I’m getting in shape and getting to a healthy weight. When I was younger, I was told I was fat (I wasn’t). When I wouldn’t eat what I was ‘supposed to’, I was punished. In my marriage, I was called names & put down if I wasn’t ‘perfect’. When I was too skinny, I was told I looked ‘great’, but I was unhealthy. I’ve weighed over 200 lbs and I’ve weighed close to 100. I’ve lost weight to ‘impress’ and I’ve gained to ‘hide’.

I used to look in the mirror at 110 lbs and think I was grossly overweight…that was if I could actually stand to look at myself in the mirror. Words I heard over & over had an impact on how I viewed myself. I was told things like, “you’re fat & no one likes fat girls”. In my mind, I was obese. In reality, I was athletic, active and right where I was supposed to be. After I was sexually abused, I didn’t want anyone to look at me so I hid behind baggy sweatshirts & jeans. I lost weight, I gained. Each time, people treated me differently based on what size I was. Each time, I let them decide who I was.

The scale began to control my self-image and my self-esteem.

Now, it doesn’t control anything.

I’m losing weight again. But now I’m doing it right and now I’m doing it for all the right reasons. I care about me. I care about being around for my guys. I care about enjoying life. I care about watching my guys become men, get married, have kids and all that fun stuff. I’m not worried about what others think or what the scale says. I know I’m a good person with a good heart and I’m starting to treat myself like I am. It’s time.

So, I work out 5-6 days a week. I’ve hired a trainer to ‘kick my butt’. I eat healthy and sleep well. I say ‘no’ to a lot more things people want me to do and ‘yes’ to things I want. I realize rejection isn’t always my fault and walking away from toxic people is ok. I look at the little things, take time to simply stop and I thank God for 3 incredible young men. I want to be healthy, not skinny. I can’t control how others treat me, but I can decide how I treat them.  I want to wear fun clothes, do crazy things and put a smile on other people’s faces that comes from my heart.

I’m “fired up”. I’m excited, ready & looking forward to all that lies ahead. Doing it right feels great!

Asked by a good friend to share my life story with a group of 13-18 year old young women incarcerated for all sorts of crimes. These were young women who were victims of abuse, who struggled with addictions & who often felt lost and searching for purpose. So, what do young 13-18 year old ‘girls’ have in common with a 40-something single mom of 3 young ‘boys’? Everything.

I didn’t know what to expect. I spoke to 2 groups and their reactions were the same. As I was being introduced, some were looking around, some slouched in chairs with arms defiantly crossed over their chests and some simply politely sitting, probably thinking of 100 other things they wished they were doing. But it all changed as I shared…

With each part of the story, their interest and our connection grew. I could see it in their facial expressions, in their posture in their chairs and in the tears some of them shed. Real emotions, raw hurt & sincere reactions emerged. Doors were opening & God was speaking. I was being used to show His power to overcome.

When I finished speaking, we offered question & answer time. Knowing teens, I really didn’t expect much feedback, but I was so wrong! They began opening up, sharing, questioning & searching. It became obvious that they were living in a prison, not simply one of 4 walls, but a prison of their pasts. I remember that prison. They wanted out and me standing there in front of them gave them proof it could happen.

Some talked of speaking someday like I was, some questioned about faith. Some sat quietly thinking, some broke down in tears & others wanted to simply talk…and be heard. The responses exceeded any expectations that I could have imagined. Connections were made & hope was seen. I prayed that their hearts will stay open & they will remember.

I’ve been asked to return as new groups of young women move in. Unfortunately, there will always be more. My prayer is that they will one day truly get out.

“If you don’t turn your adversity into ministry, then your pain remains your pain. But if you allow God to translate your adversity into ministry, then your pain becomes someone else’s gain.”–Mark Batterson, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day

.

I’m a ‘people improvement junkie’ too. It all starts with seeing the potential.

My current home was for sale for 2 years before I bought it. It needed work. Trees bowed touching the yard where grass was non-existent, bushes were overgrown and flowers consisted of a single random rose that grew alone. Inside, the carpets were obviously rarely vacuumed, bathrooms were disgusting, original lighting (1970′s style) was darkened and the screen porch was a ‘walk-through’ for any animal that ventured past. The family that was still living here had 3 very young children. They were selling this ‘worn-out’ house to purchase a brand new, double-the-size, no maintenance home in the newest trendy neighborhood.

Many people had walked through the home, only seeing what was wrong and grungy and broken. I saw potential. Many people had been scared off by the amount of hard work that would be needed. I saw the end product. Many thought it couldn’t be saved. I knew it could.

I’ve been in that same house for 3 years. It’s not finished, but then again, what house ever is? Yet, you would not believe the transformation! Without seeing the potential, I would have like many others, passed by this house, turning away from the dirt & ugliness. But I would have missed the beauty and home it has become.

If I had been ‘for sale’ like the house, I would have been passed by too (and maybe you can relate). But, like this house, that’s not the end of the story. Seeing potential is a powerful start. What an old home can become, what you or I could emerge to be,  or what that person you ‘wrote off’ could be transformed into…it all starts with seeing the potential. But you have to be willing to tackle the ‘grime’.

Whether it’s houses, people, or dreams, we need to look at what amazing things that can be, not simply what is. A broken home can be rebuilt, a broken life saved, a broken dream rekindled. See the potential and let’s make it happen!

.

• loving watching my 3 amazing sons become phenomenal young men
• having incredible experiences working as a physical therapist in home health care
• a part of a great church environment at Rivers Crossing Community Church
• part of the core team for the 2nd campus of Rivers Crossing—Village Community Church set to launch on Easter
• working on home improvement projects–re-landscaped my yard and now remodeling my kitchen
• learning, observing, reflecting…
• moving on, moving up, moving forward…

I hope that you’ll jump back in to follow here, read, comment & jump right in! There’s lots to come…

I was at a patient’s home today, in an area that was relatively low income homes. As I was leaving her house, her neighbor was at the door coming in. I said ‘hi’ and proceeded to my car to head to the next house. As I pulled out of the driveway, I saw the neighbor walking back to her house. I started driving past & she flagged me down.

“Can I ask you a favor?” was what she asked. I tentatively asked her what she needed, aware that I only had a few minutes to spare so I would not be late to my next patient. She proceeded to ask me if I could help her move a speaker from her house into her car. “I’m pregnant & shouldn’t be lifting anything heavy & don’t have anyone here to help me. I’ll be glad to give you $10.”

I answered with “sure, but you’re not paying me anything”, honestly hoping it wouldn’t be a huge task that would take too long. I entered her home & saw the living conditions which ‘weren’t the best’. I saw the speaker she needed moved & beside it was a 2 foot tall white wooden cross with writing ‘in memory of…’ on it. As I moved the cross gently she told me that the cross was for her baby who died.

We carried the speaker out & kept chatting. She asked if I was a nurse (I wear scrubs) & as I told her I was a physical therapist, she then told me she had a lot of PT after her car accident, when she was 9 months pregnant, which was how her baby died. She then told me she had some medical problems & has lost other babies during pregnancy, so she was very nervous about being pregnant again. We stood by my car & I felt a ‘nudge’ to ask her name, when her baby was due & if I could pray for her. I’m not usually one to say that to ‘strangers’ but knew it felt right. She said “yes, I would like that” and bowed her head.

OK, I didn’t really mean right there, right now…well, I sort of did but I didn’t think she would respond like that. So I prayed. When I finished, she said “Can I pray too?” and of course I said yes. That’s when she prayed this:

“God, I can’t believe how good you are. Thank you for this lady who helped me move the speaker. I can’t believe a complete stranger would help me like that. Thank you for this home so I’m not homeless anymore. Please help my homeless friends too & let them have hope. Thank you for the car that I now have. You’ve showed me that you really will take care of me….”

Through the hurt, there is hope…

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”-Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes life forces us to think about…life…and death…and how we’re living today.

Every day I work with people who have had some type of health crisis. I work with those who are healthy one day & in surgeries the next, those who are planning their retirement then fighting for their lives and those who are worried about what’s for dinner tonight then wondering how many dinners they’ll have left with their families.

It doesn’t even have to be a life or death situation. Friends move, marriages fall apart or kids go off to college. Sometimes life forces us to stop and ‘take inventory’.

I recently had another ‘cancer scare’. It was the second one in less than a year. Everything is fine and after a ‘major’ surgery & ‘minor’ procedures, I’ve received a clean bill of health. But, that’s no guarantee. Life can suddenly change for any of us. Accidents happen, diagnoses are heard and none of us know when it might happen today or tomorrow. It’s what we do with right now that counts.

I want to live today! I want to be the mom my kids are proud of & love to be around. I want to be the ‘friend a friend would like to have’. I want to risk trusting God’s plan for me. I want to climb mountains, enjoy sunsets and savor s’mores around a campfire. I want to be the one to make a difference in someone’s life, to encourage someone to do things they never thought possible, and to show people that they are worth it & there is hope!

Life is short. Make every moment count. Start today. All cliches we hear often, but do we take them seriously? How about you–are you ready to jump in and make it happen right now? Come on–are you in? I’m ready–let’s go!

Do you know any 9 year olds? Nine year olds are growing, yet still ‘little kids. They’re innocent, play with toys & are just beginning to step out…but not too far.

I was 9 years old when I first thought about killing myself.

I felt hated. I felt unwanted. I was told I was worthless & “would never amount to anything”. I had been sexually abused for years and emotionally & physically abused forever. It’s not that I wanted to die. I just wanted it all to stop.

It was ‘one of those days’, a day like so many. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had already been taking alcohol out of the kitchen cupboard & I had already learned that would numb everything. I knew where all the medicines were. That day I had been yelled at, hit multiple times & told ‘why can’t you be like…’ again. I opened the cupboard & took out a mini shot-sized bottle of whiskey then walked to the drawer that held the medicines. After grabbing a bottle of aspirin (I don’t know why I reached for that but I thought it would work), I swallowed a handful, drank the whiskey, locked myself in my bedroom…and waited to die. In my 9 year old head, that was going to happen.

Not much happened. I didn’t die. In fact, to this day, I’ve never told this story because no one ever found out. Instead of stopping it all, life went on. A little time passed, my mother called out for me to do something and when I didn’t respond, she came to my bedroom door. I knew it was too late to try any more then. I had failed. Finding the door locked, I was in trouble again, hit again, put down again…the cycle continued.

I remember thinking that I had screwed up one more time. I couldn’t even kill myself. My parents words echoed in my head, “such a loser”, “can’t do anything right”, “no one will ever love you”.

In my 9 year old brain, those words were true. Those words were all I knew.

How often do we do that in our lives? We have ‘junk’ that keeps piling on, we clean it off a bit, but we always stop when it’s ‘good enough’? Real change happens when we take an honest look at ourselves & ‘scrub off the junk’. Like cleaning that sink, real change is hard work. Even as we think we have it all cleaned out, we may see spots we’ve missed.

It doesn’t stop there. For that sink, and our lives, to ‘stay clean’, we can’t slip back into letting things go. Justifying that ‘it’s not that bad’ or ‘it’s good enough’ will slowly allow all the junk we’ve cleaned out to creep back in.

I use bleach & an SOS pad periodically to clean the sink. It really shines when I do. It’s harsh, it’s work & it’s not something everyone would do.

Neither is changing a life…

“It all sounds good about “helping” tornado victims but the people who help take action.”

It was time to take action. It was one week ago, on Saturday morning, when I heard about the goal Casey and another great guy, Pastor Dave Anderson of Crosspoint Community Church in Decatur Alabama, had set. They wanted to raise $10,000 in 24 hours for tornado relief. At that time, they had about $100.

Fast forward just over 24 hours later and well over $100,000 had been raised!! Yes, you read that right—10 times more than what the goal had been. More importantly, this money wasn’t just sitting somewhere. It was going to people on the ground in the form of gift cards for basic necessities, such as diapers, toothbrushes, food and all the things that we take for granted every day. Here’s what has happened in one week:

• The team on the ground have been working with multiple churches, both in the area and ones who have sent teams in to help
• Churches from all over the country, including Georgia, Kentucky, Utah, Texas, Missouri & Ohio (and more!) have sent money or have jumped in on the ‘Tornado Tithe Challenge’
• We’ve distributed $1000′s of gift cards for immediate assistance
• We’ve contacted mobile home dealers to negotiate discounts for purchasing new mobile homes for families with total losses 
• We’re partnering with Diversified Services, a utility company that replaces utility lines for Alabama power, Georgia power & local utilities
• We have forged a significant relationship with Epic Church in Decatur and they have provided refurbished FEMA trailers for approximately 20 people through their team and fund raising efforts.  We contributed to this fund.
• We are sending churches, supplies, and now working to send teams to help them as they have secured funding for 20 more trailers
• Every day we are partnering with more churches & organizations and reaching more people who have suffered & lost so much

What am I doing? Even though I’m 6+ hours from the destruction, I’m helping serve on the tornado relief team and my major role is communications with all donors, including updates from those on the ground. I’m also hoping to get a team together from Cincinnati to go and help. I’ve met so many awesome people and am overwhelmed at how people have come together to help so many. This is how the church is supposed to be!

What can you do? Please help. Please take action.

• Donate!! It’s easy (and tax deductible) Just go here: Immediate Relief Fund
• Talk to your pastors & join the Tornado Tithe Challenge
• Follow some of the updates here: Tornado Relief updates
• Watch these videos from the teams on the ground of real people, like you & me, with their lives torn apart in one day:

I continued to work with him and always spoke directly to him. It didn’t take long to realize he really did understand what was being said, he simply couldn’t express that he could. One day I looked right at him and said, “I know you can understand. I know you’re just having trouble saying what you want.” With that, he smiled his huge smile and nodded his head enthusiastically while muttering, “Yes”, as a tear fell from his eye.

We’ve continued to work together and share his progress. Last week I began asking him more about his time spent in World War II and though I couldn’t understand all he was saying, I was able to decipher and thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. A few times he teared up as he told me about D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and more. I asked him if he considered himself a hero and I told him I did. Again, a few tears and a big smile when I acknowledged and recognized all he had done.

Here was a man who had once been a strong warrior who fought in multiple battles. Here was a man who was now trapped inside a body that wouldn’t cooperate. I didn’t treat him any differently than I treat anyone else. He deserved respect for who he was and who is still is today. Unfortunately, what I’ve learned is he didn’t always get it and too often neither do many others.

As I was getting ready to leave at the end of the session, he said something that I didn’t quite understand. I looked at him with a puzzled look and he repeated it again. Still unable to understand what he was insistent on saying, I told him, “I’m not quite understanding.” His reply, with every ounce of energy he had to say it just right was, “You’re special.”

With that, my own eyes began to tear and with my smile, he knew this time I understood. One little phrase that I wasn’t looking for and definitely wasn’t expecting, had absolutely made my day. At that moment diverse emotions hit me, sadness that something as simple as respect was considered ‘special’ and joy that I was able to gvve him a little bit of it.

There are some moments that will always stick with you and continue to influence you, long after they’ve occurred. I know this was one of those moments.