Confessions of a Peace Lover...

Are you ready for another confession from this peace lover?

Here it is: There was a time when keeping everyone "happy" was my number one goal. And then there came a time that I realized that my goal of keeping everyone, including my hubby and kids, happy (all of them at the same time ALL the time please) was impossible.

You know what I learned in the midst of that journey? A very important truth: If my goal is to keep those I love happy we will all be miserable from the work it entails and the self-centered focus it results in. Yet if my goal is to see them healthy, happiness tends to follow.

That truth follows every aspect of our lives, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It affects us in body, mind and soul.

It's true at play, at school, at work, at church, in hobbies, in ministry, in grocery as well as Christmas shopping, in surfing the web, in physical exercise, in sports, in everything!

Pursue good health: healthy relationships, healthy thoughts; healthy habits, healthy choices, and happiness tends to follow!

What keeps us from being healthy? In John 5 Jesus asks the question of the paraplegic by the pool "Do you want to be healthy?" The man answered with all the reasons why he couldn't get there, to which Jesus replied ".pick up your mat and walk!"

Have you ever done that in your own life? Do you ever take time to stop and look at an area of your life that you know isn't healthy and find yourself listing the reasons why it is the way it is? Ever take a peak at the areas that you're hoping no else notices? (For insight into that area read Janet Stutzman's "CLOSET" devotionals - to read them all click on the 'Janet Stutzman' label) Typically those are the areas where you are stuck doing the same unhealthy thing over and over again.

I have been there; at times I'm still there.

The answer is the same for me.

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Pick up "your mat" and walk! Ask someone to help you walk, but walk! Find someone to walk with you, someone to help you recognize and change the unhealthy habits that have led to the impossible place you find yourself in.

I believe healthy relationships are essential in keeping us motivated toward healthy living in every area of our lives. Show me a person who is unhealthy in most any area of their life and I will show you a person who has put a barrier up around that area and is not allowing anyone to go there.

I'm not talking about the person with the "named" disease. Honestly I believe there are people with cancer who are "healthier" than those of us with unhealthy lifestyle habits! I think of my friend Cheryl. When diagnosed with cancer one of the first things she did was let her family and friends know, and those same people walked beside her thru that journey. She would tell you her healthy relationships were essential in the midst of her physical unhealthiness.

What keeps us from asking for help? Fear? Pride? Shame? Fatigue? Previous hurt? The reasons can be many but the outcome is the same: isolation and defeat. The evil one would keep us separated from one another because he knows there is strength in numbers. It is why isolation is used as a form of punishment in prisons; as a form of torture in war. When we isolate ourselves it is yet another unhealthy choice that will keep us in the defeated place we are in. We are hiding, and when we hide no one can help us.

Help usually begins with a relationship. First and foremost with God thru the person of Jesus Christ, and then with the healthy relationships He has planned for our lives. Look around you, who has God placed in your life to encourage your health? It may be a medical doctor, a professional counselor; it may simply be a good friend to speak truth into your life, hold you accountable and study God's word with you to see what He has to say about the subject.

The very goal of keeping everyone happy drove me to that point of hiding. I was stuck within seeing distance of the "answer" but I was too ashamed to actually do anything about it. After all "what would people think if they knew I needed help in this area?"

God knew I'd be there someday. He planned healthy relationships for my life even before I realized I needed them. He's like that you know. Always looking out for our health - knowing that happiness, and even flat out joy, will follow!

A healthy relationship with our heavenly Dad is a life that leads to something much greater than happiness - it is a life filled with joy, with contentment, with peace, even in the midst of the battle called life.

A healthy relationship with our heavenly Dad tends to impact the health of our relationships with our earthly friends.

Healthy relationships with our earthly friends in turn affect our personal health, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

And happiness really does follow a healthy body, mind and soul.

Until next time.

Beth