Direction

Two years ago this month this amazing journey began to take care better care of myself. I truly realized that my body is the temple of God and if I wanted to fully serve Him, then I needed to make sure that this temple is healthy.

I was inspired to begin this journey after working at my first National Fine Arts Festival. It's an experience that I will never forget. We were coming close to the beginning of the Celebration Service (the best part of the entire week) and we had to run across the convention center before the start of the service. I ran as hard and fast as I could but I just could not keep up. I did catch up with everyone and was overwhelmed with tears when I arrived. I could not believe that God had brought this truly amazing opportunity into my life to be able to help young people "discover, develop, and deploy" their God-given gifts and now I was going to be able to watch these amazing youth share in front of a huge audience in an American Idol Finale-like style. It was the following February when I was thinking of returning to the festival that I was determined that I did not want my lack of health to keep me from doing what God was leading me to do any more.

Since then, God has amazed me time and time again through this journey. In two years God has given me the strength to lose about 130 lbs. and be in the best shape. He has given me so much energy. Anyone who knows me knows me knows how much I love kids and playing with them. I have so much more energy to play with them and that just puts the biggest smile on my face. As I have said before, I finally feel like I am becoming the woman that God created me to be, fulfilling the desires that He has placed in my heart.

However, to fully become the strong temple that He wants me to be I realized that I needed to slow down a little and get back to what mattered most, my relationship with God. Throughout the last year, God not only did a great work in my health, He also began a greater work in my spiritual health. In August, He led me to take another big step in my life and follow Him. I began attending James River Assembly and have felt His spirit move more in my life than ever before. He has grown great friendships that I had and brought amazing new ones into my life. I have tremendously enjoyed attending the amazing services and getting involved with James River Women rallies, working with the infants and my awesome life group.

I've dug deeper into my relationship with Him and He has blessed me with the most amazing opportunities. He's expanded my writing opportunities and opened doors to share what He has done in my life with so many people. How can I do anything else but Praise Him?! Don't get me wrong, it's not been all daisies and roses, our family has had plenty of trials in the past few months; however, our God is way more Powerful and Faithful than our problems and He's leading us through this storm just as He has every other storm. He's never left our side and He never will.

A few days ago I was reading through Facebook and was delighted to see this in the Message from God application:

On this day, God wants you to know...

... that it is important to care for the temple of your body.

Even more important is your spirit, which is the light within that temple. A beautiful temple may attract others, but it is the light that will touch hearts.

Imagine the peace and reassurance it brought to my heart. Putting Him first is always the right answer. He will always guide us down the right path. When we feel like we have no hope, we can turn to Him and He will always lead us in the right direction.

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. -- Matthew 6:33

Thank you all again for your tremendous support and encouragement. You all are loved and appreciated so much!

Many Blessings,

Jenn