The Other Pause in Menopause

It’s so difficult to think of our bodies as not just our own. After all, we live and breathe in these bodies. We walk in them. We sleep in them. We tell our fingers to move, our legs to bend, and our mouths when to open or close.

But is that really the way it’s supposed to be?

So much that we do is just reflexive…just done automatically. But what happens when we stop and pause a moment – pause to think about what the Lord would have us do?

I haven’t figured out how to move through life that way yet…don’t know if I ever will (fully). But over this last week, I have been making a concentrated effort to tune in more with God physically as well as spiritually.

This came out of the fact that although I have been feeding myself spiritually in prayer and time spent with the Lord, my body has just deteriorated over this last year or two. It took becoming quite desperate for me to wake up and realize that I needed God’s help in this area too.

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to physical stuff, I tend to separate that from the Lord sometimes. I tend to get caught up in thinking it’s just a part of living in this flesh that I have to deal with on my own – weight gain, menopausal hormonal symptoms, body aches, injuries – the whole thing. But, although it’s true that our flesh is going to eventually fail us, there is power in asking the Lord to help us to keep our perspective straight in relation to our bodies in the here and the now.

He can help us.

So, I have embarked upon a different way in relation to getting my body straightened out, friends. I thought it fitting to share a few of these things with you as I go along and tell you how the Lord is growing me spiritually in each of these areas.

Week 1 – What’s Happening?

I could tell my body has become just,  “polluted.” All of the hormonal changes, the stress that has built up over the past few years since mama passed away, the sedentary jobs – all of it has just poisoned my body. I have been focusing on my spiritual health, which is good, but my body needed something more extreme than just “eat pretty well, and exercise a few times a week.” I had to surrender to the fact that extreme measures are sometimes the right ones when it comes to fully surrendering something of this magnitude. Here is the first thing the Lord led me to…

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7

Hmmm. What did I learn as I focused upon this scripture this past week? And what did I think about changing and submitting to as I felt led by the Lord?

Changes I have made:

Detoxify. I have removed all processed (even the “good” ones) stuff from my eating plan. I kept only one little thing, which is a splash of sugar free creamer in my two cups of coffee in the morning. The rest of the day, it’s water, tea, and whole foods. I already feel waaaayyy better!

New Discipline: I have let go of not doing the weight training that is so highly recommended for menopausal women and started to do this two to three times a week along with cardio. I don’t enjoy it, but know it is making me stronger.

Giving up even more of “my” time: I have added stretching/relaxation time in for my muscles and stress levels and used that time to talk with and pray to the Lord – spend the time with Him.

Overall Change: I am really pressing in and thinking on this verse daily….I am trying to focus upon thinking of myself the way the Lord thinks of me, versus the way that I think of me.

Things are going quite well, friends. I feel better physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I feel that the Lord is working on healing me, but that it’s a daily and moment-by-moment process contingent upon my surrender and willingness to accept His gentle, yet loving correction.

He is working on asking me to strike the correct balance between relying upon Him ultimately for all of it, yet be a good student and research things that will help me to meet these goals.

I want to take better care of His temple. But I selfishly find myself thinking of my body still as “mine” too. I haven’t yet figured out if I am supposed to let go of that part of it. It’s hard sometimes to discern whether your driving motivation is self-oriented or God-oriented when it comes to something as all-encompassng as the body you wake  up inside of every day, the mind you are stuck with every second, or anything else that is pervasive and with you all the time.

But hard doesn’t have to be bad. Not when God is on our side.

He is truly made “perfect through my weakness” – He is magnified when I realize I don’t have this all figured out – He is the One who gets all the glory for the success I may experience.

And when I fail, I get the opportunity to search my own heart with the Lord and accept His correction and guidance.

I am excited to share things with you as they develop in this area of my life because I am pretty certain many of you are contending with an area or two in your own lives that you just don’t enjoy very much right now, and I want to encourage you:

For I (we) can do everything through Christ, who gives me (us) strength. Philippians 4:13

Like Proverbs says, we must BELIEVE. Like Philippians says, we must turn to Christ for His strength, and His power!

Won’t you spend some time with the Lord today if there is an area that you know you are struggling with in regard to your belief? Ask Him…tell Him the truth. Tell the Lord and cry out to Him “God, I want to believe, but I don’t and I am asking You to help my unbelief here!”

Take this time to pause and fill the gap with HIM.

Jesus loves that, friends. He loves it when we cry out to Him honestly and ask Him to meet us where we are! He shows up big time and makes His power known to us in new ways when we come to Him in such a manner.

May you be blessed today as you search for faith and complete belief with the Lord. And may what we think in the depths of our  hearts be more and more of Him, and less and less of us!

(Maybe the “less of us” will also translate into weight loss if He decides it would be good for us – hee hee).

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