Healthy Mind, Body and Soul Journey 3/11/12

It's been a few days since I updated my blog.  A lot is going on here, so it's been hard to take the time to sit down and give the writing the attention it needs.

Like I updated earlier in the week, I have lost 7 pounds, and I take that as a move in the right direction.  A small victory, if you want to look at it that way.  I had to change some habits, and step outside the comfort zone of eating for mental pain relief, that I had set up for myself.  Making changes is hard.  We get so used to doing things the same old way, that it's really difficult to set comfort aside and do something different.

I did something else  this week,  a bit outside my area of comfort, that I'd love to share with you as well.  I sent an email, with a link to my blog to a couple of people whom I don't know very well, but whom I have grown to respect over the short time I've known them.  I asked for them to read my blog and to give me some honest feedback about it.

I also related to them that I have felt, for the past several years, a pull (I hate the word -Calling, it seems so mysterious, somehow) toward expanding my writing into some form of ministry.  I'm not clear as to exactly what that ministry looks like in reality, but in my heart I feel I have something to offer the world, and feel God wants to use me in some special way.  I have only told a small circle of people about this feeling, so sending that email, was not easy.  It was a real act of faith.

It may seem a small thing, to send an email, but it's harder than it sounds, because in sending the email I opened myself up.  I added a layer of vulnerability to an already shaking psyche, because I was pretty sure these people had never read my writing, and I had asked for honest feedback.  I never ask for honest feedback unless I am ready for any result, and knowing someone I respect is reading something I wrote is unnerving, so I had trepidations.

When I write, whatever I write-- it's me.  I share my heart and soul on the page, so it's hard to ask someone what they think of it.  It's like asking, really asking -- what do you think of me?  Do you think I have what it takes to...?  It took more than a few minutes of prayer before I hit the send key on that email.  Luckily, I got some positive feedback and felt buoyed by that.  And added a couple of people praying for revelation, which is a wonderful, blessed thing.

I'm still not sure where God is leading me, and I admit I still feel a bit unsettled that some people close to me don't care enough to encourage me, even as I receive positive feedback from some, I crave acceptance and support from those unwilling or unable to give it..  There's probably a lesson (no, no probably about it, there is a lesson) to be learned in that unsettling feeling, and if history is the best predictor of the future, the lesson, for me, will be hard-learned.

Still in all, however, I feel as if  I've accomplished another baby-step on my journey.  It is my hope that each day can bring me closer and closer to whatever it is God has in story for my life.

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.