Seven Hundred and Thirty Days

As the world gets quiet and I reach the end of my day, I remember this:

Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2, KJV)

And I realize this:

He's also the author and finisher of the chapters within the books of our lives.

And He's just concluded one chapter in my book.

And I can hardly breathe at the beauty of the road He has taken me down, at the loveliness of the story He has written into my life.

Tonight, I "made Lifetime" in Weight Watchers.  This milestone means:

**I have lost all the weight I set out to lose and am now at a healthy weight.

and...

**I have maintained that weight (or within +/- 2 pounds of it) for 6 weeks.

God has brought me all the way.  He told me when I started this journey that we would go all the way to the finish line.  He didn't tell me where that line was, or what the journey would look like, or how long it would take, but He told me we would go all the way.

And so we have.  Carried on the wings of His Spirit, I have been brought to the place of health in my relationship to food, in my perspective on exercise, in the actual weight of my body.  He has rooted out sin that fed into these issues.  I have been given a freedom I never imagined.  I am living.

For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; BUT if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will LIVE, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  --Romans 8:13-15, NIV

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.  --Romans 8:1-3, NIV

Sweet liberty...I am free.  What I could not do for myself, Jesus Himself did for me.  This is the love of Jesus Christ made manifest in my life. 

There simply aren't words to convey the depth of my emotion, of my gratitude.

Seven hundred and thirty days.  This journey has taken seven hundred and thirty days.  Two years exactly.  And now, this chapter is closed.

And tomorrow, 9.9.2009, a new one begins.  May it, too, be ever and always,

To the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the One He loves (Ephesians 1:6, NIV),

-J

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.  --Revelation 1:5b-6, NIV