JennieGScott.com

Category: Encouragement

  • Products I Love to Use in Staying Healthy

    Disclosure: the links in this post are affiliate links, which means if you order any of them through this site, I’ll make a small commission.

    Guys, I’ve started a closed Facebook group, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been this excited! A few weeks ago, I felt God nudging me to help pass on what I’ve learned about health, fitness, and nutrition. I’m not an expert by any means, but as someone who has battled for at least 25 years with body image issues, I’ve certainly learned a lot!

    So when I felt like I was supposed to help other people and the idea of a Facebook accountability group came to me, I went for it. The group is already forming, and we start our first month-long challenge on August 12. (If you’re interested, just comment on this post or search for “Focused & Fit with Jennie” on FB and request to join.)

    As we’re getting started, I thought I’d share with you some of my products that I use all the time. All of these are links to Amazon, so you can easily add them to your cart and purchase them at the same time.

    Vital Proteins Collagen

    People ask me all the time if I have knee issues from running so much, and I really don’t. Sometimes they creak because I’m almost 40, but I’ve been really blessed not to have issues. To keep it that way, I started adding Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides to my coffee every day. It helps lubricate my joints, but it also helps with my hair and nails — an added bonus! This brand is great. You can find it in stores like Target, but I usually just order in from Amazon. It mixes in to both cold and hot drinks, and you don’t even know it’s there. No taste, no weird texture, nothing. Plus it adds some protein to your diet.

    Better Oats Oatmeal

    I am a creature of habit, and I eat this oatmeal nearly every single morning. I don’t believe carbs are an enemy to avoid, and I love eating these because they’re delicious and because oatmeal is a great complex carbohydrate to help with your energy level. (I have a crazy way I eat them, too, which includes PB2 powder and cocoa powder. Makes it taste like those no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies I love!)

    Premier Protein

    Most people find it hard to get enough protein in their diets. On days I need to add in more, I love to drink Premier Protein. (I also drink one after a grueling workout like a long run or leg day.) Unlike a lot of protein powders and drinks, this actually tastes good! I promise! Chocolate is my favorite, but they have several other flavor options.

    One Bars

    I’m not a huge fan of bars because most of them are filled with fat and carbs, but One Bars are a great option if you need a snack or some calories before you work out. Sometimes I’ll eat half and sometimes whole, depending on my needs for that day. The Maple Glazed Doughnut is delicious, but there are lots of options.

    PB2 Powder

    I add PB2 Powder into my oatmeal, and I also like to mix it with water to create a peanut butter to spread onto rice cakes. The benefit to the powder is that it has less fat than traditional peanut butter.

    Amazon Essential Tank Tops and Running Shorts

    Amazon has a great way to buy clothes, called Prime Wardrobe, where you can order items, try them, and send them back if you don’t like them. That’s how I found these tanks and these shorts. They both worked great for me. I would recommend going up a size in the shorts, just because the waistband might cut in a little if you go with the smaller size.

    Water Bottle

    If you have hard time drinking all of the water you should in a day, here’s a fun way to help with that! (Disclaimer — I don’t have this one yet. A friend just told me about it and it’s on my list!)

    Exercise Equipment

    I exercise from home. We turned part of our bonus into a home gym for me, and I’ve slowly added equipment as I’ve needed it. Here are some of the things I recommend: resistance bands, weights, exercise ball, kettlebells, yoga mat, and medicine ball.

    Meal Prep Containers

    Every Sunday afternoon, I prep my lunches for the work week. We ordered these containers probably a couple of years ago, and they’re great. They’re dishwasher safe and microwavable, and they help you with portion size.

    Food Scale

    As you get more advanced into tracking your nutrition, you’ll find that it’s always better to weigh your food than to just measure it. (Nutritional information is most accurate by the gram, so that’s why weighing food is best.) This is the food scale I use to measure out my portions. It’s accurate, lightweight, and easy to both store and travel with.

    So those are some of the purchases I’ve made to help in my health journey, and I hope they’ll be helpful to you! If you have specific questions about any of them, let me know!

  • Why Christians Need to Shut Up

    “All I wanted was for people to just be there for me. I didn’t want to hear all of their stories. I didn’t need to know all the verses they thought applied to me. I just wanted their presence.”

    She explained what it was like going through her darkest times, how the people who loved her sometimes helped greatly and, sometimes, unintentionally pushed her farther away.

    Her words struck a chord, because I’ve been the person offering the stories. I’ve been the one supplying the verses. And, if her words were any indication, all the things I thought were helping weren’t. They might have even been hurting.

    Realizing your pure motives aren’t always enough for people is a humbling experience. What we think will help doesn’t always, and instead of offering what we think people need, we have to train ourselves to ask what will actually help.

    Here’s the difficulty for me as a Christian: I want others to know what I know, to experience what I’ve experienced with Jesus, to feel the healing I’ve felt, and to know God’s goodness even in crappy situations. But what I forget is that no other person experiences God exactly as I do, and trying to replicate my own experiences in their lives is trying to counterfeit the work of God.

    Sometimes I need to shut up and just show up.

    When I think of how Jesus interacted with people in Scripture, he didn’t see them in their pain and immediately begin preaching to them. First, he gave them his presence and compassion — even in situations when he shouldn’t have, according to his culture.

    The woman at the well? The invalid at the pool? The woman caught in adultery? He didn’t deliver a sermon to them. He didn’t quote verse after verse. He saw their needs, asked them questions, and then pointed them to truth.

    How can we, when our friends are hurting, be more like Jesus and less like the know-it-all spiritual superheroes we can imagine ourselves to be?

    We can sit with them. Listen to them. Ask them questions and give them space to answer. And when all else fails, we can simply cry with them and pass some tissues.

    We do not have to know all the answers. We don’t have to make sense of everything they’re experiencing and tie their pain up into a beautiful bow.

    What we do have to do, though, is be a constant presence and source of love. And the thing about love is that it’s received differently by everyone.

    We tend to over-complicate compassion. We feel like we have to do it perfectly or it doesn’t count. We convince ourselves we have to fix what’s wrong and heal their pain. We think we have to have eloquent and right answers.

    We don’t.

    We can’t.

    We just have to show love.

  • Lessons I’ve Learned with Age

    As I write this, I’m sitting in a coffee shop, alone. Of course, there are other people in the building, so I guess I’m not technically alone, but I came here without anyone else, on purpose. I had a few hours to do whatever I wanted, and I chose to be alone with a caramel macchiato and my laptop.

    This is proof of growth, my friends. Ten years ago, I never would have chosen solitude when there might have been another option. I would have worried about what people thought if they saw me by myself, and I would have chosen strangers’ perceptions over my own needs.

    Now? Who cares what they think? I like being alone. (And I’ve learned that very few people are paying attention to what I do. Most of us humans are wrapped up in our own worlds and our own minds, and even if we notice someone drinking coffee alone, we usually don’t give it a second thought. It’s just what people do.)

    I’m staring down age 40, and my next birthday will be the one decorated in black and “Over the Hill” signs and balloons.

    Lots of people dread this milestone, but I’m kind of looking forward to it. It’s taken me a while to grow into who I am, but now that I know myself, I like myself. Plus, I’ve learned there are incredible gifts that come with age, and the ability to be by myself — and be at peace — has been a great one.

    Another gift of age? The ability to speak my mind with confidence when my mind needs to be spoken, but understanding that my thoughts don’t always need to be voiced. As a child (and teenager and young adult), I always had a lot of thoughts. I had strong feelings on a variety of topics, but along with my strong feelings came an almost paralyzing self-consciousness. For a lot of reasons that I won’t get into here, I just didn’t feel confident saying what I thought. So I held myself back and let myself feel inferior and remained quiet when I really should have done the opposite.

    But as I’ve gotten older and have experienced a lot of life, I have learned to allow myself to take up space in the room, and that includes with my words. But just as importantly, I’ve also learned that having thoughts doesn’t demand I verbalize them. I’ve been reading through the book of Proverbs as part of my daily Bible study, and it amazes me how often I read a proverb about wisdom. Wisdom and discernment go hand in hand, and often if I stop to consider my words before I say them, I realize they just aren’t necessary.

    Another gift I’ve aged into? Not falling for fads and trends and the latest gimmicks. I’ve never been one to jump on bandwagons, but in the back of my mind, I sometimes wondered if I should. I sometimes felt left out if I wasn’t wearing what everyone else was or using the products everyone else used. But a gift that has come with time is that my care-meter on things like that has gone way down. Those fads and trends just don’t matter to me like they used to.

    I know my own style, I know the products I like, and I trust my own judgment. Thank you, four decades of living!

    I’ve also, over time, learned that someone else’s way of doing things doesn’t have to be mine. You like working 60 hours a week? Go for it. That’s a no for me, dawg. You want to micro-manage every second of your kids’ lives and make it virtually impossible for them to ever be independent? Nope. You want to brag about never getting a date night with your spouse? My husband and I are going to dinner, come hell or high water.

    Don’t get me wrong — I still get that nagging temptation to compare my life to others’ and wonder if they’re doing it better. But with every additional day I live, I grow stronger and more confident in the way I’m living and the decisions I choose.

    One of the greatest gifts of my age is the knowledge that people are just people. The hierarchy I used to believe in is garbage. Regardless of title, position, income, or address, every human being is a human being. There are some the world elevates and treats as better than, but it’s simply not true. Not one of us is any better than another. (And the people who insist on others noticing them are usually the most insecure.)

    I still fail daily, but I try to be intentional to see people the same — all created in God’s image; all worthy of love and respect.

    If the first 40 years of my life have taught me anything, it’s that change is necessary. Things I used to value and believe have evolved, and I’m actually really good with that. I want to be a person who is constantly improving, and improvement requires change.

    So, 40, I’m looking forward to you — and all the new lessons to come!

    (What did I leave out? What are some lessons you’ve learned as you’ve gotten older?)

  • The Simple Reason I Pack My Lunch and Set My Alarm

    It’s such a pain, meal-prepping every Sunday evening.

    I take out the spaghetti squash and the extra-lean ground turkey, and I put together my lunches for the week. I’m one of those who eats the same thing every single day, just for the sake of simplicity. The less I have to think, the better.

    But still, the prepping is a pain. It takes time, effort, and planning ahead, and I’d truthfully rather not do it. But I do.

    And it’s such a pain, working out every morning.

    The alarm goes off before the rest of the house gets up, and I lace up my running shoes and pull my tangled hair into a semblance of a ponytail. I’m one of those who works out before going to work, to get it done early before my brain knows what I’m doing.

    The effort is a pain. It takes time, energy, and early alarms, and I’d truthfully rather not do it. But I do.

    I do the things I’d rather not do, small things that are a pain, because I’ve learned small things are larger than they appear. Meal-prepping and early alarms aren’t really that terrible, even though it takes effort to do them both, but they are small things whose impact I notice.

    Over time, the healthy meal choices have made a significant difference in my body, and over time, the miles I’ve logged have made a significant impact on my endurance.

    Small things are larger than they seem.

    If the small things matter so much, why do they cause us such trouble? Why aren’t they easier to do?

    It’s because small doesn’t mean easy. Smallness doesn’t preclude our sacrifice. And smallness sure isn’t our default.

    But, nevertheless, small things matter, and they add up.

    The idea of reading the entire Bible used to seem overwhelming to me. It’s a lot of pages and a lot of words, and much of it is hard to understand. The cultural norms of Biblical times aren’t normal to me, and it’s hard to read the lineages of who begat whom.

    Reading the entire Bible takes effort. But it can be made simple, when you approach it in pieces. One book at a time, one chapter at a time, one day at a time.

    It’s a small thing that’s larger than it appears. Immersing yourself in what God says, every single day, is a small step to largely changing your life.

    Here’s where I think we go astray — we want dramatic change, and we want it NOW. We want to begin to see a difference as soon as we begin the effort. But God reminds us not to despise small beginnings (Zech. 4:10). Small beginnings now lead to large changes later.

    But we have to remember that, and we have to believe it.

    Whatever you’re doing today that feels small, keep at it. Stop expecting overnight miracles, and start looking for small, subtle changes. The small things are often more lasting, and that’s ultimately what we want. Change that lasts.

  • The Beauty and Burden of Brokenness

     

    Each morning, the screens in my life shout and show turmoil.

    World leaders making threats and calling each other names.

    Fires ravaging apartment buildings, forcing a mother to trust that a stranger’s arms will catch her infant.

    Rich fashion designers taking their own lives when an invisible pain becomes too much to carry.

    Turmoil is both the soundtrack and the screenplay of our humanity. It is in our local communities, in our nations, and in ourselves. Trouble all around, and trouble all within.

    Inescapable and undeniable.

    We are broken.

    Why, then, if our brokenness is universal, do we dress it up with photos carefully posed? Why, then, if it’s all around, do we hesitate to bring it to the light? Why, then, if it’s within us all, do we change the subject and pretend it’s all fine?

    Our brokenness is our bond, and our bonds bring about beauty.

    The mother who birthed a broken child, one whose body will never function as it should, said these words to my ears today — the unexpected will come to your life, and it will change you.

    Her child’s broken body changed her untested faith to one that is certain, and his brokenness introduced her to others whose brokenness changed them, too.

    The unexpected was what broke them, and yes, it broke me. There is a bond and unexpected beauty in brokenness.

    Our turmoil and trouble, burdens and broken parts, aren’t supposed to shame us. They are meant to serve us, shining a light on what needs redemption and bringing to the forefront what must be surrendered.

    But pain begs to be hidden, wants to be denied, so we stay silent about our broken parts and deny the world the beauty of what God repairs.

    Here’s the beauty in how I was broken: I was destroyed then, but I am not now. God has made me whole.

    I was enveloped in pain, then God filled me with His peace.

    Brokenness is always repairable, if it’s given to Jesus.

    Sharing our brokenness shares our humanity. Sharing our struggles strengthens our faith. My journey through brokenness can bring beauty to yours — and isn’t this why we’re meant to live in community? To bear one another’s burdens and to hold each other’s arms? To notice when others are floundering and bring them to places of hope? To say “I survived, and you will too?”

    The world breaks us. God mends us.

    Brokenness to beauty, and burdens to bonds.

    He is forever making all things new.

  • Getting Past the Shame of My Divorce

     

    Throughout Scripture, the number seven is the number of perfection. Completion. Purification.

    After six days of creating, God rested on the seventh.

    Seven weeks after Passover began, Pentecost.

    And every fiftieth year, after seven times seven, it was the year of Jubilee. A year of celebration and release. Captives were set free and debts were forgiven. It was a year of rest.

    *******

    This year is the seventh since my divorce.

    And God told me it is my year of Jubilee.

    *******

    In the first moments after learning my marriage would end, I fell into a gulf of despair I have no words to describe. I was held captive by lies and condemning self-talk, a prisoner of my sadness and shattered dreams. I woke each morning to go through the steps of being alive, but I was not. I was sleep-walking through my days, oblivious to the world around me and consumed with the shame of who I now was.

    It has taken me years to admit the truth of what those years were like for me, but now that I am safely on the other side, I feel an obligation to share my truth and invite you to examine yours.

    I lived a prisoner of shame.

    Wounded and broken were not just emotions I felt — they were my identity. The picture I had of myself changed, and I could only see myself as damaged. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew the truths of Scripture and I remembered that God said I was fearfully and wonderfully made, but I could not reconcile those truths with my reality. I could not believe I was deeply and wholly loved by God when I was not by man.

    I believed things like:

    • Christians are not supposed to divorce, and if they do, their place in the Kingdom is tarnished and insignificant.
    • Saying things like “single mother” and “ex-husband” should cause me to shudder, and they were labels that indicated my diminished worth.
    • Life could continue, but it could not be good again.

    *******

    But that is no longer what I believe.

    *******

    The years since my divorce have been such a strange mix of good and bad, ups and downs. I found love again, but I struggled to believe I was lovable. I rediscovered my identity as a beloved child of God, but Satan wanted me to continue to question it.

    I scratched and clawed my way to the freedom I have now, but I was bruised and bloodied along the way.

    There’s nothing our enemy wants more than for us to live defined by his lies. There’s nothing that threatens him more than a person walking in the freedom Christ died to give.

    Satan wanted me destroyed, and he nearly succeeded. But for the grace of God.

    *******

    The shame that defined me for years is gone now. I can accept that my last name is different from my children’s without also accepting that it’s a scarlet letter on my chest. I can refer to my first husband without feeling deep shame that those words even belong to me. I can tell of the redemption Christ has done without being embarrassed that He had to do it.

    I am no longer ashamed of my story. I am using it to testify of God’s goodness.

    *******

    This year of Jubilee has been exactly that for me. No, everything is not perfect, and yes, I still have my struggles.

    But for the first time in seven years, I feel truly at peace. I know I’m a captive set free. I feel the celebration of a prisoner tasting freedom again.

    *******

    But as with any Jubilee, toil came first. Years of working and serving and even being held captive.

    Jubilee isn’t Jubilee unless you have the years without it.

    Celebration isn’t real if there’s nothing to celebrate.

    And I have much to celebrate. The shame is gone. Christ has slowly but surely delivered me from its grips. He has offered me His rest, and He has shown me His patient mercy.

    He has brought me from the darkness back into His glorious light.

     

     

     

  • When the Truth is Easy to Forget

     

    Satan taunts me through images. I’ve learned this about him over the years. Very distinct, very clear, very haunting images. He worms his way into my thought life by first showing me images of what he wants me to think about.

    He did so this morning.

    And because he is so cunning, he always does this when I’m vulnerable. This morning I was feeling sad about a situation that is part of my norm, a natural part of our rhythm. I don’t like it but can’t change it, so I pray each time it comes up for the strength to endure it.

    I was sad, but sad isn’t sinful. Sad is, though, for me, a portal to destructive thoughts. A pathway to sin. Any time my emotions are front and center, my enemy tries to use them to distract me and destroy me. So this morning, in my sadness, he played connect the dots. He took my initial sadness that was not sinful and connected it to images he knew would hurt me. He showed me pictures of realities connected to this morning’s sadness, connecting one feeling I had to multiple pictures he wanted me to see. He literally showed me images to lead me into sinful thoughts.

    He meant to provoke anger. Arouse jealousy. Bring up resentment. He wanted me to dwell on what exists that I despise and have me focus on it instead of what’s good.

    I almost did. I almost slid down that slope, taking the bait he showed me and following it through to the sin he wanted.

    But I didn’t. I swallowed hard and blinked fast and spoke the words, “God, you know.” Repeatedly. Satan wanted me to forget about God, certainly about his constant presence and his unchanging promises. Satan wanted me to believe I was alone in my sadness and unable to reject the images he showed. In that moment, I needed to know Satan was wrong and God knew how I felt. So I spoke the truth I needed to remember. “God, you know. God, you know. God, you know.”

    He knows.

    As I drove down the highway, God replaced the images I didn’t need to see with whispers of his truth I need never to forget.

    He knows. He knows. He knows.

  • To the Tired Mamas Running Themselves Ragged

     

    I know.

    I know that what looks easy in your life takes great planning and coordination and a whole lot of work plus a little bit of luck. 

    I know that your body may be still right now, but your mind is on overdrive. You’re thinking about your to-do list and your grocery list and that thing you wish you hadn’t said and that person from middle school who still has no idea how much they hurt you.

    I know your brain never stops.

    I know you need a break but can’t seem to find the time, and I know you perform a million little tasks that aren’t noticed unless they’re not done.

    I know, from one woman to another, the invisible weight you always carry.

    I might not know all of your specifics, but I think I know how you feel.

    I know you wonder sometimes if any of it matters at all, if the details of your days add up together to equal anything that’s making a difference.

    I know you wonder if anybody really sees you — the real you, behind the put-together facade you show the world.

    I know you’re afraid that you’re messing it all up, and I know you regret what you can’t go back and change.

    Yes, believe me, I know.

    So right now, let me tell you what else I know.

    I know your life matters in hundreds of tiny ways you cannot see and do not know.

    I know nothing you do each day goes unseen by the One who made you. I know He looks at you with nothing but love.

    I know it gets old washing the same clothes, cleaning the same toilets, packing the same lunchboxes, and teaching the same lessons, but I also know that love is shown through consistency and reliability.

    I know your everyday life gets boring and feels insignificant and you sometimes wish for it to be different, but I also know you are exactly where you need to be — even if you don’t understand it yet.

    I know you’re raising a little person who will change the world.

    I know you are changing the world.

    I know your obedience will be rewarded.

    I know your faith will continue growing.

    I know your questions may not always be answered, but I know your God will always be present.

    I know your life matters.

    I know you are loved.

    And I know you probably needed to be reminded.

  • My Baseboards Make Me Feel Like a Terrible Person

     

    When I magically and mysteriously become inexplicably rich, the first thing I will do is hire someone to clean my bathrooms. The two children I gave birth to have been granted that great privilege now, and their skills are still somewhat, shall I say, lacking. Their top priority is to finish, not necessarily finish well.

    And bathrooms need to be cleaned well.

    That brings me to the task I just completed today – the deep cleaning of a bathroom my dear offspring only surface cleaned.

    Sigh.

    It made me feel like a pig.

    I’m one of those people who hates visual clutter and who actually enjoys organizing. But apparently when it comes to deep cleaning, I turn a blinder eye than I realize. I got on my hands and knees, a la Cinderella, wiping down cabinet fronts and scrubbing baseboards.

    Can we talk about what disgusting dust collectors they are? And the unbelievable amount of hair I apparently lose each day? Bleh. It’s easy to ignore it when it’s not right in your face. But when you’re crawling around at ground level, it’s right there in your face.

    And it’s gross.

    So like any woman worth her salt, I began the negative self-talk. I fussed at myself for not deep-cleaning more often, and I based my worth on the condition of my baseboards.

    Being me sometimes is stupid.

    So here’s what I learned as I dusted and scrubbed today:

    Houses get dirty. Bathrooms get disgusting. Dust builds. Hair collects in corners. And none of that means anything about me, except that I need to clean.

    Let it go, ladies. Your dirty baseboards don’t mean you’re a terrible person.

     

     

     

  • Moving Forward When You Don’t Know What’s Next

     

    Humans are, by nature, goal-oriented. We are a people who plan for the future and work in the present for that unseen yet approaching reality.

    This is, perhaps, why we love our weekends so much.

    In our relationships, we know what we want and what we want to improve.

    I want to communicate my emotions better, and I want my marriage to be a model for my children.

    In our work, we set goals to motivate us when the day-to-day gets hard.

    I want to make more sales this quarter than last.

    In fitness, in faith, in housekeeping and health, we decide what’s next and what we want to achieve.

    We’re goal-setters. That’s who we are.

    What do we do, then, when we meet a goal and are unsure of what’s next?

    This is where I am. This is the space I’m living in right now. A place of uncertainty.

    In the last few weeks, I met every major goal I had planned.

    I released a book. I ran a marathon. I spoke at women’s events.

    All of the things I had been planning for, thinking about, training for, and preparing for are over. They are done. The goals were set and achieved, and there’s nothing huge on the horizon.

    Everyone keeps asking me, “What’s next?” and my answer is always this: “I don’t know.”

    I don’t know what’s next, and I’m learning to be OK with that. It doesn’t mean nothing is, and it doesn’t mean I won’t set new goals. But for right now, I don’t know.

    For right now, I will rest.

    I will reflect on what I learned as I worked in this season, and I will wait for the Spirit to guide me to my next right step. But I refuse to rush it. I will wait in patience and peace.

    We humans are, by nature, goal-oriented. But we are not, by nature, good at rest. We must learn the art of being still, the value in not over-planning and forcing. We must train ourselves to wait for Spirit guidance and not strive for human achievement.

    I will rest. I will read. I will study, and I will sit with God.

    At some point, I will set another goal, and I will work like mad to achieve it.

    But for now? I don’t know what’s next.

    And I’ve learned I don’t need to know.