Who is this Jesus we celebrate?

Who is this Jesus we celebrate at Christmas?  It’s so easy to get caught up in the craziness of the holiday that I am reminded this morning to take it slower, think about what we’re celebrating and remember who Jesus was and continues to be.

Priscilla Shirer, in her Bible Study “Anointed, Transformed and Redeemed” said it beautifully.  It warms my heart to be reminded of how Jesus is so much and is available to all of us.

He Is…..

The First and the Last

The Beginning and the end

The keeper of creation

The creator of all

He’s the architect of the universe

And the manager of all time

He always was, always is and always will be.

Unmoved, unchanged, undefeated and never undone

He was bruised but brought healing,

He was pierced but eased pain,

He was persecuted but brought freedom

He was dead and brings life

He is risen to bring power

And he reigns to bring peace

The world can’t understand Him

Armies can’t defeat Him

Schools can’t explain Him

And leaders, they can’t ignore Him

Herod couldn’t kill Him

Nero couldn’t crush Him

The new age can not replace Him

And Oprah can not explain Him away

He IS Life,

HE IS Love,

HE IS Longevity and He IS The LORD

HE IS Goodness, kindness, faithfulness

And HE IS GOD

HE IS holy and righteous

and powerful and pure

His ways are right,

His word eternal

His will unchanging

And His mind is on us

He is our savior, our guide,

Our peace, our joy, our comfort

Our Lord and He rules our lives,

I serve Him because His bond is love

His yoke is easy His burden is light

And His goal for us is abundant life.

I follow Him because,

He Is the wisdom of the wise

The power of the powerful

The ancient of days, the ruler of rulers,

The leader of all leaders,

His goal is a relationship with me

He will never leave you, never forsake you

Never mislead you, never forget you,

Never overlook you and

Never cancel your appointment is His appointment book.

When you fall He’ll lift you up,

When you fail He will forgive you.

When you’re weak He’s strong,

When you’re lost He’s your way

When you’re afraid He is your courage,

When you stumble He will steady you,

When you’re hurt He is going to heal you,

When you’re broken He will mend you,

When you’re blind He will lead you,

When you’re hungry He will feed you,

When you face trials He is with you, 

When I face persecution He shields me,

When I face problems He will comfort me,

When I face loss He will provide for me,

And when we face death

He will carry us all home to meet Him.

He is everything for everybody,

everywhere ,every time,

And in every way.

He is your God 

and that sisters is who you belong to.

Merry Christmas.

It’s a Lifestyle Not a Diet

“It’s a lifestyle not a diet”.  Have you heard those words before?  Actually, have you heard them so many times that they don’t even mean much anymore?  I know, me too.  When I struggled with a weight problem, I heard this so often that eventually, I just tuned it out.  I had failed at “making it a lifestyle” so many times that I didn’t even give it a second thought.  It hadn’t worked for me and I wasn’t listening.

Have you ever heard a familiar song on the radio and suddenly realized that you had never really heard the words before?  Maybe it meant something totally different than what you had thought?  That’s what happened to me with this phrase.  I finally tuned in to “It’s a lifestyle, not a diet” and it’s my hope that slowing down and breaking it down will allow you to apply it to your own life, too. 

When it finally made sense, here’s what it allowed me to do:

1)      Stop my “DIET” thinking and find a healthy way of eating that I could maintain forever. 

• No more drastic measures like cutting whole food groups or following ridiculous food plans.  Have you done the cabbage soup or grapefruit diets?  Wow!  I was left either insatiably craving the villain foods or being so sick of allowable foods that I couldn’t endure anymore.  Those plans set me up for failure.
• No more concoctions of pills or other remedies that were just downright unhealthy.

2)      Make peace with the fact that I needed to be on food defense forever.  Just as an alcoholic needs to have rules around alcohol, I needed rules around food.  At first, I didn’t like that one bit.  I wanted to eat what everyone else ate and not think about it, but the reality was that I had an unhealthy relationship with food.  When I came face to face with what was going on, my obsessive thoughts about food weren’t normal in any way.  I had to come to a place of acceptance that my behaviours weren’t just going to go away and I needed to deal with them on an ongoing basis.

3)      Get to the bottom of why food was so satisfying and comforting to me in the first place.  I can assure you, if you have a weight problem like I had, you’re not there simply because you like food.  The problem is that you get too much pleasure from food.  Period.  You must figure this out and change it.

Writing these things here may sound simplistic but I assure you, they will require time, effort and persistence to resolve. 

If you are someone who struggles with extra weight, I encourage you to read this old catchphrase again, “It’s a lifestyle, not a diet”.  Slow down and ask yourself what that means to you.  Do you believe it?  Can it work for you?  What does it look like in your life?

Becoming healthy is a complicated effort and I hope you’ll get in touch with me if you have questions, ideas or a need for support.  You can email me at deanna@deannaadler.com

Remember, the only limit to what is possible is what you choose to believe.

The Emotional Power of Food

If the current trend continues, by the year 2015, 75% of Americans will be morbidly obese.  That means that in the very near future, there will be significantly more people extremely overweight than those who are not.  Obesity and obesity-related medical conditions are on the rise and have reached epidemic proportions.  What has happened?  Why do we have such a problem?  

Today, there are so many diet plans, diet pills and other quick fixes that a solution seems daunting and complicated.  Yet even with all these “solutions”, obesity is still a problem that plagues so many of us.   Why do so many of us struggle with it?  Why has “losing weight” been on our goal list year after year after year?  Why can’t we get a handle on this issue? 

When it comes right down to it, most of us know what it takes to lose weight.  The basics are easy: Eat less and move more.  It sounds simple enough; so why isn’t it working?  What are we missing?  Why aren’t we getting this?

The problem is that we are missing an absolutely essential part of the equation.  The missing piece is the emotional attachment we have created with food.  This is often the most difficult part to deal with because the connection between our emotions and food may not be immediately clear.  Some of us may not even feel that we have emotional issues to look for, but the simple truth is, food comforts us, tastes good and makes us feel too good.   THAT is the real problem.  If food didn’t fill a genuine need, we would be able to “eat less and move more” and be free of our weight problems. 

Food is serving a great purpose for us.  That’s why it’s so hard to permanently limit our intake and follow healthy guidelines.   But here’s the good news, the news that brings freedom, the news that is the key to untangling the mess we’re in: Food by itself is not powerful; the power comes from the emotion we connect to it.  This is essentially why we’re only successful on a new diet program for a few weeks or months.  We can give up food for a temporary period, but we can’t do it for a long period of time until we take the power away from it and separate it from our emotions. 

The key to tackling a weight problem once and for all is figuring out the relationship you have created between food and feelings.  Why do you eat too much or too often?  How does food make you feel?  Why is it so satisfying?  When you answer these questions you can determine what purpose food is serving and begin to break that dependency.

It sounds simpler than it is.  It takes ambition and trust to start asking the questions and searching for the answer.  You may even be surprised where that path takes you.  In my own experience, I was amazed at the connections that were revealed when I simply asked the questions and pushed through my typical “I don’t know” answers.  When I began realizing what was really going on, I could take the steps to handle the emotions in healthier ways.

What is going on with you?  Are you willing to start asking the questions and dealing with the answers?  Are you ready to take the power away from food and start developing healthy habits that will allow you to achieve your weight loss goals?  Check out my website at www.deannaadler.com for my whole story and extra encouragement.  Believe me, if this is something I can do, you can do it too.   The only limit to what is possible is what you choose to believe.

Surrender

I was thinking this morning about what it means to trust God.  We say that alot and many of us believe it’s the right direction to be headed, but what does it really mean?  What does it feel and look like to truly give yourself up and rely on God?  These are questions I’ve really had to get to the bottom of in my own life because for a very long time it just didn’t click.  I was in a lot of pain for a lot of years and I knew that I needed to “Let go and let God” but there was a disconnect when it came to applying it to my life.  Not because I didn’t want to; I wanted a miracle with everything I had.  But rather, it was because I had never been at a point where I really needed to. 

I was in misery for many, many years and there was no doubt that I wanted to change my situation.  In fact, over and over I would surrender my circumstances to God and begged Him to relieve me, rescue me and teach me.  The thing is, I was so hurt, beat up and bruised that I would almost immediately take my junk back when there wasn’t an instant solution, when the warm fuzzies of trusting God faded.  It wasn’t something I consciously decided to do, it was a response that was so deeply embedded in me that it was automatic.  When the answer didn’t come fast enough or look like what I thought it should, I took it back and began making decisions for myself again.  Decisions about how to lose weight, how to be healthy, how to be who I was created to be.  In taking these things back, I didn’t realize what I was doing was taking the power away from God. 

When it came down to it, when I felt abandoned and hopeless, when I questioned where God was, why He wasn’t saving me like I knew He could, I realized later it was because I didn’t allow Him to.  I put Him in a box and resolved that if the solution to my problems didn’t look the way I thought it should then I would take it back and start doing it on my own again.

Shame on me.  Shame on me for thinking He would ever abandon me simply because His solution didn’t look like what I expected.  Shame on me for thinking that miracles needed to happen overnight to be life-changing.  Shame on me for not fully trusting God with everything I had.

Now that I’ve crossed that line where I have learned to trust God with my entire life and I’m continuing to work on learning how to not take back the burdens I’ve laid at His feet, I’ve learned that He is so much more creative than me.  He is more of an adventurer than me and has a much better plan for my life than even I do.

I was thinking this morning about how all that may be similar to firefighters.  We know what firefighters are and that they can save us from danger, but something really big will change in us once we find ourselves in a fire and need to rely on them with our lives.  There’s a deepening of respect, of admiration and trust.

I found myself in a fire with God.  I was at a point where there simply wasn’t a way out and I either needed to give up my life and trust or be held captive forever.  That was a decision that was more than 15 years in the making but something changed in me, a switch was flipped and things started to fall into place.  For the first time in my life, I was set on a path to learn what it was like to fully trust, fully love and fully surrender.  The other side of that, the life full of trusting and surrendering, is pure freedom, pure joy and pure love that I didn’t even know was possible.   I am truly changed and have learned to trust Him with my entire life.  The result is more fun and more joy that fulfills my soul and is helping me to finally become the person He intended.

Mexico Mission Trip Fundraiser/Cookie Lee

Can you believe that people live in shacks like this picture? In this case, there were 5 people in this family living in cramped, dirty, unsanitary conditions. This is a normal occurance in some parts of Mexico and is completely unacceptable.

For the third year in a row, Vic and I are going over Memorial Day weekend to build a home for a family. We build a 16X24 structure which may be considered extremely small to us, but for these families, it is often the first time they have lived within solid walls, a celiing and a locking door.   By being removed from sleeping on a dirt floor, respiratory conditions are dramatically improved, especially in children.  By having a locking door and sturdy walls, families are more able to experience a sense of safety and comfort.  By seeing a team work together to build a house for them, families are encouraged and filled with HOPE that their lives can be better.

Going to Mexico on this mission trip is extremely important to us because not only do we get to provide a house for a family in need, we get an opportunity to get outside ourselves and serve.  We are able to give our time and effort to do something good that will change someone’s life.  We get to see that the world is a whole lot bigger than just our community and there are a lot of people hurting and we can do something to help.

Would you consider helping us raise money in order to go?  I am hosting an online Cookie Lee Catalog Party.   From now until May 15th, 25% of the sales from this will go straight to our church to help pay our trip fees.  I love Cookie Lee jewelry and would like to ask that you please take a moment to look through the current catalog offered by my consultant, Dena Brandt to see the newest pieces. 

http://www.cookielee.biz/denabrandt  

If there is something you would like to order, please get in touch with me or Dena (deanbrandt@cookielee.biz) and specify that it is for the Mexico Mission Trip Fundrasier.

Especially with Mother’s Day coming up, this could be a great way to honor your mom, wife, sister, cousin or friend and know that 25% will help us get to Mexico as well.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

Mercy and Grace

Have you ever known something like a fact or a concept for so long that you just don’t even think about it anymore?  Your head knows it’s true but your heart hasn’t pondered it for a long time.  I had a moment recently where I heard one of those things with new ears and it entered my heart in a way that I understood it like I hadn’t before.  Here’s the nugget I picked up as if for the first time:

When God holds back the punishment we deserve, we call that mercy.

When He does it over and over again, we call that grace.

This is stuff I know.  I know that Jesus died to save me from my rightful punishment.  I know He forgives me over and over.  But recently, I started to understand that in a way I haven’t thought of before. 

God loved me enough to send His son to die for me.  Stop.  Wait.  That’s so big but easy to move on from because I’ve known and believed it for years.  But I heard it in a new way recently by thinking about it like this:

My mom probably loves me more than anyone in the world.  I believe in her love for me and know that she would give up a lot for me, but I don’t think she would allow her son, my brother, to die for me.  My husband is the greatest man I know.  He loves me with such intensity that sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve it.  He would probably do most things for me but would never allow one of his sons to die.

I am so fortunate to be the recipient of some pretty powerful love.  But no one would condone someone dying for me.  So how much greater is God’s love that He permitted that?  He allowed Jesus to die for me.  My stomach gets a knot if one of my children skins their knee.  I couldn’t bear the thought of sacrificing my child for anyone.  God loves me that much.  God loves you that much. 

He holds back the punishment we deserve because he allowed Jesus to take it instead.  That is called MERCY.  Jesus is the final payment for our sins and will be over and over again; that is called GRACE.  I have heard that with new ears.

This stuff is big.  I don’t even know if my words can describe what’s in my heart.  I made a step toward getting it instead of just believing it because it’s what I know.  This stuff deserves new ears so the magnitude can be appreciated. 

I don’t think it’s ever possible to fully wrap our minds around what God’s love feels like and the freedom that’s offered by being forgiven, loved and cherished.  I think the key to beginning to understand is to think of how you can relate it to your own life.  How much does your Mom love you?  How about your Dad?  Wife?  Husband?  Best Friend?  How good does that feel to be loved?  Would they ever give their child for you?  God did.  That’s how crazy in love with you He is.  How thrilling it is to live in it and move around in the freedom of what that really means.  I am so thankful for mercy and grace and am moved beyond words that it is available for all of us to embrace.

Busy-ness

I’m updating for the first time in a long while.  It seems like the days just get away from me sometimes and although I have all these great ideas to share, I just plain don’t have the time or energy to write them down.  I don’t like being so busy like that but it seems to happen often.  The feeling of being rushed and lacking energy that comes along with that keeps happening until I make a point to stop it.  Isn’t that the way life is sometimes?  You just keep going along with something until you get so tired of it that you have to make an intentional change to stop it.

Change has been a theme in my life the last several years and I’d like to think I have gotten used to it, if not even a little bit good at it.  But the busy-ness, the everyday-ness has a way of being so normal that it keeps creeping up on me and keeps getting me stuck.

So today, if only for a few hours, I’m making a decision;  I’m going to slow down.  I’ve got a few hours before the kids come home from school and I’m off work early.  I’m not going to go home and dive into cleaning the house or doing laundry.  I’m not going to work on coaching/speaking stuff.  I’m not going to think too much about anything.  I’m just going to sit here at my favorite Starbucks, drink my favorite drink, and smile at the other people around me.

Although this long-overdue update is short and only about me doing nothing, I hope you won’t be disappointed.  Instead, I hope it will provide an example of how sometimes that’s the best update you can give and the best decision you can make.  Slow down!  Take time to do nothing!  Take care of yourself so you can go out there and take care of your family and friends.

What do you do to slow down?

Treasure Hunting

Have you ever gone treasure hunting?  I mean for reals?  Like really searching for treasure?  My family and I do it all the time and a friend of mine at work suggested I should write a blog about it.  Why didn’t I think of that sooner?  Of course I need to write a blog about treasure hunting!

So technically, I guess it’s called Geo Caching but when you’re toting around a 2 , 5  and 7 year old (and a husband), it’s called “Treasure Hunting”.  You go to www.geocaching.com and enter your address and it will pull up all the “treasures” in your area.  The way it works is that other players go and bury or hide their treasures and then write down the latitude and longitude coordinates from their GPS.  Then they create a new treasure at the website where people like me can input the coordinates and find them.  Then you just follow your GPS and search the area to find the booty.   Lots of us already have the Garmin GPS in our cars.  Most of them have a handy feature where you can change it from “automobile” to “pedestrian” and that works really well, you’re all set to go!  You can also find a cheap handheld GPS on craigslist sometimes as low as $20!

The rule is that if you take treasure you must leave treasure in it’s place.  Sometimes if you’re really lucky, you’ll find a “travel bug”.  You take these and move them on to the next treasure spot you find.  You can log on the website, input the number and see where it’s been and where it’s going.  In this hummer’s case, he’s trying to make it to Iraq.  He started in Canada and we’ll be dropping him off in a treasure spot near the military base in our state when we got there in a few weeks.

It’s amazing all the interesting places we’ve found treasure.  Some of the hiding places have made us laugh out loud at their creativity.  The kids love it, Vic and I get out hiking and enjoying the beautiful scenery and it’s another reason to get everyone outside and active.  I love it!

A Great Trip to Mexico

Wow, I didn’t realize I hadn’t updated since we went to Mexico!  It’s been a while and so much has been going on!

The trip turned out to be wonderful and we really had a great time.  The family was grateful, our hearts were full of love for them and once again, I fell in love with their children and the neighborhood kids who came out in droves to help us build.  It was another great experience that reminded me that the world isn’t really so big and it only takes a bit of my energy and effort to change a family’s life forever.

Because of the swine flu and some people having concerns about security, many teams are cancelling their trips or not even signing up this year.  The family waiting list is long and there aren’t many houses being built.  Because of this, YWAM is offering a trip for people who may not be able to hook up with a  group to go but may want to have the experience anyway.  They are accepting individual sign ups and will call the team complete when they have 20 people.  If more are interested, they’ll open another one.  If you’d like more information about how you can sign up and have this incredible experience, go HERE to learn all the details.

So much more to say but I’m running out of time.  I’ll post more later and let you all know what I’ve been up to.

We’re off to Mexico

We’re headed off to Mexico this weekend to build a house for a family currently living in awful, shocking, unsafe conditions. 

Last year was my first mission trip of this kind and my heart broke for the families who were living in places that I could hardly imagine.   My eyes couldn’t believe what I was seeing and my mind couldn’t fathom what life would be like to live without safe, sanitary housing. 

In the cities we go to, most people do not have running water or electricity.  They sleep on dirt and have tarps over their heads.  Last year, the family we served had five children living in an 8X10 plywood shelter with barely enough room for everyone to lay their heads down to sleep. 

Although the living conditions seemed awful, what touched my heart the most was the truly amazing spirit of the people living there.  The joy they possessed made me see the true beauty of their character and put my own life into perspective in a way that I wasn’t quite prepared for.

We in America are so blessed.  We have food, shelter and clothing.  We have a good measure of peace and safety and it wasn’t until I went on this mission trip last year that I realized I had been taking all those things for granted.  My eyes saw a complete city of people who cannot lock their doors because they don’t have any.  They cannot sit and watch a television program because they don’t have electricity.  They cannot wash their hands because they don’t have running water.  They cannot trust their corrupt police force or government.  It is a place where people steal from each other simply to survive.

Having said that, even amidst the harsh, practical realities, what changed me even more and made me see the true beauty of the people of Mexico was the pure happiness they had.  The children were so full of life and excitement.  Although we couldn’t understand each other well because of the difference in language, we were able to feel their character and personalities through their squeals of laughter, excitement in the games they played and their desire to be right with us throughout our work. 

There is a simplicity that we experienced in Mexico that was both heart wrenching and heart warming at the same time.  I am in awe of the families we met that they carry a contentment in them that has nothing to do with material possessions or status.  It is a very real and honest love of life and family and I am envious of the simple delight they have for life.

I still pray for the family we served last year and I have already been praying for the family we’ll be building for this year.  I am so privileged to be a part of giving to them.  I crave the anticipation of unveiling their new home and seeing the relief that will come when the genuine need of a sturdy, safe home is satisfied.  We all deserve the basic necessities of life; food, shelter, and clothing and I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this family’s story.

This mission trip is SO not about me but I am looking forward to the work God will do in my own spirit as I serve others and witness the value of working together for a family in need.