Sweet Grace For Your Journey

Episode 120-Finding Truth

What is truth? Where can we find it? In college in the early 70s, I majored in journalism and Bible. Both needed to be based on truth. These days, though, both are being questioned. 

The dictionary gives about six definitions of truth, but I propose two answers are right. Truth is what God says is truth. Truth is what God says is a fundamental spiritual reality. What we as Christians believe is that Jesus is the truth 

So if I believe that Jesus is the truth, why for years did I base my life on a lie? It’s hard when we have to face the cold, hard facts of what we have done. I looked back over my life and saw that my entire life up to about 2009 had been based on a foundational lie that foods made with processed sugar and flour were necessary for my survival. 

Living in the midst of this lie is what kept me stuck in super morbid obesity for years. God was about to reveal His truth to me.

Overcomers Academy: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers/

Sweet Surrender: https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Surrender-Teresa-Shields-Parker/dp/0986159247/

Episode 119-Goodness of God

God’s plans are always for our good and not our disaster. God is the author and finisher of our stories. He has a plot twist for every time we throw ourselves into disaster. He will then use that disaster to teach us something that we will never learn any other way.

God still has a way of taking our messes and using them to forge new pathways that will still get us to His designed purpose for our lives.

It’s vital that we don’t buy into lies that say God doesn’t care about us because something didn’t go the way we wanted it to. This morphs into a lie and then a full-blown stronghold. We need to understand what we really believe about God and work with Him to break our strongholds and bring about His purposes in the world. 

Overcomers Academy: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers/

Sweet Surrender: https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Surrender-Teresa-Shields-Parker/dp/0986159247/

Episode 118-God's Lifeboat

Do you feel stuck on your healthy living journey? Maybe you’re just getting started or you have lost weight and have gotten to a place where you just feel stuck and you want to give up. Maybe it seems impossible for you to go forward. And you just want to find out what is holding you back.

As you probably know in 2020 I spent a lot of time writing my sixth book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds. That resulted in me also putting together a course called Breaking Strongholds which is available in Overcomers Academy. Now it’s 2022 and I want to share some of that information on this podcast. It will be still be helpful for you to read my book that includes action steps and the course that goes even deeper. 

We know that the devil has us bound up in strongholds and that’s why we don’t think we can go forward on our healthy living journey. These episodes will help us understand more of how to defeat the lies the enemy throws our way which develop into strongholds. God wants those broken. We need to work with Him to accomplish that.

Overcomers Academy: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers/

Sweet Surrender: https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Surrender-Teresa-Shields-Parker/dp/0986159247/

Episode 117-Total Transformation

Our goal in all that we do should be total transformation—Body, Soul and Spirit. The vehicle to get us there is habit change, but the enemy loves to try to throw obstacles in our way.

We can’t control everything that happens to us and has happened, but we can change how we respond to it. We can change our habits. It’s a huge key.

Proverbs 5:21 TPT tells us that “God sees everything you do and His eyes are wide open as He observes every single habit you have.” Out of all of habit changes, the things that put your focus on God instead of food are the most important. 

Overcomers Academy: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Teresa’s Books:  https://Teresashieldsparker.com/books/

Episode 116-How Habits Work

We will never be perfect. But as Matthew 5:48 AMP says “We can be growing towards spiritual maturity both in mind and character, actively integrating godly values into our daily lives.” That’s how God defines perfect.

In order to do that, we have to change the habits that got us into our mess in the first place. A habit is simply a routine or a shortcut our minds use to conserve energy. We are creatures of habits, but our minds don’t know a good habit from a bad one. They only know there are certain things we do every day the same way at about the same time.

To change our habits, we stop an old habit that is bad for us and start a new better habit in its place. The key to developing a new habit is choosing the new habit over the old consistently for a long enough time that our minds recognize that as tour preferred habit. Then our minds will work with us instead of fighting against what we are trying to change.

This episode gives more specificity as to how to do this. What bad habit do you want to stop? What good habit do you want to start?  I’d love to hear what you are doing. Comment anywhere you can find me.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sweet-grace-for-your-journey

https://facebook.com/TeresaShieldsParker/

https://instagram.com/treeparker/

https://twitter.com/treeparker/

https://pinterest.com/treeparker/

https://Teresashieldsparker.com/podcast/

Overcomers Academy Link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 115-Comfortable Ruts

To be comfortable is at the top of most every person’s list. I want a comfortable home, comfortable chair, comfortable clothes, comfortable meals, comfortable people to live with, comfortable climate and comfortable shoes.

What happens, then, is we fall into comfortable ruts. Ruts can be good or bad. They can simplify our lives or they can cause us to stay stuck in difficult situations. When we find what we think works for us we do it over and over again and before you know it, it has become a comfortable rut we don’t even have to think about. 

On the flip side, ruts can become very uncomfortable and can begin before I comprehend I’m in one. One big one I fell into was eating comfort foods in order to stave off emotions I didn’t know how to handle.

To change, I had to see the rut for what it was—debilitating, controlling and deadly. I had to define what I wanted and what course of action would take me where I wanted to go. I had to ask for God’s help and be intentional about changing what had become a really bad habit. 

This episode includes challenges to get headed in the right direction.

Overcomers Academy link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 114--Thrive in 2022

From as far back as I can remember, God has given me a word to ponder throughout the year. But it wasn’t until 2013 that I started keeping track of those words. Each year the word He has given me has defined that year in some way. 

Some years He drops the word into my heart and I know right away that that’s the word for the year. But for 2022, it wasn’t that easy. I shied away from the word when He first highlighted it to me. It didn’t seem like a biblical word to me and I wasn’t sure exactly how to apply it to what 2022 might bring.  But see, I don’t need to know. I just need to grab hold of the word He gives me and hold it close. 

What sealed it for me was when I came across a prophecy for 2022 from Joyce D. McGuire that said: “2022 will be what My people make it. The remnant shall hear My voice and THRIVE,” saith the Lord. That was the confirmation I needed. God pointed it out clearly. Your word for 2022 is Thrive.

This is a word that leads us to our destiny and legacy in God. This is a word for both the young and the old, but it really speaks to me as I get older. Don’t miss how to apply this word in your life.

Overcomers Link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/Overcomers

Episode 113-Embrace Hope

I’m looking towards 2022 with the desire to embrace hope! Last week we talked about some emotions that may have become core issues. These are holding us back from being all in with God. Some of these are hatred, overwhelm, procrastination and exhaustion. 

Altogether the first letters of these words spell HOPE. And oddly enough so do the first letters of the core truths that we need in order to put these issues to rest and embrace hope.

Hope is not wishful thinking, like I hope I win the lottery!  Hope is the secure belief that all God has promised us in this life and beyond will be fulfilled. There is only one place that is secure enough to place our hope and that is in our Heavenly Father. 

This is the last podcast of 2021 and my special offer for Overcomers Academy ends on Dec. 31. 

Overcomers Link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 112--Why Can't I Stop Eating?

As a Christian weight loss coach, there are several questions I’m asked that all kind of fall into the category of emotional eating. Like, why do I eat when I know I shouldn’t? Why do I keep eating when I’m full? Why does it seem food is in control of me rather than the other way around? Why can’t I stop eating?

We can’t stop eating because we are eating to quiet our negative emotions. We don’t know how to deal with them so we try to stuff them down with unhealthy amounts of food. 

For most of my adult life I gave into temptation because of four emotional issues I had no clue how to manage: Fear, Anger, Insecurity and Loneliness. These were my core issues and likely are some of yours as well.

This episode will help you recognize your core issues and provide core truths to help overcome them.

Eating Stress Course Link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/stress/

Sugar Addiction Quiz Link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/sugar-quiz/

Episode 111-Perfect Failures

The issue of perfectionism keeps us spinning in circles. We try to be perfect, but as humans it is just not perfect. So if you have a goal of being perfect, you will fail. And then that will stop you dead in your tracks every time. 

Our goal should be to live as God wants us to live. So if you want to be perfect, be the perfect failure. Confess your failure, hand it to God and then, continue on your journey learning all you can from your failures.

Without God’s grace flowing through me, I am weak in our human strength. When I stop trying to get everything perfect and allow God to work through me, life begins to start working out. That’s because finally I realize I need God.  “Then, I am strong, truly able, truly powerful, truly drawing from God’s strength,” (2 Cor. 12:10 AMP).

In this episode I talk about how to overcome perfectionistic tendencies, set good boundaries for your life and allow the fruit of the Spirit called self-control to be evident in your life. 

Free Sugar Addiction Link:  https://Teresashieldsparker.com/sugar-quiz/