Crave Study Announcement

You know those things that you just really don't want to talk about. Not because you're unwilling to be real to other people, but because you're unwilling to be real to yourself?
Ouch.
I'm there right now.

I've been running from this monster for much too long, and I'm downright exhausted and a tad broken over the whole thing. So I'm stopping, crying a bit, (or a whole bunch of a lot) and getting real. Finally. Let's talk.

I can remember struggling with my weight for most of my young life. It has always seemed a losing battle that I could never win so why try. Even if I did have a few good days, shoot a few good months even, eventually I was going to start to somehow slide back into my old habits. So what happened in January of 2007 is very hard to explain for me. Something clicked inside my brain and I finally decided to really work at it and basically I can sum it all up in one explanation-it was a total and complete God thing. Nothing short of a miracle. I lost almost 100 pounds.

Now this is the part that is almost too hard and feels unbearable to even type, let alone admit. But over the course of the next few years, I gained it most of it back.

It's hard to not beat myself over that one daily, and if I let myself do that and dwell on that I'm not sure I'd even get out of bed some days.
How in the world did this happen?

But then I let my mind travel beyond the condemnation and guilt and to the days that I started to slide backwards. I remember what was happening.
Life was crumbling around me.
I was finally breaking free from an abusive relationship. Scared to death.
A few weeks later, I was being awoken in the middle of the night by my best friend, hundreds of miles away, who was crying on the bathroom floor in the worst pain of her life with no explanation. A few days later we did get an explanation though. She had cancer.
I spent the next few months in the fight of her life alongside her.
Praise God, we got the good news a few months after treatment that she was in remission.
But during that celebration my aunt, who was like my 2nd mother, got diagnosed with cancer. She didn't survive.

This all happened in one year.

I remember that and try to let up on myself a bit. I look back and wonder how in the world I survived it all. I got out alive-accomplishment in and of itself.

So I've just basically ignored my health, ignored the fact that I practically wasted all that hard work. That I can't even think that thought without tears welling up. I'm finally staring down the beast though. I'm ready to come back and do the thing. Which began with staring down the problem and stop running from it, forgiving myself for the mess I've found myself in once again, and start praying because it was time to get back to work.

That's when I found the book, "Crave" by Lysa TerKeurst. As soon as I began looking over the pages I felt the broken parts in my heart ache as they were being spoken to directly. Let me just say, I'm still in the first half of the book and I cannot tell you the number of times I have found myself nodding in agreement, wide eyed in astonishment that someone else felt that way, and weeping with the overwhelming sense of it all. So I wondered if anyone else has been there? Still there? Anyone?

I invite you to join us as we begin the Summer Study of "Crave". Each Monday over the next few weeks myself and the lovely ladies of Serving Joyfully and Caravan Sonnet are teaming up to bring you what God is doing through our journey's through this book, and we'd love to have you come along. If you can, I highly recommend obtaining a copy of the book, I truly think it will be worth it. Next week we will all ease into it with the introduction to the book and the study and will also announce the schedule the study will run so you will be able to follow along as well. I believe God to do something big through this project and I hope you're able to join us!