What are your goals for the new year?

What are your goals for the new year? I know New Year's resolutions are a big thing right now. I generally try to set goals for myself each year. Last year I wanted to get healthier and I've done that (and still working on it).

This year, I plan to:
Continue working on getting healthier
Work on paying off our debt

Those are my two big goals for the year. Over the next few days, I plan to write more details about how I want to meet these goals.

First Place 4 Health

A lot of people have asked me about how I've lost so much weight. So I wanted to write about that today. Last year, on January 30th, I started working out. Since then I've worked out 5-6 days a week most weeks. In March, after feeling like the working out had become a habit, I decided it was time to work on my eating habits. I knew I needed help with that and I began praying about it, asking God to lead me to the program that would help me. A few years ago, a friend had told me about a program called First Place and had sent me some books and tapes about it. I read the books but at the time wasn't ready for it. But now I kept feeling the Holy Spirit nudging me towards it. I resisted. I kept looking for other programs, other ideas. But God didn't give up on me, He kept nudging me. So, I talked to our pastor about the program. He'd heard of it and thought it was a good idea to start a class. I talked to a friend of mine in church who unbeknownst to me had been praying for a program to help her lose weight. So in June, we started a First Place 4 Health program at church. We completed our second session in December. As a group, we've lost over 300 pounds in our church.

First Place 4 Health is a Bible-based weight loss program started at a church in Texas in the 1980's. It is based on the Bible verse from Mark 12:30  that says: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

First Place 4 Health teaches you how to put Christ first in all 4 areas of your life: mentally (your mind), physically (your strength), emotionally (your heart), and spiritually (your soul). We learn about eating healthy, exercising, and how to put Christ first in our lives. There is an excellent Bible study to go with the class and the group support is wonderful. We pray for, support, and help each other. 

We will be starting a new session next week. There are Sunday night and Wednesday night classes. Sunday night class orientation is Sunday, January 6th. Wednesday night is January 9th. if you think you might be interested, I encourage you to come to one of the orientation meetings to learn more. 

Classes are at our church, Bethel Hawley Baptist Church, 7 miles north and 1 mile east of Nash. If you want to come and need directions, just let me know.



First Place 4 health website

The Holidays

I don't think I ever realize how hard the holidays are for me until they're over and I feel that weight lifted off of me. 2012 was full of ups (celebrating our 20th anniversary, Serenity getting married) and downs (our car conking out, Serenity losing her job, other family stuff). But that's life, right? Gotta pick up and move on. So I'm ready to get back on track and live frugally and tackle this debt again. Not sure where to start, so it's back to Dave Ramsey's baby steps. That means starting with getting $1000 in an emergency fund. So I'll be brainstorming some ways to do that. Any and all ideas appreciated!

I close today with this reminder:
God is good all the time. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

A New Year and New ME!

Hello out there everyone! Hope that each of you had a wonderful and blessed holiday. I enjoyed some time off as well as some time with family and am back to work and into routine today. Wanted to share this picture with you, I bought some actual jeans at the thrift store on Saturday! I cannot tell you how long it's been since I've worn actual jeans!