Our Journey Together: 10 years of Ups and Downs

            To many of you this is going to be a totally different side of Jen and me then you have seen before.  We are going to social media not only to be hip, but to really reach out to our friends and family for hope and encouragement.  This weekly update is something that we feel is necessary, but also beneficial not only to us, but to others who might be struggling with similar issues. 

            On Sept. 01, 2011 Jen and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  Believe it or not, this is quite an accomplishment for us as any number of things could have split us apart over the years, especially my struggles which I’ve been very willing to share, and will continue to share in the blog.  We cannot and would not attribute our success thus far to anything but Christ.  The truth of the matter is that it is only through and because of Christ that we have managed to celebrate 10 years.  We have been blessed by family members who have prayed for us, and friends who have encouraged us through some very dark times.  In fact for people who know our story, they know that if Christ can keep us together, then He can certainly keep anyone else together.

            So why are Jen and I getting ready to share more than just our faith, but also our physical and spiritual struggles as well? Is it in the hopes that we will generate some more readers? Is it hoping that people will look at us and pat us on the back? In all honesty I hope none of these explanations are the reason, however, we are human beings, and just maybe our story will be of interest that it will generate readership.  However, this is not our main reason I feel.  Proverbs 27:17 says: “Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.  New American Standard Bible (N.A.S.B). We both truly believe that it is our hope that these posts will serve as an encouragement for us, and that you all will also join us in encouragement.  We’ll start with Jen first.

To tell you the truth it has taken me a week to get the courage up to start writing this.  Even now I feel the urge to get up and “run.” I have tried losing weight for many years and it has yet to truly accomplish anything.  I’m not going try and put on rosy glasses as I tell you what my problem is, as I used to in hopes that someone who has gone or is going through the same issue.  My weight at the time of this picture was 259.

Jen at Weigh In

            I am an emotional eater, and I have been since I was a child.  I also have dealt with depression and sometimes severe depression.  Those who have dealt with depression know what a cycle it can become.  I start eating because I’m feeling down, or more often angry and then I get angry or depressed because of the sugar crash I’m on or just the simple fact that I know that I have just sinned by going to food for my comfort or filling my face because it has been an outlet for my anger and I just want to get revenge with whomever is hurting me, which is in reality myself.  So the cycle begins……

            The emotional eating is just a symptom of a bigger problem that I have only really started to see/realize.  I live very emotionally and find myself living in my anger and depression for the silliest reasons.  I have neglected to go to my Heavenly Father to let Him cleanse my thoughts, feelings, emotions, and overall mind. I have also neglected to go to the Word to be renewed.  Even though I KNOW the Truth about my calling, I KNOW the Truth about my blessed life I have unfortunately believed the lies of Satan for so long that they plague me often.  The most frequent lies are: 1. I am ugly 2. I will always be ugly 3. No one likes me 4.  I threw my life away when I quit school to marry and start a family 5. That I can’t handle my life, it is too crazy, busy, loud, and includes 9 too many kids!  6. Life isn’t fair, and it should be. 

            As I read those lies I shake my head in amazement at how ridiculous I can be, throwing hissy fits over things that I can’t change, nor would if I were in my right mind because I know the Lord is using every circumstance to draw me ever closer to Him and to mold me into His image. 

            My hope and prayer is that this time I will make changes that last. No, I mean that I let the Lord work in my heart changes that last a life time… There are so many things on my “To Change” list, but for now I have a few things that I am going to truly try to make habits: 1. To be in the Word daily, I am going to even try a reading plan to go along with the Bible Studies that I will desperately try to keep up with 2. To exercise daily and eat healthier 3. To speak softer  to my children. 

            With my personality, I will admit that I am looking for encouragement and kind yet firm rebuke when I’m not walking the walk.  Heck, I’m probably at my highest weight yet again, so it can’t get any worse than that as long as I’m trying, right? Hopefully next year I’ll have an after pic that looks amazing, and I finally won’t be embarrassed to do a family picture that includes myself.  Now to hand it over to Paul.

Paul at Weigh In

This strapping young man is me, Paul Emery, at a whopping 278lbs.  Yeah, that is quite the gut I’m sporting there huh? The truth of the matter is every time I get on a scale and see my weight I say, “I don’t feel that fat”.  As they always say though, a picture speaks a thousand words!

My physical fitness hasn’t been the only issue though this year.  The truth of the matter is although there have been some great spiritual things going on in my life over the past two years, there is still a lot of baggage and junk that I really need to let go of in my life.  Right now I’m feeling pretty good spiritually, however it was only three months ago that I again fell into a constant sin struggle I have in regards to sexual purity.

            I John 1:6-7 are a couple of verses that I regularly find myself meditating on when I am spiritually healthy.  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin (N.A.S.B).”  Really this section all the way from verse 5 to verse 10 has brought about a Spiritual Wakefulness and a return of zeal in my faith that I haven’t experienced in over a decade.  Even though I have fallen into sin, I refuse to dwell there! 

            My physical fitness has many contributing factors.  I’m not near as active as I was while in High School where I was involved in many different activities and extra-curricular events.  Even though I don’t burn near as many calories as I once did, I have not cut back on my calories as I should in order to better suit my current physical activity level.  I’m currently working two jobs, although I did have a season of about two months where I was working three, but two of the jobs were desk type jobs.  My other problem is I love to eat, and I won’t tell myself, NO!  This of course plays into the physical and the spiritual aspects of my life at present. 

            I’ve been told that the recommended weight for my stature is 177lbs.  Do I really see myself getting down to this level? No, not really; however, I do believe that I could easily get down and maintain a weight of 200lbs if I were to truly commit and stick to it.  So what is my plan of action to begin working towards this goal? I am going to commit to daily exercise at least 5 days a week at no less than 30 min. a day.  Putting this to pen and paper is not necessarily going to mean it happens, so I’m asking you all to encourage me as I know many of you will.  I am also going to commit to limiting my caloric intake.  I’ve been told 1500 calories would be a sufficient method of encouraging weight loss, so I will try to stick to no more than 1700 calories a day with the goal of only taking in 1500 calories.

            Spiritually speaking there are also some goals I need to set.  I’m hereby committing to partaking in at least 30 minutes to preferably an hour of quiet time on a daily basis.  This commitment is going to be a 365 day commitment, and not one that I should bow out of easily.  I also am going to commit to becoming more involved in a ministry inside of my church as well as a ministry outside as well.  To those of you who are familiar with American Family Radio this is similar to the seven commitments that Matt Friedeman encourages people who want to be members of the “in the fight” club.   

We’ll be posting an update next week as we begin this process.  God bless.

The Run of my Life

“It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

            This last weekend, Oct. 14-16, was the Men’s Retreat for Magnolia Bible Church.  It was a great time of fun and fellowship with my fellow brothers in Christ.  We had two men profess faith in Christ on Saturday night, which is always a cause for celebration.  We had a speaker who spoke about men rising up and being the leaders we need to be for our families, our neighborhood, our Church, and our community.  He actually worded it that we need to be the Pastors of our streets. 

            Originally, I was going to be spending the weekend up at University of Texas Dallas for the Texas Leadership Conference for Phi Theta Kappa, the two year college International Honor Society.  Upon finding out that our men’s retreat was going to be on the same weekend, I almost decided to forgo the men’s retreat.  This was not God’s plan for me, and almost as immediately as I contemplated not going to the retreat, I was convicted and decided to instead forgo the Leadership conference.

            The truth of the matter is that there has been a whole lot of sin and junk going on in my life over the past month or two.  Although there were many days in which I was still able to kind of demonstrate a good Christian walk, there were many days when I was not even faking it well.  In fact about three to four weeks ago I chose to again satisfy my love for sin instead of my love for my Savior.  This has lead to a lot of tension, of course, between my wife, children, and I.  In fact it was enough to have the Elders of our Church decide that indeed it was for my best interest that for the time being I not partake in any roles that resemble leadership in the Church. 

            On Saturday night I was talking to the head of our men’s ministry, just letting him know how much I appreciate his heart and willingness in leading the men of our Church.  I was not intending to speak to him for any length of time, but he felt the need to talk with me.  This is something I greatly appreciate about Rickey.

            Rickey is a great man of God, and also nice and blunt, which is something I both appreciate and need.  As we were talking Rickey again challenged me with some things to think about.  Being raised by a Pastor, as I was, I am very knowledgeable in things of the Scriptures.  In each of the sessions of study I took notes, and in the last three sessions our speaker had us break up into groups to debrief from the previous one.  Since I had notes I ended up leading the small group I participated in, in the sense of refreshing from our previous session.  Rickey told me that every time he sees me sharing the knowledge I have been blessed with he just thinks, “What a waste”.  I have all of this head knowledge and it hasn’t made any difference in my spiritual walk.  He again challenged me that I have to be credible if I’m going to be of any benefit to the Men’s Ministry, and he reiterated that the men’s ministry needs people like me.  He told me, “Paul, you are going to be heartbroken if you are sitting on the sidelines as you see this ministry take off, I know that.” You know what? He is right.

            Rickey is an older man, and in great physical shape.  He regularly works out, and in fact was going running with a couple of the other men the next morning.  I use to enjoy running, although I haven’t been in quite some time, really probably since my junior year of High School.  I decided to go running with these men the next morning. 

            The title of this post is the Run of my life, so now let me tell you why I chose this title.  As I joined the men that Sunday morning I started off on a pretty nice, steady pace, and was in fact ahead of two of the men whom I was running with, and maintaining an even distance with the third.  However, this lasted for only about four to five hundred meters, and all of a sudden I’m breathing heavily, and need to, in fact, just slow to a walk for a brief period of time to catch my breath.  I was then able to run for probably another three to four hundred meters before I again had to slow to a walk, and then another two hundred meters before I finished off…walking. 

            During one of the times of running I also hit a pothole in the asphalt, and almost got tripped up, however I was able to maintain my balance, but it did cause a little pain in my ankle that I rolled.  Throughout the run and definitely in that moment, I almost fell, I had a revelation.  This run was a picture of my Spiritual walk.

            Like many people who profess faith, I started off with a fire and a passion that could not be quenched.  This was a race I was running with all the energy and strength I could muster.  As the days and weeks rolled by and now years, life happened.  This of course has often lead me to a point of either walking in my spiritual life, or quite frankly, standing still.  I remember shortly after my wife and I got married we again were returning to a point of passion and fire, again running the race set before us.  This led me to create Biblically Born Again Ministries, and work alongside my dear brother, Dave Jenkins, and help with Servants of Grace, and participate with Lynn Davenport in Alpha and Omega. 

            Then life happened.  Sin crept into my life, or I simply chose to quit running, and then I saw these things I was so passionate about, for a time, simply fade away and disappear.  In 2008 it got to a point where I even denied my faith.  Why would I do such a foolish thing? The answer is quite simple.  I again loved my sin more then I loved my Savior.  I thought I wanted what I wanted regardless of how bad it was for me and my family.  This of course also led me to step down from working alongside Dave Jenkins.

            In the middle to end of 2008 I again returned to a passion and began my study of 1 John.  Although there have still been sin struggles throughout my study of 1 John, for the most part I was again running the race.  My relationship with my Savior was the focus of my drive and my family has benefitted from that.  It even got to the point where I again could serve in the capacity of teaching the two and three year olds at Church.

            Well, now I slowed back down to a walk, but by the grace of God, He has placed people in my life who are not going to let me get away with falling out of the race.  What is also equally important is I’m not going to let myself be satisfied with that which I know brings no joy or happiness to life.  Yes, I chose my sin over my Savior, over my family, and over myself, but I am not going to be satisfied walking in this race.  The LORD has done so many great things in my life, and the goal of my life should be to glorify Him! 

            
           As I think of the quote I began this blog with I see something I never thought about.  I have not looked at each step as a goal to glorify my Savior.  I have looked at each step of my spiritual run as a step that benefits me, and that is not what this race is about.  Today, I’m sharing with you all the run of my life in the hope that you will see that your life is a run as well.  Are you going to run the race for Christ so you can hear, “Well done my good and faithful servant”? Or are you running the race for yourself? I tell you now that if you aren’t trying to glorify Christ, you may feel happy for a time, but the run you are on will only lead to destruction and heartache.  Believe me, I know!