Year of Health

Every year most Americans create a New Years Resolution they plan on quitting within the next two months. I don’t normally make resolutions. However, I do have a habit of asking God if there is a theme for my next year as I process, grieve and look forward at the end of each year. For instance, 2011 was a year of freedom and there were some major things I became free of…This year I heard God tell me that it was a year of health for Ang and I. So, this year our family is working intentionally on gaining greater health in as many areas of our life as possible.

 

This last year has been full. Ang went through a difficult pregnancy, I spent 2/3rds of a year working as a counselor/teacher at a rehab center for teens, we had a baby boy, moved across the country 5 weeks later and then we hit the ground running here. Once you add the sympathy weight to the winter weight to the moving weight to the new job lack of time I had a recipe for a distraught scale. I now weigh 210 pounds which is about 35 more than is ideal for me and the second most I’ve ever been. I’m not angry, upset or looking for pity or conviction. The truth is that those pounds are filled with circumstances and some poor choices. It was also filled with some good choices. There were times where I put my priorities together and my time at the gym happened to rank lower than loving my wife or son well. Regardless of how those pounds hitchhiked around my midsection, it’s time that they get dropped off.

 

My Goal: Lose 5 lbs average a month for the next 7 months

Challenge 1: Anyone want to make a similar goal and we can encourage each other/keep each other accountable?

Challenge 2: Anyone want to commit to $1, $5, $10 a pound that I lose for the next 7 months (capped at that 35 lbs)?? If so, I could give you an update every month.

 

Finances…Ang and I are always torn when it comes to support raising. We understand the biblical backing of it, we believe in what we are doing and yet it’s hard to ask for financial help because we know we can live off little and that He will provide what we need. I look back at our history together and laugh about how we had to open wedding cards just to pay for the car wash. The truth is He has been faithful and while there are times we would prefer more, we have had enough. The biggest thing that He has been challenging us on the past year is that we can only give what we first receive so the more we have the more we can give. Ultimately we have giving hearts and sometimes we live in the tension of wanting to give more resources to others who are in need but in order to give more we need to get better at receiving first. If you want to help us out with some practice in receiving, let us know 🙂

 

Current Finance picture: We are $4000 in the red in our AIM support account from 2013.

                                   Our goal in 2014 is $17,500

                                   Our current pledged support is at approximately $8,400 this year

                                   We need $13,500 more this year (or $1092/month) to meet our goal and pay off                                          the amount we are in the red with AIM.

 

 

Spiritual…I’m never quite sure how to quantify spiritual health. If you know how, I would love to glean some wisdom from you. Ang and I are working to be more intentional in a number of areas when it comes to gaining spiritual health this year. One area we would love prayer in is for the right married couple to mentor and invest in us. Speaking of prayer, I have a number of your emails already that would like to be prayer warriors for us. Starting in February, Ang and are going to try to send out monthly prayer requests to that group of people. We haven’t been great at doing this so far but it’s a goal of ours. When we send them out, we would love to hear your prayer requests as well so that we can be praying for you too!! 

 

Emotional…I haven’t really set specific goals for this area of growth for the year but we both would love encouragements, phone calls and skype calls throughout the year!!

 

OK, I’m going to stop here for now because I haven’t added any pictures and most people don’t have the attention span to read through all of this without pictures 🙂 Next blog I will put some in!!

Much Love,

b