#impACTforLife ACTion Challenge - Week 2

Welcome Back! 
I hope Week 1 was an exciting boost to ACTivating your healthy and fit lifestyle. Keep those #impACTforLife posts coming as this week we'll set up for Week 3's intensity! Keep hydrating your body. You may want to subscribe to several of these great blogs!

#impACTforLife – Week 2

Nothing Changes until you ACT!

Monday

Continue your healthy habits from Week 1. Don’t let cooler weather derail you.

Set a new fitness goal.

Write it down! 

Be proACTive: Share your new goal with us using the #impACTforLife hashtag. Writing things down & sharing goals with others helps you stick to your commitment. You never know what may inspire someone else!

Some ideas: 

•    Run a mile without stopping

•    Walk a mile under 15 minutes

•    Register for a 5K

•    Do a handstand pushup

•    Lift weights 3x per week

•    Walk 10,000 steps 5 days a week

impACT App: RunKeeper

impACT App: My Fitness Pal

Tuesday

Rethink the pancake!

This quick morning pancake is full of fiber, potassium and protein! Think big oatmeal cookie!

impACT Blog: Morning Glory Pancake

Wednesday

Get up 15 minutes early to ACTivate your day with stretching and a new exercise!

impACT Blog: Runner's World

Thursday

Make a plan! Plan out your meals for next week and write your workouts down in your planner!

As a bonus: Bake cookies! Find a healthier recipe to try or make some healthy swaps to an old favorite!

impACT Blog: Nutritionella

Friday

Clean out a couple of closets and drawers!

Going up and down on a step-ladder can be a little bit of an exercise, but to initiate some sweat – set a timer every 15 minutes. When the buzzer sounds, do a set of crunches, leg lifts, arm circles and, then, get back to work.

Be ProACTive: Be ready to donate any items and clothing that are in good condition to Goodwill!

Weekend

Enough good ACTions lead to good habits!

Watching TV? Get up and move during the commercial breaks.

Try doing 15-30 seconds of pushups, planks, scissor jumps before you sit back down on the sofa, which keeps you ACTive as we move into Week 3 of our #impACTforLife ACTion Challenge!

By the way, if you haven’t settled on a Devo or Scripture Reading Guide for this year, check out: She Reads Truth either on the website or as an impAct App available as a "Plan" in YouVersion. 

Well. So, it turns out I'm NOT Super Woman.

1. Make the bed
2. Make breakfast
3. Pack their lunches
4. Feed pets
5. Run
6. Clean house
7. Do laundry
8. Finish the gift list for Christmas
9. Un-decorate the house
10. Pull tubs of Christmas decor from attic
11. Finalize menu for Thanksgiving
12. Write Center of the Pie blog posts & recipes
13. Prepare guest room
14. Grocery Shop
15. Shower, Shave, Shampoo!
16. Dinner with friends, tonite.
17. 
    

...And, that's just today. Does she sound familiar?

Yep, I'm one of those overachiever list makers who, when discovering something to be done that wasn't originally on my list of To Do's, will go back and add it to my list just so I can mark it off as being completed. It only intensifies during the holidays! Knowingly, as if on a suicide mission for Santa, I will create a overly long list of tasks to accomplish before crashing into my contour pillow and clean sheets before midnight. (CRUD! That wasn't on the list... 17. Change sheets)

Oh, sure, at that point is when the Holy Spirit reminds me I haven't read my eDevo and Bible or prayed, yet. 

I really do love reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament partly because it reveals the personality of God. Take for example the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments. God, who in a mighty display of nature, gave the busy leader of Israel ten specific directives in the earshot of the people. The Creator commanded the attention of an entire, busy nation.

In a similar account, Elijah was busy about doing God’s work; predicting famine, raising the dead, calling down fire from heaven and having 450 prophets of Baal slaughtered, when he is threatened by a nasty lady (the Super Evil Woman of her time). In fear and spiritual exhaustion, he runs for the mountains on the backside of the desert.

Sleeping in a cave and depleted of his own reserve, Elijah experienced a powerful wind, earthquake and fire caused by God, yet, was not in any of them. Then, the Creator gently whispered something to catch the attention of a solitary man. No longer busy, he simply sits quietly with the Father receiving supernatural strength and wisdom.

When I need God to speak into my life, my Creator knows just when and knows just how to capture my attention and settle my busy, self-asserted-Super-Woman self.

Take some time to read Exodus 19 & 20 and 1 Kings 19. Have a wonderfully blessed Christmas!

~"Sam"

Book Review: FRESH AIR by Chris Hodges

Fresh Air
by Chris Hodges
Tyndale Publishing, 2012

After entering a hotel room that smells stale, it's good to either open a window, to switch on the air conditioner or to turn around and walk outside for a gulp of air that is cool and clean.

Alabama Pastor Chris Hodges' life and ministry seemed pretty successful and busy and fruitful, but he felt stale not even knowing when nor how it could have happened. Not even his family knew of the stagnancy that choked his spirit.

I follow Chris on Twitter and saw his book was to release, last month. So, I decided to be one of the first to download it from Amazon. I could have written this book! His words could have easily been taken from a page of my own life at one point. I thought this would be a read only for ministers attempting to  jazz up their pulpit delivery, but Fresh Air is for anyone needing to inhale hope, life, a new start or a deeper walk.

If you, like me, use a Bible-reading plan on YouVersion, a Bible and Devotional app, you'll be happy to know a 14-day devotional became available, this weekend!

~"Sam"

Girlfriends-in-Ministry: Priorities

“If you don’t want us to be in the ministry anymore, just say the word. Right now, you make the decision. What’s it gonna be?”

These were the words of my husband who was frustrated and simply wanted peace. The stress revealed there was a crack in my foundation. That was it, my foundation. Terry and I had been married for less than a year and were part-time youth pastors doing full-time ministry, as well as, working outside jobs. Prior to that night, I had no thought toward the “building blocks” of my life. In that instance it became very clear I needed to dig deep and rebuild. I needed to establish priorities.

Whether or not you agree with the order, is up to you. I've found the following work for me:

1. God
2. Family
3. Ministry (or Career)
4. Myself

Imagine each of the above priorities in the tangible form of a solid block of magnificent rock hand hewn out of the side of a mountain. Starting with Myself being the smallest of the blocks and increasing size with each priority, begin stacking. You'd soon discover you created a wobbly wall with the weight of the ministry and family and outside influences teetering on your strength. See where I'm going?

Early to modern-day architects agree you gotta go deep with a strong foundation to build a sound structure. Reverse the order of our stones with the God-stone, the largest, now, bearing the weight, thus fortifying the entire structure. It can take-on any force, because God, Himself, is absorbing the shock. You may feel the tremors, but trust His strength.

"My gift of undeserved grace is all you need. My power is strongest when you are weak" (2 Corinthians 12:9, CEV)...courtesy of YouVersion.

How are you holding up? Have you ever given thought to your own priorities? Ask God, our living and loving Father, to help you evaluate your own "structure." 

~"Sam"
P.S. It's 2-on-Tuesday, so at 2pm, look for blog post #2, which will be a recipe!