Fire Challenge #1 Awakening

 I'm jumping back in again this week because I'm doing a new thing! I've begun a series of "fire challenges" created by a YouTube content creator I've been following for awhile (Girl in the Woods, see below). The challenge is called "Change Your Life in 5 Fires." It is outdoor based and centered around setting goals, building confidence, and taking small steps toward reaching those goals. I wasn't ready for this challenge when she presented it in a 5 video series last year, but I feel up for the challenge this year, and I want to share my thoughts and experiences with you as I take these challenges on. Thankfully all of the challenge elements can be modified, and since we've had no rain for weeks, I won't be starting an actual fire(yet), but instead will be doing this challenge by the light of the sun for now!  I plan on executing my challenge on Tuesdays and sharing my thoughts on Thursdays each week. 

The first Fire Challenge is called "Awakening" and involves asking ourselves some questions– "What have I been missing/needing?" "Have I had any new realizations?" "What are my dreams, goals, visions?" We then set a goal, and ask ourselves what we are willing to risk/sacrifice to get to where we want to go. We then write the goal down and determine what small steps will it take to get there. The fire involves tearing off the goal and tossing it into the fire as a symbolic way of committing to it, I suppose. We then involve the body, mind, and spirit into the whole decision making process. And no, it's not "woo woo," because I'm not "woo woo", and neither is Brooke, from Girl in the Woods! But what we do have in common is a passion and love for God and the outdoors!

The challenge is to include some physical exercise (every day), using all of the senses outside, and reflecting on a Bible verse (Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is–his good, pleasing, and perfect will. )

Well, Tuesday was my first week of the Fire Challenge, and it wasn't what I was expecting. First of all, I have a 13 year old senior citizen companion dog who can't seem to live without me, and she followed along. Well, sort of. I set off with my plan, and she promptly set off to sniffing something she couldn't bear to leave behind. I was then surrounded by chickadees who recognize me as their "Snow White," and wanted their daily dinner served. I was only halfway down the trail and I turned around to go retrieve the birdseed and my precious pet. We eventually made it all the way to the cabin, where I sat on the small porch and wrote my goals down in a small notebook, all the while my dear pooch staring at me, waiting anxiously to return home.  

I succumbed to her plea to return, but as I turned, I stopped to catch some whirling tiny brown birch leaves that had been released from their summer captivity as a warm breeze swirled by. I took in the clove-like scent of the coming fall season, reached down and touched the curling rusting leaves of the ferns that surround my little cabin. I heard the chip-chip-chip of the sneaky chipmunks that torment Angel, but delight me as they dart away from her in the comfort of the woodpile. In searching for the most massive and the tiniest of things around me, I turned my face up to the sky to the covering of expansive black arm-like branches of a strong and timeworn oak tree, and then peered down to its base to the daintiest red wintergreen berries on tender green shoulders. The minty taste of one warm tiny berry melted in my mouth as I thanked God for placing all of His perfect details here to discover every need in me. 

As part of the exercise portion of the challenge, Brooke suggested 5 lunges, 5 push-ups, and 5 skips along the walk, as well as some time with socks off and hands and feet in the grass. Well, I did the lunges and the walking part. That went fine. I tried to skip, but realized immediately that while certain parts of me can skip, other parts say ski-nope. No worries, I got the important part of the challenge completed! 

I am hesitant to share what I wrote down in my small pocket journal, because our goals are not really everyone's business, but I do plan to share that goal with the people closest to me who encourage and support my dreams, values, goals, and visions. That way I can also share with them my setbacks and progress and they can do what they always do–support me. I'm not sure that the goal itself is as important as sharing with you that it is necessary to take time out in your day to exercise, ponder a goal, spend time with God in His perfect creation, and find a Scripture to reflect upon. 

If you're interested in doing a "Change Your Life in Five Fires Challenge," it doesn't require real fire or even grass, and all activities can be modified according to beliefs, location and health situation. Brooke (Girl in the Woods www.youtube.com/@therealgirlinthewoods ) is an experienced outdoor adventurist, Christian, esteemed YouTube creator, and spent two seasons on the History Channel's Alone series! (Alone Season 4, Vancouver Island, B.C. 2017; Alone Season 5, Mongolia 2018) All credit goes to her for the content of this blog and the four that will follow! 

Show Me

 "You can't go back and 

change the beginning, 

but you can start

where you are and 

change the ending." 

–C.S. Lewis 

Last weekend, I celebrated my birthday with my family. I chose to spend it at a big arcade we used to go to when the kids were younger, and it was even more enjoyable with my new son-in-law and son-in-law-to-be. Finding things we all love to do as a group is very important to me. My birthday may be about me getting one year older, but it's more about me celebrating one more year growing in spirit. I also try to find more things that I can learn about or do that I've never done before. 

Steve took me to dinner on my actual birthday to our favorite sushi place, but strangely enough, I'm the only one in the family who hasn't been brave enough to ever try the sushi there. I always order the hibachi. Well, this time I tried sushi for the first time in my life. It was okay. I may give it another try sometime.  As I often say about new things, "It didn't wow me." In the car I said to him, "I'd like to get a Checkers game. I've never played Checkers before." So off we went to Target–purchased a Checkers game and played it when we got home. When you grow up the youngest child with a huge gap between you and the older ones, and not really into a game-playing family, you don't learn how to play cards and simple things like Checkers. But you do like to play Skee-ball and Centipede on a giant screen....

Lately, my mentor has been sending me Scripture and his thoughts on them. This has been thought-provoking and has applied to many things I have been going through in my life. It led me to think about this deeper. When we are open to learning and doing new things, we are also open to hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling, and knowing them too. Our senses become aware to those things that we are yearning for. What is it that I am seeking? What is it that I have been asking God to show me? Being open to it will reveal His hand and how He has been present with His answers. Proverbs 2:1-5 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding indeed, if you look for it as silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 

I've asked God to help me find courage lately. It's something obvious we might overlook, but life and the living of it takes a lot of courage. Just trying new things takes audacity–a willingness to take bold risks. Stepping out–whether in the world or in faith–takes boldness sometimes. I've done and said things without a safety net plenty of times. I still do from time to time, but that's not always courage. Sometimes it's just plain carelessness, and I've been plenty careless in my life. Haven't we all? I sure hope I'm not the only one who has said and done foolish, thoughtless things. 

 God is showing me these weak places in a way that has brought more awareness to my words and to my actions. I've asked for courage and he spotlights my weaknesses. We have to know where we've given up, given in, or not held the line at all in order to know where we need to get stronger. Things really do fall apart before they get better sometimes, and this is the kind of growth that both hurts but sustains us for better things. 

God is showing me that to become comfortable with and be who I truly am,  I have to stop living in fear. I have to stop living rejected. I have to face my fears and stop  hiding from the things that cause me pain. I have to fight back. Philippians 4:13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. When I've asked for courage, it seems I'm asking God for permission to walk in my own skin. So I have to break it down a bit further and say to myself, remember Whose you are. He has chosen, predestined, and adopted you because he loves you. Ephesians 1:4-5 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will

Yes, it seems I need even more than courage, and I will probably need something new in five minutes, because I need God every minute of every day. I don't plan to ever stop growing and learning. Who I am today is not all I am or ever hope to be. I've never been a "This is who I am–deal with it" kind of person. I want to be changed by the Scriptures sent to me by my mentor, by the experiences I have with my family, by the sweet game of Checkers with my husband, who grew up in a big game-playing family but taught me so gently. I learn so much by just watching my own daughters grow into the wonderful women they are becoming. I want them to see a mom who continues to grow and improve and gain strength and change throughout their entire lives.  We can all be open to change when we allow God in to move. Like a game of Checkers, God simply started moving pieces of my life around until I said, "Oh, I get it! This is where you want me to move." 

I have done a lot of new things in the past five years, and I wonder what the next five will hold. I have a lot of passion for change and an excitement to move forward that only God could have planted. Does it make sense? Not really. I look at my medical report and my limitations and then I look at God and I say, I can do all things. I look at my circle 5 years ago and now today and say, nope. This doesn't make sense either, but You love me. Change doesn't always feel good, make sense, or yield what we think we want out of it. But when we ask God to help us with what we need, His results will give us His best. This will not just require a lot of courage, but also our faith and our ability to see past our own limited sight. 

Giant Slaying Mode

 The advantages of getting older keep making themselves known to me. Yes, I said "advantages"! One of them is being able to look back on situations and see how much I've learned or grown through something that once nearly destroyed me in some way. Growth is painful most of the time, that's for sure. In speaking with a new-ish 84-year-old friend about life in general, she revealed to me that each time she went through something painful, she chose to become stronger. We have to make a choice. When life circumstances try to beat us or take us down, we can go down with them or we can fight and become stronger. Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who gives me strength. 

Norm Sawyer, a dear friend of mine, writes in his new book, Discipline is Freedom, "Disciplined people are not special, they are people who failed many times in the different endeavors of life but kept getting up until the failures became less frequent....Disciplined people have fought their giants over and over again until the giants were defeated and bound with the same chains they used to keep the undisciplined effective." I highly recommend Norm's new book, for which I have written the foreword. It can be found on his website at Sirnorm.com or on Amazon.com. I like that statement, "disciplined people are not special," because I think sometimes saying so becomes a cop-out for others. "Oh, yeah, that Norm...he's only fit and healthy because..." and then the excuses start. No, Norm came back from near death by the grace of God, and by the choices he decided to make to get healthy and committed to fitness. Those were not easy changes at all!  We cannot look at disciplined people as though they are "special" or "favored" by God or anything else. They put in the time, the effort, and the work. And yes, the prayer. Making excuses will only keep us from changing or living our own best life. 

Discipline was the featured letter "D" I wrote about way back when I was writing my alphabet blog series, if you were following back then. It's truly at the heart of any positive transformation in our lives. It starts with a commitment to keep choosing the right things over the things that are holding us hostage. It's a daily repetition of behaviors that lead us to success in any area of our lives. We want better, we have to do better over and over. No one is going to do it for us. Not a pill, not a magic formula, and certainly not wishing and hoping. Wouldn't it just be easier though? But again, if it was, we wouldn't come out of it stronger, and we'd probably eventually go back to the same behaviors that got us in the mess in the first place. 

So why is it such a pain to be disciplined about some things? Because we all want "it" now, I think is the simple answer. Immediate gratification has been pounded into our brains at every turn, and we buy into it, whether subconsciously or not. Weight loss?...don't get me started. Hungry?...fast food. I could go on with all the promises of easy fixes out there, but I'm sure you get the idea. We are hard-wired to want fast and pleasurable things (french fries) and we want to avoid difficult feelings (exercise) as human beings. Because of that, we find self-control very challenging. But it's not impossible and we don't have to give in to the lure of laziness. 

Both of the friends I mentioned suffered near life-ending health crises. It was a combination of God's intervention and a commitment of personal discipline that led them both back to health. Both of them could run circles around me! Now, I have certain limitations, but still! One is just into the 70's and one is near the mid-80's. I listen to them, because they have the wisdom I want, and they have the results that speak!  Job 32:7  I thought, 'Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.' They are who I want to be when I "grow up."

Am I disciplined? In some things, yes, very much so. But I have had to start, restart, and start again certain disciplines over and over, and maybe you are in the middle of that cycle as well. It's not easy to make changes, even if they are the best thing for your mind, body, and health. Giving up is a cop-out, it feels terrible, and we do it anyway, but the important thing is (As Norm says) we keep getting up until we break those chains that keep holding us hostage. What is it that we need to do differently? Get God in on it. Write down a plan and conquer it. With prayer, with purpose, with determination, with strength, with commitment, with practice, and with discipline. Kick that giant out for good! 

I made my plan this week, and I'm in giant-slaying mode until I succeed. As I said, an advantage to growing older is that we hopefully learn from our mistakes. We can see where we've either stagnated, learned, have more to learn, or have grown and have the ability to share knowledge. We should be motivated by the desire to share what we learn, as my older friends do. We should aspire to be an example to our future generations coming up. But most of all, we should be motivated by a desire to live the best life we know we should be living for ourselves and for others who love us. We should not be intimidated by what we don't know yet, or by our failures and lessons yet unlearned. We should be gentle with ourselves and tough on the issues we face. Nehemiah 8:10 for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Life is a process of absorbing and facing experiences as they come and I know that God's timing is so much better than mine. One thing I have learned is that even while I think there are so many things I have messed up or missed, God is showing me that in many ways my life with all of its letdowns and lessons is just beginning. If we are willing to do life with God, He will show us His best way to go about things. We just have to put in the time, the energy, and the heart that His discipline requires of us. 

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. 

Isaiah 46:4