Update and Accountability



Remember a few months ago when I asked for accountability in weight loss?  Well, I thought I would send an update on how I'm doing.  Since December, I have lost about 12 lbs!  This is great and very exciting, but I feel I have a ways to go, so any advance, encouragement or accountability is welcome.
Weight loss journies are a funny thing, they tell you a lot about yourself.  Before we had our first son, I lost about 20 pounds which was a challenge, but all with the goal in mind of having a baby.  I feel like when there is a goal in mind, whatever it is, it makes losing the weight more of a goal.  For some it is to get skinny, for some it is to be healthy, the list goes on.  I suppose for me, there are a lot of reasons why.  I do want to be healthy.  I take care of sick people on a daily basis and how can I ask them to be healthy if I don't live it out myself?  I also want to be healthy for my son.  I don't want him to be running circles around me while I sit and watch, I want to run with him.  Another goal for me is related to health as well.  In December, I was diagnosed with Insulin Resistance.  Insulin resistance occurs when the body doesn't respond as well to the insulin that the pancreas is making and glucose is less able to enter the cells. This could be the reason why it has been hard to get pregnant and puts me at higher risk for getting Type 2 Diabetes in the future.  I was put on Metformin, which is a medication used to treat Type 2 Diabetes.  I have felt much better while taking it and I think this is one reason it has been easier to lose weight.  It is also a good medication in treatment for complications from infertifility.  Insulin Resistance is pretty common, although probably underdiagnosed and their isn't a whole lot of lay information out there to help people who are diagnosed with it.  I saw a diabetic educator about what to eat.  I have increased my exercise and tried to cut out sugars, not completely, but cut it down by at least 80%.  I am eating less carbohydrates and a lot of vegetables and health meats (fish, turkey etc) and drinking a lot of water.  I am hoping to eventually get off of the metformin after I have lost  significant amount of weight (20 more pounds or so).  So, all this to say that I am excited to find out about this diagnosis, it explained a lot why weight loss was harder for me, but it has also given me a goal to strive for in the journey of weight loss.
I appreciate your prayers during this journey and if you have any questions, just leave a comment...

Follow WHO?

Tomorrow, Joel and I will be going to Chicago to have our final interviews to hopefully be approved as long-term missionaries with the Evangelical Covenant Church.  If all goes well, Joel will be ordained as a REVEREND, I will be consecrated as a missionary and we will BOTH be commissioned by the church.  These are exciting times for us, but as we probably all know, excitement is not always easy in the midst of daily life, with work etc.  As I said in the previous post, I feel I am living in 2 Worlds and I feel a long way from what God has called us to long term as missionaries.  I get caught up in work and the learning curve of learning a new, high stress, high responsibility job. 
But, yesterday as I was reading in Luke, I was reminded of so many things.  In Chapter 4, when Jesus was rejected in Nazareth, He reads these words...

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

One verse later He says...

Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing

HOW POWERFUL to know that just by hearing the above words, that scripture was fulfilled.  Not that people took that too well at that time, but to know that and to HEAR that...WOW.

I went on to read the next chapter as well about the calling of the first disciples.  It's not like I haven't heard these stories before, I have heard them or read them many times, but I was profoundly touched yesterday at the power of Jesus.  To tell both Simon, James, John and Levi to leave everything to follow Him and they did!  Without thinking twice, without question, without getting things in order, they just...followed Him.

When I think of these two chapters, I think of, number one, Jesus' call while HE was on earth from Luke 4, to proclaim the good news to the poor, free the prisoners, recover sight, set free the oppressed and proclaim Christ!  And then in the next chapter He is calling others to come with Him.  I want to be one of those, and in the midst of the busyness of life and feeling like I am under mounds of other THINGS to do, I was reminded of God's call to me and to all of us, to follow Him, to proclaim the good news to the poor, to recover sight, free prisoners and the oppressed and to proclaim Christ! 
As I go tomorrow to be interviewed about my call to be a missionary, some days I feel prepared to do this.  Other days I feel like the Lord must be crazy for calling ME to do this because I don't have it together at all!  But whether it's a prepared day or a not-so-together day, God is going to use me regardless and I need to be willing to drop it all and Go and follow Him to fulfill His purpose on earth!