Goodbye
I know what you’re thinking..where is she going? No where. Now are you thinking who is going? Not a person. Not a pet. But a relationship.
Today I am saying goodbye to my relationship or should I say addiction to Diet Coke.
Are you laughing? Well I’m not. I love Diet Coke, especially the kind with lime. And I’m saying Goodbye.
On Ash Wednesday I posted that for lent I was used to giving something up for 40 days, as this was the tradition in my family since we were Episcopal and in those days that is just what you did. Since I’m not Episcopal anymore I thought I wouldn’t have to do that. I “took up” something instead. Forgiveness and forgetting those that hurt me. I thought that was a challenge. And it is, don’t get me wrong. But now that I’ve learned what my new church’s 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting is all about, I realize that yes I do need to give something up.
So this Lent, I am taking up and giving up.
Why? So that I can believe that God can do the impossible in my life.
From what I’ve learned these past couple days in reading the devotional that I picked up on Sunday and from Sunday’s sermon by the ever so talented Pastor Arlie, is that if we want God to do the impossible for us we need to attempt to do something that to us seems impossible. Make sense? It does to me.
You’d think my impossible would be something life changing or big. Believe me, this is something life changing and big. I love Diet Coke. I drink it all the time. I rarely if ever drink alcohol. I like a nice glass of wine and occassionally a cocktail, but for the most part my beverage of choice is the fizzy wonder of Diet Coke. And I’ve tried to stop drinking it before. And failed. Failed miserably. It isn’t a healthy beverage of choice. It is full of chemicals. It is an addiciton. At least for me. When I informed my husband that of this choice for fasting, he laughed. Laughed hard. He knows how much I love my Diet Coke.
So today I start an adventure of 40 days of giving up Diet Coke to honor God in my life and bring myself closer to him. Every time I feel the need to drink a Diet Coke I’m supposed to pray.
I’m going to be praying a lot.
After 40 days I’m supposed to be able to not only believe in myself more, because I did something I truly believed was impossible, but also believe that if I, a humble human being, sinner and person who fails a lot, can do something I thought was impossible, imagine what God can do with all those things we think are impossible!
Imagine the impossibleness of God!
Today is the day I say goodbye and say hello to self-control. And the day I start praying more than I ever have before.
Join me?
To learn more about my church, go here. All the sermons are on there and I encourage you to check them out. I am blessed to have a church where the messages I receive every Sunday resound in my head and heart for days and weeks after I leave on Sunday.
Here are the “Boy Oh Boy” freebies for Day 23. I hope you like them!
Please remember that these freebies are my gift for you. I am a person who loves to give and share. But I don’t give and share that which isn’t mine to give. Know what I mean? Please send friends here to download, don’t spread the links all over the web and hey, leave a comment. It makes me feel good to know what you think about the freebie or what I have to say each time I blog.
Here is the freebie you can download in this thread at Divine Digital:
http://www.divinedigital.com/forum/showthread.php?p=16440#post16440
And here is the blog freebie:
Best,
Cyndi
The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins. ~Bob Moawad
Being out of control is one of the worst feelings in the world, sometimes even worse than pain. It is its own kind of pain. ~Danzae Pace
An element of abstention, of restraint, must enter into all finer joys. ~Vida D. Scudder
The name of Jesus is the one lever that lifts the world. ~Author Unknown
If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me. ~Robert M. McCheyne
HE will do it!!
Thanks for the goodies, love it!
Thanks Cyndi & good luck to you.
Great post! Thanks for the freebie.
Good for you for quitting soda!
Good luck!
Thanks for the add-on
Thanks for the add-on, beautifully made!
Beautiful post Cyndi and thanks so much for sharing your work, time and talents with everyone. Your designs are great.
Wow, you’re brave! I actually need the caffeine to help with my headache (which of course causes headaches). I’m giving up depression for Lent. No, really, I’m fighting it tooth and nail with God’s help.
Thank you for the boy freebie! Good for you! Quitting sodas is really hard… but soon you’ll be thinking, “What was so great about that anyway?” lol! And just think… if there ever is a time you couldn’t get your fix of soda.. and would be miserable… now you don’t have to worry about that. You can do without them. I’m a diet Pepsi freak. But I thought if I couldn’t get to a store, or if there was a catastrophe and all the stores were closed… I would have the worst headache ever and would be miserable and wouldn’t be an asset to help my family and others. So GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!!! you inspire me!
Cyndi, thanks so much for all the inspiration! The extra goodies are wonderful, too – thank you.
Cyndi, Love your blog post today! I can so relate to it! My addiction was sodas in general! I love soda and would drink it all the time instead of the healthy water that my body needed! Finally I decided enough was enough and made a New Year’s resolution for the year 2006 that I would not drink any sodas for the YEAR! Yes, a year long commitment to abstain! Then, like you, I told my hubby. Then, like yours, my hubby laughed! Actually he said, “Yeah right! Why don’t you make a resolution that you can keep!” Well, for me, that was like saying “Sic em!” to a dog! I was DETERMINED to keep this resolution if it was the only one in my life that I EVER kept! Well, actually I think it WAS the only one that I ever kept! But the point here is, I DID KEEP IT! Was it easy? Not at all! Was it do-able? Evidently, yes! With God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! So here’s my words of encouragement for you…CAN YOU DO IT? YES YOU CAN!!! (with 2 boys, you surely recognize that quote!) You just hang in there and KEEP PRAYING! I’m pulling for you and will be praying for you too! I can’t wait to hear of your success story in 40 days! Oh, just one more word on my resolution, at the end of the year, I decided that if I could go one year w/o a soda, why not go for two?!!! It wasn’t a “New Year’s Resolution” that year, just more common sense…do you REALLY need to go back to that bad habbit?! End result, it’s been 4 years and almost 2 month and still no soda! Would I still like one? Sure, every now and then, especially when I eat pizza! But I just know that if I had “just one” it would all be over! BTW, you can save lots of money eating out when you order water instead!!
Thanks so much for sharing on your blog…and for the freebie! Love it!
A couple of years ago for Lent I decided to get up early and workout, but not tell anyone about it. For me, the not telling was the biggest part of the challenge. So many days I wanted to whine and complain about being tired and sore and make myself look good by the sacrifice (sleep!!!) I was offering to the Lord. Instead, when I wanted to complain, I prayed and when I wanted to sleep in, I pictured the cross and realized what a whimpy sacrifce I was offering in comparison but He assured me it was noticed. That was an eye-opening experience with many lessons learned, I pray that your Lenten journey will be as well.
Thanks for always sharing your heart as well as your talents so generously.
Great Post Cyndi. Very inspiring. I do not know what I am going to give up. There are soooo many things.
Thanks for the freebie.
I wish you the best of luck! I’ve tried to give up my diet Pepsi and failed big time.
At least I don’t drink coffee 
Thank you for the gifts! Your work is always amazing!!
I just found your blog and I LOVE it! Thank you so much for the freebies. You do an INCREDIBLE job!
good luck and thank you for the freebie
Fasting from something is a difficult thing to do! I’ll be praying for you; for strength and reliance on God. Thank you for the add-on!
Thanks Cyndi. Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers. Hugs, Lainey
Go girl! I so admire your resolutions of taking up and giving up. You are an inspiration. And your work is inspirational, too. Thanks very much!
I wish you the best of luck, i quit drinking diet coke about 6 yrs ago, the aspartame was making my joints ache and if i drank to much in a day i would be so lethargic the next day i could hardly make it through. These days i don’t even like the taste of any diet pop, yeah,
Now i’m addicted to tea with creamer.
I love this frame in your freebie today. Thanks for all you do for me.
Thanks for the freebie and the inspirational message. Good luck on your “impossible” mission…I know you’ll succeed!
Thanks for the freebie and all the best in you mission to give up diet coke. It was hard enough to switch from regular coke to diet. Not sure I’m at the point in my life where I want to give that up. It’s my only caffeine and I really don’t like the taste of tea or coffee. Yes, I know they are excuses and one of these days I may give it up, but for now I’m just trying to drink much more water and less diet coke.
You will be strong and I know you will succeed.
Thank you so much for this Freebie. I want to let you know that I posted a link to your blog in CBH Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, under the Page 6 post on Feb. 24, 2010. Thanks again.
Great post and freebie. Thanks for sharing. I gave up diet coke a year ago and I haven’t missed it since!
Anything can become an addiction in a sense. Praying for you that the soda will just become yuk to your tastebuds and you’ll never want it again. Hugs :O)
Fantastic Post Cyndi! I am going to have a look at the link to your church and do my best to Join you … I have been trying to quit smoking for ages, and maybe that is what I need God to help me with, I am certainly not strong enough to do it alone! Great freebie to BTW… thanks! Cindy