Hearing the Calling

Every since Marty went on his Walk to Emmaus walk April 2006, he has been trying to discern the feelings God has been stirring within him. Marty is a cradle Methodist, which means he was born to a family that attended church regularly all his life because they had attended church all their life and that denomination has always been Methodist.

Marty was raised in two very different Methodist churches though. His home church and the one he was baptist and confirmed in was Pulaski Height UMC in Little Rock and it is very high church. They are televised and have 4 or 5 associate pastors as well as the senior pastor. Then there was his Grandmother Bowie's church in rural McCool, Mississippi. That church had an a circuit pastor, which they shared with two other churches. The pastor would preach at one church, travel to the next and preach and then travel to the last church and preach. The congregation was small, maybe 10 or 20 when Marty was growing up with those hard pews with no padding and there was a little elderly woman who always played the piano. It was a very broad church experience to say the least.

Pastors are also common in his family. His Uncle John (Dad's older brother) is a retired United Methodist pastor and John's son Scott is a United Methodist pastor.

Well he has been wrestling with: is he or isn't he being called by God to preach. He's currently a lay speaker by taking lay speaker 1 and 2 classes offered by the United Methodist Church, but the path before him has a few options. He can try to go to seminary and become an ordained minister, he can do some seminary but only become a local pastor or he can just continue to be a lay speaker. He doesn't know which is the path that God has planned for him but today was the first of a feel many times to come.

Today I got the humbling pleasure to hear him preach for the first time. Rev. Aubrietta Jones is on maternity leave from Old Austin UMC and she had asked Marty to fill in on one of the days she was off. Today was that day. It seemed very fitting that it was Father's Day to be his first sermon. His Dad and Mother came along with me and the girls, but also Emily Bredfield brought her girls. Which was very fitting because the first person I heard express their option to Marty that he should pursue preaching was Chip. I am truly sorry that Chip wasn't here to hear him though, but Emily and the girls were there for him. I don't know who was more nervous, me or Marty but it would be close. Then during offering they played Mercy Me's song "Here with Me" and the video. I lost it. The tears started and there was just no stopping them. The pride I felt being there in the Lord's presence knowing Marty was doing something he was called to do. I can't describe it any more then I could turn the tears off. It was so awesome and he did such a great job. I couldn't be more proud.

I love you Marty. What ever path God calls you down, I will be right behind you with my love and support.

Day 2

This is only day two of trying to get my size 12 body heading to a 14 turned around into a size 12 heading to 10 or 8. I am not "depressed" but I so hate how my clothes look on me and I can't stand going shopping because of the sizes. This is really just a selfish because my wonderful husband and beautiful daughters tell me all the time that I shouldn't say I'm fat because I'm not. Well, I may not be fat but I'm not happy with my muffin top or my double chin.

So thus begins my determination to get fit. I have a friend who is fit and I want to look like that. It will not happen over night and it may not even happen in a year but it is one day at a time from here on out. I'm not dieting because diets do not work. Diets never work and please don't be offended if you think they do. Being fit is a way of life that when I was in junior high and high school I could maintain while surviving on cokes and snickers for lunch every day. But this 40 year old body is not going to be fit if I continue to have a sedimentary life. (Don't you love the fact that we grow up to get jobs to pay the bills and they turn out to be killing us slow as we sit in our cubicles?) Ooops! Sorry, don't chase that rabbit.

We are not doing much at the moment but walking the track and trying to not snack. I love to snack and my cubicle is the perfect place to snack, but again I digress. We walked 8 laps last night and sweated. Though I need to do way more of that as my fingers resemble little sausage links but which really is water retention. Too much salt in my diet. I love salt and salt loves to keep water in me.

We are talking about doing walking and bike alternatively which I love but I don't know if I get as good of an exercise with biking. I don't feel as tired when we bike. Maybe we need to do more then 18 miles but time in the evening isn't on our side.

Well, I will try to post more though I know I'm only talking to myself here. But, maybe I can hold myself accountable if I assume someone is out there reading this. Ha Ha. Let's see if this motivates me.

Time for a shower. I smell.

PS. There will be no before bikini photos for a while of this body. Like you wanted to see this in a bikini. LOL