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The Making of One Size does not Fit All

(30 Day Devotional)

When I wrote my memoir (My Journey with God) I wrote a chapter entitled “The Weight Comes Off” (Chapter 5). In that chapter I wrote about my initial experience of how I was able to lose weight and keep it off for good – God’s way. I wrote the highlights of the process I went through and gave God all the glory. Then, my life went on and I continued following the principles I had initially learned even as I gained new insights from my own personal experience.

After more than a decade, I felt like I wanted to share my experience with others and at that time I felt like I wanted to actually teach people what I’d learned. Around the same time I went to a women’s conference associated with the church I attended. At the conference, I felt like everything that was being said and everything that was being taught was a confirmation to me, personally, that I was, indeed, supposed to begin teaching what I’d learned about weight loss and keeping it off with others … and, specifically, with the members of my own church.

On the way back from the conference I was riding in a vehicle with some of the other ladies and got into a conversation with one of them about how they had dealt with rejection – specifically having their idea rejected by their own Pastor when it had been presented (something they had wanted to do in their church for a ministry that their Pastor didn’t feel was the right thing – at that time anyway). They told me how they handled it and I listened – not realizing at the time how important that conversation really was. I was confident that – once I got back and talked to my own Pastor about my own idea – as well as when I told him all that had happened at the conference to confirm it – that he would agree that it was, in fact, a good idea (even a “God idea”).

Needless to say, I was wrong (again). My Pastor rejected my idea and I was devastated. (To be fair, what he actually said was, “not now,” but I took it as a rejection just the same since I wouldn’t be allowed to pursue what I felt like God wanted me to pursue in my heart right away – with the urgency I felt in my soul.) All kinds of thoughts went through my head that weren’t very pretty, but then I quickly chose to follow the advice I’d unwittingly received from the lady who had previously had her idea rejected by her Pastor.

I had to choose to see things from a broader perspective. I had to choose to believe that it was my idea that was limited. (After all, if I only taught the people in my own church it would only be those limited number of people being affected by what I taught, however, if I somehow taught more than just the people in my own church then my “reach” could be unlimited – so, in a way, my idea being rejected by my own Pastor could be seen as a blessing in disguise.)

Then, one day when I was exercising, I realized all of a sudden, “I could write a book! That’s how I can teach others what I believe in my heart God wants me to teach.” (And that would be an avenue that would have an unlimited reach.)

I already knew in my soul that God did, indeed, want me to teach others what I had learned … there was no doubt about that. When the door closed on the method I thought I was supposed to utilize, I believe the Holy Spirit opened a window by giving me the idea to write a book instead. Then, through faith and my previous experience with what God taught me about “building a book” when I wrote my very first book (My Journey with God), I believed I needed to just “go by faith” and not second-guess my decision as to whether or not God wanted me to do it. (Of course He wanted me to do it if He put the idea in my mind to begin with! Although I was aware I did still have to be careful not to go forth on my own or get ahead of Him and I still needed to be cautious that sometimes “good things” weren’t “God things.”)

In any event, I believed in the endeavor I was about to undertake and I chose to follow what was in my heart all the way through the process of writing the book that came to be called “One Size does not Fit All” (30 Day Devotional).