FACEBOOK UPDATE + GRACE & The 99?

POSTED A FEW WEEKS AGO - ACCIDENTLY DELETED!

I thought that taking a break from Facebook would be so hard and I was so wrong. All though extremely beneficial at times, I did come to know that I was spending too much time on Facebook. I just couldn’t seem to pull myself away. So, I prayed! I have been off of Facebook for just a day shy of a week and it’s so much easier than I ever thought. I feel free! I believe that God showed me that I needed to get off of Facebook completely and give it to Him. I can also say that I’m not yet 100% sure about how long I will be off; taking it one day at a time. Prior to leaving I had a friend suggest taking a day’s break every week which I do believe that I will do when I come back. I have so much more time for other things that I enjoy doing that I’m sure it will be no problem when I finally do get through this habit-breaking time. Thank you, Lord!

I am also being so inspired to write almost daily. This morning something came to mind to share with you. Facebook can be quite distracting. Surrendering to Jesus means surrendering everything, even though I do believe I was sharing God’s love with many, many others on Facebook. It’s up to Him to decide.

An interesting explanation regarding Proverbs 3:5,6 is about a time I was headed out to go do some writing on the beach but I was leaving too late so it came to mind to just go down by the river and write but I wouldn’t be going by my normal places to pick up coffee, etc… so I prayed about where to go and I believe I was led to put all of my earrings on; that was 9 altogether. I had no idea why I was doing it but I just knew I was supposed to.

I left to write and the only convenience store between home and the river going through town to the best writing place, I stopped at. When I came up to the register with my purchase the young man behind the counter had piercings and he smiled real big and was very polite when I checked out. As I left I asked God why this was necessary and I heard Him say because when I wear my earrings it helped him to feel better about himself and I don’t want him to feel bad about himself because I love him.

**Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

**I Corinthians 9:19-23 - Serving All Men – “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; 22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.”

Many members from my church along with my pastor have been volunteering for an extremely beneficial outreach to youth that started just last weekend and is continuing for the next 3 weekends. I would truly recommend you taking part in this yourself as a volunteer along with taking and/or sending any teenagers or young adults to view this outreach if The 99 comes to your town.


"WHAT IS THE 99?
On average, 99 young people between the ages of 12 and 24 die every day in the United States.
"THE 99" is a symbol based on statistics from the National Center for Disease Control.

THE 99
is a walkthrough theater that graphically reenacts the five leading causes of death in teenagers and young adults. Many of these deaths are influenced by drugs or alcohol and a vast majority of them can be avoided.

The production is state-of-the-art production designed to portray the very real consequences of poor decisions that claim almost 37,000 young lives every year. The production is not based on fear or scare tactics, but rather is based solely on reality with each room designed from real life situations."

(taken from www.whatisthe99.com )

I just recently got a new album by Colton Dixon who made it down to one of the final few contestants on American Idol in 2012. I was unhappy when he was voted off because he truly shared his love for God in this contest. You can imagine my delight when I found out he did an album. I love the album in it's entirety but I especially took notice to one particular song that I knew right off was quite anointed by the Holy Spirit. I believe it could be the theme song for The 99. What do you think?

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days!

Do You Play?

I’ve not been a good one for that for much of my adult life and it is so very therapeutic. I’ve learned this since I decided to finally announce to the world that I’m an artist. I’ve also found other artists who consider at least some of their art to be “playing” as I do. 

Do any of you feel the need to spend more quality time with God? “Playing” can help you to do this!

I believe I shared in another blog post about the rare illness that I had, CNS Vasculitis. This illness was only found in autopsy prior to 1999 so it was quite rare. I once knew a site administrator for information on this illness and she had done a poll of the people registered to the site. The ONLY thing that ALL participants had in common is that we were ALL work-a-holics. Is that you?

I don’t believe that God wants us to just work all the time. And, if you’re anything like I was, my mind didn’t slow down enough to hear from Him very often at all until I learned to “play”. You need to find a hobby, something that you enjoy, something that helps you to slow down and get your mind off of the list of a million and one things that you have pending!

What do I do? Well, I put on worship music a bit more quietly and tune all else out while “playing” with my art. In doing so I get so quiet that I am able to also easily commune with God. I’m able to have quality time with Him. I’m still doing something but I’m quieted. More things have come to me while doing this. I’ve gotten out of more funky moods while doing this, too!

My “playing” in the art piece above was even more “playful” since it was an old piece that I’d saved with Encaustic wax on it so I “played” with my heat gun melting the old wax (what fun) and letting it run all over! I think I’ve discovered a different kind of art for me and I’m still working on it (will post a photo when finished). ONLY God knows what you might discover!

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days!

Depression?

I am reading daily devotionals from You Version Bible on my iPhone (If you have an iPhone just search for You Version. Our pastor uses it for the sermon notes. It’s very good. Many devotionals, too!. This one came to me last week so I sent it to myself to write about:

“Psalms 25:15-20 “My eyes are ever toward the Lord, For He shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn yourself to me, and have mercy on me, For I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have enlarged; Bring me out of my distresses! Look on my affliction and my pain, And forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, for they are many; And they hate me with cruel hatred. Keep my soul, and deliver me; Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.”

This keeps coming to mind this morning. I recall reading it last week and remembering how I was told by several people and read also that if you are having trouble with depression that reading Psalms is very helpful. Reason? David is known to have had to suffer some depression. Can you honestly tell me after reading the above that he didn’t? Yet David is said to be a man after God’s own heart! I believe it’s due to David being honest with Him so it testifies to their relationship!

I’ve done it in the past and it does really work! Since being healed from the extended illness and further delivered from depression I have learned to view life a bit differently so that I just don’t seem to go into anything more than a few days or so feeling depressed instead of going into an extended depression. Reading Psalms does help me, also. But I believe God has shown me that no matter how lousy my day is, I can ALWAYS find someone who is having a worse one!

My mother used to just get disgusted with me being so positive so much of the time. I came up with reason after reason which I know are still truths! My life has been one with numerous depressions, attempted suicides, etc… and for one I trust and believe in God’s word in this:

*2 Corinthians 1:4 “who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

On top of all of this I believe that God just revealed to me recently a promise from Him that I hadn’t noticed before. After these approx. 7 years of being delivered from such debilitating deep depressions over a good 35-40 years of my life, I was led back to the first time that I spoke in front of a group. It was a Bible study when I was in prison (don’t ever put anything past the Lord cause I said God would never use me to speak in front of others. I think it took maybe 6 weeks before He proved me wrong) that had never had a speaker before. My closest girlfriend in there was in the audience. After it was over she called me out of my cell that evening and shared:

Isaiah 61: 1-3 ““The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

(Yes, I know this is about Jesus.) She shared with me that I’d spoken about all the things in this passage. I bawled like a baby.

But even more lately I’ve been reminded of the positivity of this passage and especially “To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning”. I have been saved out of the depression so that I may share His comfort with others! I now know that I actually have trouble thinking negatively due to the promises that He has given me! All praise and glory to Jesus!

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days!

Day 23 of My Facebook Break!

And, look what I just found: 

“I want to share another excerpt from the book "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young. Through this book, God speaks to me over and over again; much of the time, by impressing upon me things that I know over and over again to make an exclamation of their importance upon my brain. "Seek My Face, and you will find all that you have longed for. The deepest yearnings of your heart are for intimacy with Me. I know, because I designed you to desire Me. Do not feel guilty about taking time to be still in My Presence. You are simply responding to the tugs of divinity within you. I made you in My image, and I hid heaven in your heart. Your yearning for Me is a form of homesickness: longing for your true home in heaven.

Do not be afraid to be different from other people. The path I have called you to travel is exquisitely right for you. The more closely you follow My leading, the more fully I can develop your gifts. To follow Me wholeheartedly, you must relinquish your desire to please other people. However, your closeness to Me will bless others by enabling you to shine brightly in this dark world."”

I shared this several years ago on this blog and I just realized that it fits even more now than it did then! I took this break so I could break the habit of spending too much time on Facebook and after 23 days I can see it has truly worked! Yet, after I started this break I decided to make it a fast from Facebook for Lent. 

Be seein' ya 'all again real soon!

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days!

God Heals in Many Ways - 2013

For some time now, probably our entire marriage of 22 years, I've been praying for my husband to come along side me with diet and exercise. I've had issues with being overweight since I was born a 10 lb. 8 oz. baby (Can you believe I was adopted? And it was natural childbirth?). I've had a life of Yo-Yo dieting except that I've never really understood how I could be extremely active and still carry so much extra weight. I dreamed of a day when I’d have someone to do it all with. Especially once we were in the same home. 

Since our son left home it has gotten much better about just not keeping the junk around as much. We've kept healthier food in the house for a good 7 years now and I managed to lose 80 pounds without even really dieting, just eating what I’d thought was healthy food. But I've only been able to get minimal exercise, partly due to not being able to do certain exercise alone (for safety reasons), lack of motivation, or just plain stubbornness (I’ll admit it). So naturally I thought that if someone else would do it with me that it’d be much less of a feat! I also had no idea that I needed to continue to change my diet even more and what an impact it would make on me.

Last year my husband ended up being hospitalized twice in February. One time it was for his heart which seemed to make him sit up and take notice. (He has been more than 100 pounds overweight for quite some time now. I will admit to the fact that I’m sure part of his problem was also the fact that I spent so much time sick and unable to help to motivate him. Also he is into computers and office related work which can be the most sedentary.) All of a sudden, a few months after this he started reading. And before long he started reading to me about this Wheat Belly Diet: (http://www.amazon.com/Wheat-Belly-Lose-Weight-Health/dp/1609611543/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362752253&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wheat+belly+diet - now 1470 reviews). Then we decided to get the book and we started reading it. I read it some but he became so convinced that he even read it to me. So, by just about 4 months after his last hospitalization we started on this diet.

It took us about a month to prepare since we had to clean all of the wheat products out of the house. Think it sounds hard or even impossible? Well, we just passed our 9 month mark, totally without wheat! Well, I actually think I may have slipped, just one time because I just didn't ask at a restaurant and became ill for a good 4 hours so I felt that I didn't even have to ask after that. 

My husband has lost a good 20 pounds since, just by not eating the wheat. The one tremendously good thing that does also happen is that when not eating the wheat we found that to get filled up that we ended up finding so many natural, whole foods to eat. We are now mostly filling up with fresh vegetables, learning more new recipes, reading food labels (and being shocked by so much food that contains wheat seemingly unnecessarily) and finding out about more fresh veggies at local open air markets. This diet calls for more nuts, berries, and etc… which we have incorporated into our diet some but not fully yet as we are learning about more healthy foods. This diet does take a little research but no more work than Weight Watchers, etc… and this diet is how we are eating for life, not just for a few months before adding wheat back in. YUCK! We both are living wheat free for good. 

If you will recall, last year I had a horrendous fall. We started this diet the day after I fell. I was quite physically slowed down during this time and some since. I've still been in recovery this entire past 9+ months. And I didn't gain even an ounce. I went to my doctor 6 months after the fall and going off of the wheat and I weighed exactly the same as prior to the fall and going off the wheat. I have now been given better reports at the office visits of all 3 of my doctors. Even my lab work is the best it’s been since the early 90’s and my cholesterol is better than it has even been. Hallelujah! But this diet has given me so many advantages and even in the last couple of months I have experienced so much more.

After a couple of months going through some of the most awful pain in my life with the dislocated shoulder (broken arm & torn rotator cuff too) I started to realize that I had little pain anywhere else in my body. The left hand that I had struggled with arthritis in to the point of wearing a brace several times was fine. My back…OH MY BACK…17 years of chronic back pain since surgery and it was almost totally gone. It wasn't until a few months later that I was able to quit wearing the sling (wore for 5+ months) that I noticed that I had almost no neck pain. More recently due to finally having some cooler weather in Florida, I've noticed no more arthritis pain. Oh, a tiny bit here and there for maybe one day a month or a little pain from getting stiff sitting here typing for too long (longer than I’m supposed to) but NO PAIN in the mornings. When it’d get down into the 40’s or even 50’s I’d awake and be in an actual stupor for nearly the entire morning from so much pain. I didn't go a day for several years without taking Ibuprophen every morning to help loosen up my joints and get me moving. I’m taking none or just the occasional acetaminophen now. Ibuprophen is down to maybe one dose per week or even less. God surely knew what He was doing!

I’d been told a couple of years ago that I should try getting a trike because it was unsafe due to balance issues to try to learn to ride a bike again by myself. In this midst of all of this I finally gave in and shared with some friends (angels) that I was ready to start looking for a trike. (And, this is how God works when we FINALLY decide to give things to Him!) Within 5 days I had a brand new trike! 

About a month ago I was early to church one Sunday and was caught about 2/3 of the sanctuary away from my seat when the service was starting. After jogging back to my seat I thought “What’s up with me?” and I realized that I felt so much better than I had for such a long time, literally years (more than a decade). And I've felt better ever since. Oh, I have my days like everyone else but I am improving in leaps and bounds.I, like most people, wait, expecting God to heal me in certain ways that I THINK He should but His ways are different from my ways. He uses so many different ways to heal or even for me to notice that He has healed! I pray that I no longer expect Him to work like I think He should! Two of the most helpful scriptures (why they are amongst the blog title) that I believe encompass the entire Christian walk are Proverbs 3:5,6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”.

Another scripture that I always try to remember and also cite to others very often is: *1 Corinthians 3:19a “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” And, this next one is just too good to not note along with this: *  1 Corinthians 1:25 “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 

I must also add that my husband just recently purchased a bike as a late birthday present. He is also looking to get healthier as I am. We are planning picnics and ecstatic about what God has ahead for us in this life and becoming healthier together.

Just keep on praying and praying and praying! He IS always answering!

MY TRIKE - Purple, of course!
May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days!