For the month of June, I had begun reading Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, as a part of the Booking It series, but I couldn’t get through it. I think it is because I just finished a few years of “required reading” for school, and Pilgrim’s Progress is a meaningful book that needs significant thought and I don’t have the patience for it right now. Hopefully I’ll read it later on, as I have heard wonderful things about it.

Instead, I read Jennette Fulda’s personal weight loss story called, Half-Assed: A Weight-loss Memoir. Fulda kept an online journal/blog and it was the starting point for this book.

Fulda is very real about her 192 pound weight loss journey. There were a few events that led to her realizing she needed to lose weight (you’ll have to read the book to find out the specifics). Her family members were also overweight and it was something they never spoke about. She mentions she wasn’t one of those girls whose mother constantly nagged her about weight. She purposely wouldn’t tell the readers what weight loss method she used, as it wasn’t just one specific thing she did to lose the weight of a whole person.

I appreciated that she addressed the fact that successful weight loss only occurs when you consistently practice good eating and health habits. Three years ago this month, in a department store fitting room, I saw the cold reality that I had gained a lot of weight. I had tried to lose weight before, but my motivation to keep healthy habits would quickly wane. I could stay on a diet for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, but then got burned out and would gain the weight back. This time though, it was different. I was really bothered with how I had so easily “let myself go”. Unlike, Fulda who said she had never tried a diet, I had and it was shocking how fast I was a plumper version.

Fulda wrote about the emotional, psychological, and physiological effects weight loss had on her. I could relate with what she said, because I had experienced, on a smaller scale-no pun intended :-), what she described. Choosing a parking spot further away from a store’s door added physical activity to Fulda’s day. Learning how to cook, instead of using the microwave or fast-food driveways, enabled her to lose even more weight. One of my favorite points she made was that she would only do something she could sustain. Taking the stairs at her office was a starting point to increasing daily exercise. She wrote that baby steps mattered and they added up to bigger things.

Whether or not you have struggled with your weight, Fulda’s writing will give you a picture of a successful weight loss journey. It is an entertaining read and there were points I laughed and cried because of her sincerity. I hope this post has given you more of a desire to read the book, I definitely think you will like it. 

This post is overdue as I got a teensy bit busy finishing up my Master’s degree and doing two jobs at work! As part of my reading plan for 2011, I wanted to read “The Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning. I finished this book a few weeks ago and I think I will want to re-read it a few times over my lifetime to actually understand the depth Manning discussed. Our friend, PC who blogs at Ragamuffin Ramblings recommended this book. Here are my personal highlights:

• Through no merit of ours, but by His mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of His beloved Son (page 20)
• When I go to church I can leave my white hat at home and admit I have failed. God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am (p. 23)
• The legalists can never live up to the expectations they project on God (p. 40)
• But trust in the God who loves consistently and faithfully nurtures confident, free disciples. A loving God fosters a loving people (p. 41)
• In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us-that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace. We have that peace when the gracious God is all we seek. When we start seeking something besides Him, we lose it (p. 46)
• For Jesus this fellowship at the table with those whom the devout had written off was not merely the expression of liberal tolerance and humanitarian sentiment. It was the expression of His mission and message: peace and reconciliation for all, without exception, even for the moral failures (p. 62)
• Joy was in fact the most characteristic result of all His ministry to ragamuffins (p. 62)
• Christianity happens when men and women accept with unwavering trust that their sins have not only been forgiven but forgotten, washed away in the blood of the Lamb (p. 119)
• Trust clings to the belief that whatever happens in our lives is designed to teach us holiness (p. 120)
• The deadening spirit of hypocrisy lives on…in people who prefer to surrender control of their souls to rules rather than run the risk of living in union with Jesus (p. 140)

The chapter titled, Freedom From Fear (pp. 145-162), was was one of the most impacting chapters of the book for me

• Freedom in Christ produces a healthy independence form peer pressure, people-pleasing, and the bondage of human respect. The tyranny of public opinion can manipulate our lives. What will the neighbors think? What will my friends think? The expectations of others can exert a subtle but controlling pressure on our behavior (p. 152)
• In Christ Jesus, freedom from fear empowers us to let go the desire to appear good, so we can move freely in the mystery of who we really are (p. 152)
• Living by grace inspires a growing consciousness that I am what I am in the sight of Jesus (p. 154)
• Behind people’s grumpiest poses and most puzzling defense mechanisms, behind their arrogance and airs, behind their silence, sneers, and causes, Jesus saw little children who hadn’t been loved enough and who had ceased growing because someone ceased believing in them. His extraordinary sensitivity caused Jesus to speak of the faithful as children, no matter how tall, rich, clever, and successful they might be (p. 157-158)
• Once again, gentleness toward ourselves constitutes the core of our gentleness with others. … Solidarity with ragamuffins frees the one who receives compassion and liberates the one who gives it in the conscious awareness “I am the other.” (p. 159)
• Certainly “tough love” and discipline have their place in the Christian family. If children are not educated to the difference between right and wrong, they can easily become neurotic. However, only the discipline administered out of love is corrective and productive (p. 159)
• The decisive thing is the freedom of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The ground and source of our freedom lies not in ourselves, who are by nature slaves to sin, but in the freedom of His grace setting us free in Christ by the Holy Spirit. We are free from the slavery of sin-for what? For the saving grace of the living God! (p. 161)
• Second journeys usually end with a new wisdom and a coming to a true sense of self that releases great power. … It is a wisdom that gives some things up, lets some things die, and accepts human limitations. It is a wisdom that realizes: I cannot expect anyone to understand me fully. It is a wisdom that admits the inevitability of old age and death. It is a wisdom that has faced the pain caused by parents, spouse, family, friends, colleagues, business associates, and has truly forgiven them and acknowledged with unexpected compassion that these people are neither angels nor devils, but only human (p. 164-165)
• The calls asks, Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you? … If in our hearts we really don’t believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross (p. 165)
• Faith means you want God and want to want nothing else (p. 167)
• The second call is drawing us to a deeper faith. We need to ask ourselves: Do I really believe the Good News of Jesus Christ? Do I hear His word spoken to my heart: “Shalom, be at peace, I understand”? And what is my response to His second call, whispering to me, “You have My love. You don’t have to pay for it. You didn’t earn it and can’t deserve it. You only have to open to it and receive it. You only have to say yes to My love-a love beyond anything you can intellectualize or imagine”? (p. 168)
• If we are going to keep growing, we must keep on risking failure throughout our lives (p. 175)
• The Christian with depth is the person who has failed and who has learned to live with it (p. 175-176)
• What we do about the lordship of Jesus is a better indication of our faith than what we think (p. 177)
• After life has lined their faces a little, many followers of Jesus come into a coherent sense of themselves for the first time. When they modestly claim, “I am still a ragamuffin, but I’m different,” they are right. Where sin abounded gracehas more abounded (p. 182)
• But we have turned the tables; we try to live so that he will love us, rather than living because he already loved us (p. 183)
• The gospel of grace announces, Forgiveness precedes repentance. The sinner is accepted before he pleads for mercy. It is already granted. He need only receive it. Total amnesty. Gratuitous pardon (p. 188)
• Make a radical choice in faith, despite all your sinfulness, and sustain it through ordinary daily life for Christ the Lord and His kingdom (p. 192)
• Are you moody and melancholy because you are still striving for the perfection that comes from our own efforts and not from faith in Jesus Christ? … Though on a given day you may be more depressed than anything else, is the general orientation of your life toward peace and joy? (p. 202)
• The first step toward rejuvenation begins with accepting where you are and exposing your poverty, frailty, and emptiness to the love that is everything. Don’t try to feel anything, think anything, or do anything. With all the goodwill in the world you cannot make anything happen. Don’t force prayer. Simply relax in the presence of the God you half believe in and ask for a touch of folly (p. 203)
• God is enamored with His people and so intent upon a response that He even provides the grace to respond (p. 208-209)
• The love of Christ is beyond all knowledge, beyond anything we can intellectualize or imagine. It is not a mild benevolence but a consuming fire. Jesus is so unbearably forgiving, so infinitely patient, and so unendingly loving that He provides us with the resources we need to live lives of gracious response. “Glory be to Him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20) (p. 209)
• [Speaking of Mary Magdelene] She simply let herself be loved. … Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. … That is what converted the Roman world and what will convert us, and the people around us, if they see that the love of Christ has touched us. … Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands (p. 211)
• As C.S. Lewis was fond of saying, people need more to be reminded than to be instructed. (p. 211)

Have you read “The Ragamuffin Gospel”? What things did Manning write that stood out to you?

This month, I had  planned on reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (my reading plan), however it was much too complex for me in this stage of life. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am taking my last class for my Master’s Degree in Special Education. Maybe I will pick up Mansfield Park later on, but for this month, I read the book, “Living Free in Christ: The Truth About Who You Are and How Christ Can Meet Your Deepest Needs” by Neil T. Anderson. 

“Living Free in Christ” has 36 short chapters, each one with a prayer regarding the chapter’s contents. I didn’t really pay attention for the prayers since I wasn’t reading it as a devotional. Last year, I read his book, “Victory Over the Darkness” and loved the truths spoken, but I found some of the stories very similiar and hard to re-read them. 

The main things I took away from this book were the following quotes:

• I am no longer a product of my past, I am a product of the work of Christ on the cross. I am a child of God, and the basis for my acceptance is in Him, not in man (page 21)
• I am accepted by God completely as I am. (amen!) I do not have to do anything for Him to accept me (page 22)
• It is critical for me to know that I am a child of God—it’s the basis for how I live my life (page 28)
• I am Christ Jesus’s friend—He appointed and chose me! (page 36)
• God’s definition of true freedom is for us to voluntarily be dependent on Him.  1) Free from the law; 2) Free from the past; 3) Free from sin (page 54)
• Ephesians 1:13, 14 The Holy Spirit is the seal, He is the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance! (page 141)
• Mercy: not giving people what they deserve in terms of judgement (page 168)
• Grace: giving people what they don’t deserve (page 169)
• The fear of the Lord, not the fear of man, is the beginning of wisdom (page 202)
• (Our Heavenly Father) trims us so we will bear more fruit (page 203)
• Is the fruit of the Spirit more evident in your life this year than last year? (page 208)
• We are God’s workmanship; not our parents, not our pastors’, not our society’s (page 257)

A lot of good things to contemplate. I am really looking forward to starting my next book, “The Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning. It has come highly recommended by one of our friends, PC, so much so that he named his blog and twitter account after it (@ragamuffinpc).  I know Manning speaks on the topic of grace and I am extactic about that! 

Until then, I leave you with this quote from Anderson’s book.

The most important belief we possess is a true knowledge of who God is. The second most important belief is who we are as children of God, because we cannot consistently behave in a way that is inconsistent with how we perceive ourselves. And if we do not see ourselves as God sees us, then to that degree we suffer from a wrong identity and a poor image of who we we really are. 

It is not what we do that determines who we are. It is who we are that determines what we do… (page 11)

Thanks for reading!

Today, I finished reading the second book for my online book club, “The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun” by Gretchen Rubin. There are a number of things I am excited about having just finished this book:

1. I have finished my second book for the year!
2. I completed the book a few days early to be able to discuss it for the book club meeting
3. I have a lot of things rattling in my head regarding the topics Rubin covered in this book that I want to do something about.

Thanks to Life as Mom’s, Jessica Fisher, I had a handy-dandy “Reading Notes” paper stuck inside the book so I could write down quotes from the book that stuck out to me.

Here are some of them:

• Page 92, “The aspect of parenthood that intimidated me most was its irreversibility. Spouse, job, work, location- most of the big decisions in life can be reconsidered. Change might be difficult and painful, but it’s possible. But a baby is different. A baby is irrevocable. Once Eliza [her daughter] was born, however, I never gave another thought to the irreversibility of parenthood.” Rubin writes that children bring a fog happiness. Something you can feel, but it can’t really be explained or captured. I enjoyed reading her thoughts on “before” parenthood.
• Rubin talks a lot about “Being Gretchen.” I thought about what does it mean to Be Malisa. This is something I want to discover and embrace.
• Page 152, “‘Mere exposure effect’…the more often you see a person, the more intelligent and attractive you’ll find that person.” So true!
• Pages 176-178, “Hedonic treadmill - spending doesn’t necessarily produce happiness.” This goes hand-in-hand with Anthony and my decision to become debt free. The feeling of being enslaved to debt certainly makes this principle even more astounding. 
• Page 179, “It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that if you have something you love or there’s something you want, you’ll be happier with more.”
• Page 185, “It’s certainly true in my household that spending out [not expecting payback] creates a wealth of tenderness while calculation and score keeping build resentment.” I loved Rubin’s thoughts on this topic. It helped me realize that what I do for someone else matters and doesn’t just affect them, but myself also. I think this mirrors the Golden Rule: Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.
• Page 223, I also liked the portion about “Do what you do.” She says, “What you enjoyed doing as a ten-year-old, or choose to do on a free Saturday afternoon is a strong indication of your passion.” Herein lies a challenge for me, what do I like to do? Discovering what I like, not wishing I liked something else, is what I want to figure out.
• Page 260, “As a way to help myself stay serene and cheerful, I resolved to discipline myself to direct my thoughts away from subjects that made me angry or irritable.” WOW! This is a concept I am already trying to implement and keep on practicing. A great example is talk radio…if I’m finding that my blood is boiling, it is probably an indicator that it is NOT a source of happiness. Change the channel and steer clear!
• Page 269, “Enthuisiasm is a form of social courage.” How true. I was reminded of how someone very dear to me, my mom, has always been accused of being too Pollyanna-like. But her choosing to be happy and play the “glad game” is harder than the opposite, being a grumpy, angry person.
• Page 270, “[It is] easy to be heavy; hard to be lighthearted.”

Overall, I really liked this book. I would like to start my own “Happiness Project,” but I’m not sure when I will start or how it will look. One thing I was reminded of so eloquently in the book was the things we do every day matter more than the things we do once in a while. Thanks, Gretchen, for a wonderful book.

Today I finished the first book of my reading plan for 2011. I have joined an online book club. The book I completed was “Gazelles, Baby Steps and 37 Other Things Dave Ramsey Taught Me about Debt” by Jon Acuff. I was very excited to read this book as my husband (Anthony Price) and I are HUGE fans of Dave Ramsey and enjoy Jon’s writings/blog. One thing I really liked was how fast of a read this book was. Another reason I enjoyed this book was that I found myself laughing very frequently—out loud even. Some of the topics (The Nerd/Free Spirit test, Baby Proofing Your Home from your 27 year old, Weddings, Baby Showers, and House Warming Parties) were so original, and I had thought of some of those things in the past. 

One theme I found throughout the book was that of life after Financial Peace University, something I have begun to experience! In a conversation with a person (who shall remain anonymous), I said, “Well, that’s not what…” The other person said, “Let me guess, you were going to say, not what Dave Ramsey says.” I replied, “Yes, Dave Ramsey doesn’t think of tax refunds as windfall money or a backward way of saving, rather they are an interest-free loan to the government.” I find myself frequently wanting to share the wisdom I’ve gained from Dave by reciting his 7 Baby Steps and quoting his many one-liners. 

Thank you Jon for writing this easy-to-read book and Dave for giving us the tools to end enslavement to debt!