mentally healthy means to put away those things which would draw you to sorrow, pain on un-health. As a result, I took down some photos in my room, removed some painful reminders of people in my past or current who hurt me or think poorly of me. I LET GO…and gave over to God. I pray you do this with Facebook. PURGE it. No one needs 1,000 friends who are actually just strangers. Remove those who put inappropriate comments, rude comments, cuss words or who use sites which are unGodly. BE BOLD. BE committed. What loss do you really have if you remove these people? These sites? What do you gain by keeping such people and sites and things? AND, finally…..guard your own comments, words, sites you visit. You are too old to allow inappropriate things on your site. And, more importantly….you cannot be God’s girl on the one hand and "worldly fun" girl on the other. CHOSE. Are you God’s girl or not? Facebook is fellowship. Who you allow on your site is who you are choosing to fellowship with. Who you fellowship with is who you are allowing to influence your life. Be very careful with whom you allow to influence your life. God tells us in His word…
For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11
It took me most of my 50 years to realize that God wants GOOD for me in my life….that He not only wont withhold good things, but that He will prosper me…wants to prosper me…but, we have to do our part. We have to get off the world vs Christian life and commit to Christianity. There is no fence-sitting with God.
Commit. Today. Now. And work hard to stay on that path "less traveled"….
And finally, THINK for YOURSELF. One of my greatest weaknesses in my life is that I always worried so much about the opinions of others, felt that their opinions were better than my own, felt inadequate to have an opinion, that I let others think for me. THINK for YOURSELF. But, be sure at the foundation of that thinking is God’s foundation for your life….if you think for yourself but do not have God fueling that thinking, then you will not have the Godly life you seek. ASK God to guide everything about your life, but especially how you think….."Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21. Make God your treasure so that your heart will be in the right place and therefore your self-worth will be based on Him.
I am reading Victor E. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. It is required by a class I will be taking in January. I love his insight as a prisoner in WW II with the murders of millions of Jews. He survived through the horrendous life of prison, barely missing being put to death in the fiery crematoriums Hitler put in place to extinguish the Jews. The life he describes is painful to read…survival at all costs. He says,
"forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to chose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you." "We are never left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond."
Jesus demonstrated this for us best when He died on the cross….do not kid yourself….He was human, same as you and me. He did not want to die. He asked that He not have to die. But, die he did for you. For me. Don’t wait until you are 50 to figure out what a gift to you that death is. Understand now that there is no greater love….Jesus loved us through His death…Jesus could have declined death. He could have run from it. He could have called down angels to rescue Him. But, he didn’t. And, not only did he not run, but as they drew him down to mere nakedness, he chose to respond in love, "Lord forgive them for they know not what they do."
Receive His gift to you…that in HIS heart, you are worthy, you are loved, you are treasured, your are HIS.
People in life will let you down, but God will never.
Circumstances in life will hurt your heart, But God will never.
Illness make overtake you, accidents mail impale you
Life may overwhelm you, But God never will.
I sincerely believe that what God wants from us is our surrendered heart…our all.
And, that all He asks is that we give that to Him one moment at a time…walking always toward Him…faithful to Him…fully loving Him.
I encourage you to remove all things which will keep you from Him…
Chose this day whom you will serve….
I pray you chose Him….
ILYAOYMC,
Mama
Your Homework as provide to me over 28 years ago. Do a timeline of your life…starting with zero (birth) and ending at 100 (death). Average your grandparents ages to give an idea of how long your life might be expected to be and chart out every 5 years with "tics"….list every major event in your life: birth, pku, brothers, change in school, etc. until you get to today…..it is eye opening what all God has done in your life and this time line will help evidence that for you…..then pray. Take time to really pray for God’s direction for the rest of your life….
