When God rolls back the curtain.

"God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them."    ~ John Piper

A dear friend sent me a link to this article written by John Piper and it has resonated in my heart ever since.  Through the years as I have grown deeper in God's word,  one of my favorite qualities of God's character is His sovereignty.  Knowing that all things in my life have a purpose….that all things are filtered through his love…this makes the hard things easier to embrace.  Knowing He has allowed it for a purpose. (Romans 8:28-29,  Psalm 66)

I understand this principle and have seen it time and time again in my life and my family.

And this statement above…that He's always doing a ton of stuff when we can only see a few has just hit home with me.  Because He recently rolled back the curtain and let me peek in on what He has been doing in me and Nick's lives.

Y'all remember the little challenge  my girls and I started last April amongst the four of us?

Losing to Gain?

It has been a tremendous journey for me.  Life changing.  It started off as one thing and ended up being another. What I thought was a little jump start to get me to lose weight so that I could look nice for my daughter's wedding ended up becoming a whole new way of life for me.

A life filled with daily exercise, learning to run, and a whole new mind set when it comes to food.

In the midst of that journey, I totally changed the way we eat around here.  The way I cook for me and Nick. We began to eat whole foods.  Fresh fruit and vegetables began to be a staple around here.   Gone were the days of consuming entire bags of Flaming Hot Cheetos and Diet Dr. Peppers, deep frying everything and smothering all my vegetables down in bacon grease and butter.  We began to eat our salads without drowning them in dressing and I discovered coconut oil (we are talking game changer, people).  Our snacks became roasted almonds, sliced carrots, hummus, hard boiled eggs and edamame.  And my favorite of all faves….avocados. They get tossed, chopped and smeared  on everything.  Of course, every now and then I would buy Nick a bag of Doritos or pig skins or something but he too pretty much began to eat just like me.  

So here we are trucking along.  Eating better. Dropping pounds. Nick wasn't even trying to lose weight but hey….if you eat healthier that's what is gonna happen.

And this is where God rolled back the curtain and showed me that what I thought was all about me losing weight on this journey of losing to gain, 

He was doing something far greater.

He was saving Nick's life.

You see, what we didn't know during this time was that Nick had developed diabetes. 

We always knew it might be in his future.  His dad is diabetic and we knew it's hereditary.  And then there is the way Nick loves to cook and loves to eat.  If any of you follow him on Instagram or Facebook, you know how he enjoys his food.  He's my favorite foodie.

Well with Nick's military background he qualifies for medical care from the VA and he went for a routine check up in the beginning of January.  When his blood work came back, his blood sugar was 285!  His a1c was 10.5!  His blood pressure was elevated and his triglycerides were off the charts high. Now with all of this being this high after 8 months of eating healthy, I shutter to think what could have happened had I not started down the road of losing to gain!!  I understand the reality of what can happen from living an unhealthy lifestyle …. Nick is the exact same age that my own dad was when he died from heart disease.  

But of course God knew this all along.  I would even go as far to say this is why He planted this little idea in my mom's heart…to host the contest for us girls.  She may have thought it was to help get us motivated to lose weight but I know God used her to play a pivotal part in the health of her son-in-law's life.

"God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them."

Wow.  Yes He is. And I'm so thankful for that.  

And just so you know…Nick has punched diabetes in the face.

He is down 30 lbs.  His blood sugar has been pretty much normal the last several times we've checked it.  His blood pressure has been great.  We are expecting great results at his next check up with his a1c. He has taken it serious and I am so proud of him.  Since we had already made so many changes in our diet, we only had to tweak how we were eating just a little bit more. So a new diet wasn't a challenge for us.   We actually are having fun in the kitchen together and have even taken it up a notch with creating our own recipes on this journey.  

Who knows?  A cookbook might even come out of all this.  

Perhaps that's something else the Lord is working on behind the curtain too!

That gets me excited!

This is the year we begin what we call "temple maintenance".  We now realize that we spent too many years abusing what the Lord has given us with our bodies and health.  We want to do our part to take care of it starting now. We want to be around to enjoy our grand kids if the Lord wills.

 ….and we have a lot of living still left in us.

It would mean so much to me, if you could lift us up and intercede on our behalf as we learn more about this disease and how to make the best choices for our new way of living.

I appreciate each and every one of you.

Walk in obedience, do the hard things….you never know what God is doing through what you can't see.

Hang in there…sometimes He gives us a peek behind the curtain. But even when He doesn't, we can trust Him.  That's one of the rich benefits of belonging to Him.

He is always at work in our lives.  Always.