Planning

God has taught me a lot about planning over the last few years. I started out planning my week. Then my days. Our God is a God of order. He taught me how to order my finances. He taught me how to order my grocery shopping and to plan two weeks of menus at a time. He taught me to order my household, my housework. Most times I am 15 minutes away from a visitable house. 

If I look at the worst time in my life, it was always during these that I lost my sense of order. A long time ago I had no order to begin with. When I am over-hungry, overtired, holding anger, overstressed, lonely, or hurting; I tend to let all order go out the window. I start on bad habits that are still lingering. All logical thought flies out the window. This is when I binge on food. So I do a HEART check several times a day to see where I am at mentally. 

Hurting?

Exhausted?

Angry?

Resentful?

Tense?

If I am. I step back, look inside, and figure out how I am feeling. If one of these is off, then I look back at my day to see where I went off track. Go to a quiet place, read some scripture, talk to God about it, and start again. It worked okay yesterday. Today it worked wonderfully well. Yesterday, I got stressed, missed 3 total hours between my 84 calorie Optifast drinks, said things I regretted. Walked away, did my check and was able to return, apologize, and moved on.  Today, I stuck to my schedule, nourished my body and brain on time, and was able to give Glory to God in all I said and did. 

Hopefully another lesson learned.