I said God was calling me back to writing at the end of chapter 3, but the reality is that I got in the way of the book God was trying to write through me. I got caught up in myself and ignored what God was trying to do through me. Depression became a really big part of my story once again as sinful patterns from college started to crept up again. I didn’t really know how to cope with that so I turned to food, instead of God. I didn’t really know how God could use the messiness of me and my broken life, or what seemed to be broken.
God provided some great friends to help mentor me and encourage me to seek after Jesus with everything I got. They help me a lot, yet I struggled to live out my life before my family, as I lived in my mind. Writing was the farthest thing from me and my mind, yet God was still trying to get to my attention to write the book.
Last year, I begin getting praise from my managers and bosses and my attention got caught up in it. I knew my hard work and the praise and encouragement was a sign that God was using me for His glory there. Yet when circumstances changed at work this spring and I couldn’t do the things I loved doing at work, I saw a pattern in my life: I loved being, a human doing, instead of a human being. I didn’t know how to be with people or love people anymore. I didn’t know how to cope without doing things I enjoyed, so I thought it would be better to end my life.
Yes, that is how dark it got. I finally admitted it to Jennifer and got some help. I am learning to invest in my family, but more importantly my relationship with God. I don’t want to keep him at a distance, but to embrace him to the fullest. I believe God is the only one that will know if I do that to the fullest, but that is where I want to be. I just don’t want to merely live anymore, I want to be alive to the fullest.
I began a healthy journey that was revolutionary to me and caused me for the first time not to depend on food to suppress my emotions. So, it was difficult, it was hard, it was painful, it still is. Jennifer heard some painful stuff from my very lips. However, I am convinced that with my weight loss, I am more of the man God wants me to be. I can began to identity emotions, thoughts, and change the soundtracks in my mind that are screwy. He wants me to pursue him and to follow after him passionately and fully.
I had thought one of those ways was to be a health coach and inspire people to embrace wholeness to the fullest. To not just to be healthy, but to whole. However, I always had in the back of my mind, when I am going to write the book? Will I ever get to write it? I justified denying the dream or not pursuing the dream fully because I thought I could do both. Maybe I could of done both, but God keeps on showing me that I have a gift with words and he wants me to use it for his glory. So I quit health coaching, or as my health coach Ryan says, I entered into a new season of coaching: writing.
If I am honest, this season is more of a continuation of a season. I had not given up on writing and using my gifts when I put on a pause on writing. I saw that writing my book was the challenging part. I want my kids to live out their dreams, what further proof can that be that Daddy living out his dreams.
It was never my dream as a little kid to write a book, but it has always been my dream to inspire and making an impact in the lives of people for God’s glory. He has made the best use of my gifts of words when I surrender it over to them. I have seen that through the Blood Water Mission fundraiser, preaching overseas speaking at weddings and funerals. God has brought me so far in my life story- and will continue to use me- as long as I surrender every part of me to Him every day of my life.
So God, use all of me today, to make your glory known to the world. Help me as I discover new gifts and abilities you has gifted me with, to find ways to use them. Lord, because it is all about you, my writing, my life, every part of my life, until all the whole hears about You and Your great love that moved first.
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