God, I will do anything. Anything!

A progression of weight loss...#RitaHutchesonCobbs

During my progression of weight loss experience, one would think that my hair would have been a factor with the scales ((SMH))! I wore my head shaved for about four-years after I shaved my head in support of my son having brain surgery. I kept it when I discovered that it was so inexpensive to maintain on a regular basis. Then as I lost weight friends began suggesting I let it grow out. I didn't have a real opinion about my hair, so I did. When I shaved it, there was seventeen inches of thick, wire curl that dropped to the floor. When my hair grew back, it wasn't quite as thick and not as curly, but still pretty much as before. One thing is for sure, with curly hair like mine, it's either shaved or long. So, now that we are over the hair lol...

I have started a Bible Study that a new friend, Haley Carter, recommended. The book is titled, Anything: The Prayer that Unlocked My God and My Soul, by Jennie Allen. In that book she emphasizes a few points that I already have been focusing on in my private Bible Reading time. First, "God, we will do anything. Anything. God, I will do anything. Anything." Also, when God is all you have; He is all you have got then He is enough. God promises in His Word that broken people have hope and healing, that He will make a way for them. The way is only found in Jesus (John 14: 1-6)/ Allen says: To risk is to willingly place your life in the hand of an unseen God and an unknown future, then to watch Him come through. He starts to get real when you live like that. 

I have not finished the study, but already realizing that two things hold me back and probably most of the people who have lived a life of any type of abuse and that is fear and shame. You feel fear of stepping out and trusting even God, to walk the blessed path He has planned for you as He takes the thing man has done for bad and make it good. He can, you know. Then we feel the same of such things like divorce or abandonment even though they weren't our fault. I have lived both of these, but never felt the shame of either. What I felt the shame of was that maybe God couldn't use me. My husband left, abandoned us. If he didn't want us, why would God want to use us? Words were embedded in my mind that didn't plumb-line with God's Word, angry voices that weren't truth as I know it now. 

In her book, Allen also says: The hardest things in life bring us the deepest relationships, become the things that define the most beautiful things about the person, and in one's life have given them more of God. I say often that I am living proof that God has done His work in my life, the evidence of His glory and grace. In the past three-years, I have learned how to live according to God's Word from the leadership of my new church, the sermons to the small group lessons, being discipled, and getting into the Word. I have asked questions of the church staff to make sure I am leading my family according to the principles of the Word in such things as tithing and finances for example. 

Getting the emotional habits, hangups and hurts out of the way helps a person get focused on living a healthy lifestyle, eating right, getting active and making every area of their life the best it can be. When you die this body is yours in heaven. I want to stand before God with one that I can be accountable to Him as taking care of, because He says this is His body, His temple. What we put into our minds, souls, stomachs and our muscles will be called upon one day. I think sometimes we look at the big picture of sins, when sin is at our door in many ways that are smaller then we realize. It starts with the fork, a thought, a vision, a lazy day. Cleansing from top to bottom, healing from emotions to the soul is the beginning to living life with purpose and healing. 

Create within your heart, mind and soul a place of 

peace, joy and happiness...

begin with filling the empty spaces with Him.

God, I will do anything!

Hugs, Rita