Hearing and Answering God’s Call: Part 4

Are These Signs From God? A Call Story

This is an adaptation from a story in the book, Faith, Mindfulness, & Nutrition. You can get the digital copy or the paperback version of the book here.

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I Noticed a Change in Me

After I prayed THAT prayer from part 3… the one when I told God I was ready to do what God wanted instead of what I wanted), I first noticed a change in me.

I truly wanted to know what God wanted me to do each day. Since that prayer, I TRY to remember to pray EVERY morning. Each morning I ask, “God, please help me see the needs of others today.” Do you know God did start giving me little opportunities to serve throughout my daily life? Check out the blog “We Ran Out of Gas” for one example.

I also started trying to pray in the car and pray before I entered any new environment. I started trying to be more mindful of God’s presence in every room I entered. Notice my blog is about Mindfulness? Do you see where all these circumstances are leading?

After Praying THAT Prayer

Because I am more mindful of God’s presence, I have noticed more “God Moments” in my life, and now I have even more “God moments” to share on this blog! If you read part 3, you will remember all of this started because I read a book called The Narrow Road: Stories of Those Who Walk This Road Together (International Adventures). This is a fantastic book about a man praying and waiting for God to lead him in almost every aspect of life. I highly recommend reading The Narrow Road: Stories of Those Who Walk This Road Together (International Adventures). Because of this book, I started incorporating prayer and listening to God in my everyday moments.  (I truly think God lead me to read this book because God knew the reaction I would have. You can see this story in Part 3)

You can read more specific “God Moment” stories by clicking on the links below:

Did that Just Happen!

We Chose the Same Picture!

I prayed and then this happened!

 We Ran Out of Gas

Why Are you So Afraid?

 God Follows Through

 Should I Share My Personal “God Moment” Stories with Others?

I was so thankful that after saying the big prayer, God seemed to be showing me small ways to serve throughout my day, but I also felt like God was leading me to do something specific (part 3). But what? Would I get any signs from God? While I waited…well, I became impatient.  I decided to actively write down a list of some of my accomplishments and talents. ‘Maybe I can use some of my talents to serve God,’ I thought. I jotted down that I enjoy writing and had written nutrition columns for the local newspaper in the past. But how in the world could I use this to serve God? Blogging wasn’t even on my radar at the time.

Still I thought, ‘well I do have several personal God stories that may encourage others. What if I could somehow share some of these personal experiences I have had with God through writing?” Could sharing these personal “God Moments” be my calling? But how would I know that this is something I should do? My goodness, I could do so many different things, how will I EVER know what God thinks I should specifically do?

Signs from God: The Answer is “Yes, Share these Stories.”

Then Sunday rolled around again, and I went to church. Guess what the sermon was about? Our pastor did a sermon on telling your personal call or God story. Well if that wasn’t an answer to my question, I don’t know what was.

In the sermon, the pastor said that a person’s personal call or God story has one of the greatest impacts when you are telling someone about God.   In fact, a person’s personal story is only 2nd to the Bible when you are trying to tell someone about your faith.  How amazing that as soon as I thought about sharing my personal stories and experiences with God, our pastor started talking about how important it is to tell YOUR personal story! So I decided I did want to write my personal stories down in one place so that I can use them somehow later.

Another God Moment: Finding the Time to Write

The next obstacle was finding the time to write. You see, I couldn’t write while the kids slept because I slept in the bed with my 3 year old  (I know I should never have started that habit, right? I was just so tired of the nightly sleeping battles, and I just gave up. My son would go to sleep easily if I was lying with him. Sigh.)

The problem was that if I got up for anything, even to go to the bathroom, he would wake up and cry, “hold mommy, hold mommy!” How was I going to get up and begin writing again? I wanted to not only write, but also, pray and read God’s word more often. Do you know that when I decided to get up to write, my son didn’t wake up! I was able to write, pray, and read about God while my son slept! Could this be yet another of the many sign’s from God?

Doubt and Fear and then More Signs from God

Now, if I was stronger I would not have needed another nudge from God, but unfortunately fears and doubt began to creep in.  I had written some of my stories, but I began to think, ‘do I really want to SHARE these stories with others?’  Just when I started backing away, God called me again.   Literally right after I started backpedaling and doubting, two of the sermons talked about answering God’s call and even emphasized telling our own personal stories.  The words and phrasing used in the sermons spoke to me so clearly that I had chills. Were all these coincidences signs from God again?

Finally Ready to Take Action

Okay, finally I was willing to take action. I still didn’t know what to do, but since our pastor had inspired the idea, I decided to send my written stories to our pastor. This was a total leap of faith. I don’t normally do things like this. These stories were personal, and I felt silly just sending them to someone. This was several years ago, and I still wasn’t familiar with blogging yet. In fact, the pastor was the one who mentioned blogging. (He is a lot younger and more tech than me 🙂 ) Turns out, the pastor had been contemplating starting a church blog, and he was even more encouraged after I sent in my stories that our church should start the blog. Maybe even the pastor was receiving signs from God?

And so a church blog was started. I became one of the admins for the blog. I didn’t know anything about blogging, but I wanted all the amazing stories from church members to get shared somehow. Church members would send their stories, and I would post. Now church members had a place to share their personal call story. After all, like the pastor said, “a person’s personal story is only 2nd to the Bible when you are trying to tell someone about God.”

More Coincidences: The Leap to Starting MY Personal Blog, “Mindfulness in Faith and Food”

This church blog was established years ago, but I still never considered starting my own blog. Then two things happened…

I was still writing down all my “God Moments” as well as any lessons I had learned over the years. I decided I wanted to organize all these stories for my children. So I started working on a little book that I would only give to my children. (See there I go, writing again!) I wanted my children to feel inspired and have hope that God is there even in the tough times.

“Hmmm, Should I Start My Own Blog?”

As I was organizing all of this for the book for my children, I thought, “hmm, some of these stories are so encouraging and give so much hope; I wish I could share them somehow. Well, I could start a personal blog? Then maybe a few more people could see all this ‘stuff’ God has done.” Just like most thoughts, at first I didn’t think much of the idea. But the next circumstance would make me think much more seriously about blogging…

Our Church Combined Faith with Nutrition

I was still working on lessons for my children’s book when one day a church staff member asked me that since I am a dietitian I would be willing to become the coordinator of a new church wellness program. The program was called “FAN: Faith, Activity, and Nutrition”. The goal of the FAN program is to promote, encourage, inspire, and provide opportunities for a healthier life within the church. The FAN program focused on helping the whole person: body and soul. I loved how FAN incorporated scripture, spiritual health, and physical health into their messages. I usually didn’t get to incorporate my professional background in dietetics with my faith in this way, and I loved it!

Again, “Hmmm, I Could Start a Blog?”

When I became the FAN coordinator, I dusted off my nutrition materials (I was currently a stay-at-home mom) to see what I could use for FAN. As I was looking through all the handouts, articles, and client books I had developed, I thought ‘this information is not helping anyone just sitting on my computer or in my desk! I need to find a way people can have access to this!’ Again, the same phrase ran through my head, “hmm, I could start some kind of nutrition blog! But if I started a blog, I would also want to talk about my faith and God experiences. Would combining faith and nutrition even work as a blog? Wait! Look at the FAN program, this program incorporates both!”

Signs from God: Everything Was Falling into Place

And this is how the idea of a faith-based nutrition blog was formed. Everything seemed to be falling into place for me to start blogging. I was already organizing nutrition and faith articles for FAN and my book for my children, and I was already incorporating faith with nutrition at church. The fact of the matter was I was already writing about faith and nutrition, why not go ahead and blog? The timing just seemed right.

My Vision for the Blog Seemed so Clear

The next part might be harder to explain, but I will do my best. My vision for my blog seemed so clear. Let me explain the opposite of clear, so that you can understand what I mean. When I was trying to decide on a name for my private nutrition counseling, I struggled with finding a name and my brand. For one, I wasn’t being true to myself. I settled for something generic, but I cringed when I said the name. The name wasn’t bad; the name just didn’t ever feel right.

When I decided to blog about God and my passions, the name almost immediately fell into my mind. I wanted to call the blog, “Mindfulness in Faith and Food.” I am still relatively new to blogging. In fact, I have only been blogging for about half a year, but this blog still just feels right.

The Creation of Mindfulness in Faith and Food

So I decided to do it! I started a blog. All my past writings- journal entries, nutrition handouts, God stories, and partial books have found a home on this blog. Who knew that I was writing for this blog for so many years and didn’t even know it!

Signs From God: The Ripple Effect

Now, looking back, I can see the ripple effect from each of these events that lead to writing a faith and nutrition blog. Each, by themselves, may not seem like much, but you put everything together from part 1-part 4 of this series, and the sheer number of signs and coincidental circumstances are impossible to ignore!

A Recap of the Ripple Effect

1. My passion for writing since childhood (See Part 2)
2. My weight struggles as a middle school child that initiated my interest in nutrition (See About Me)
3. Being open to following God’s call after reading The Narrow Road: Stories of Those Who Walk This Road Together (International Adventures (Part 3)
4. Signs from God: After I prayed THAT prayer asking God to show me my call the sermon was about hearing and answering God’s call (Part 3).
5. Then Even more signs from God seemed to indicate I was going to hear God’s call soon (Part 3).
6. Reading The Narrow Road: Stories of Those Who Walk This Road Together (International Adventures) further helped me become more mindful of God and God’s call throughout the day. Thus, I was able to notice more God stories or “God Moments.” Now I write about them in my blog! (Part 3).
7. Even more signs from God? Just when I was contemplating that perhaps sharing all my personal “God Moment” stories is my call, the sermons were about sharing your personal God stories (Part 4).
8. The church blog was started after I took a leap of faith and sent our pastor all of these God stories (Part 4).
9. I started organizing all my God stories and lessons for a book for my children. This gave me the thought, “Maybe I should share these amazing stories in a blog?” (Part 4)
10. Meanwhile I was introduced to the FAN program, which combined faith and nutrition. I loved this, and a concept of a faith-based nutrition blog was born. (Part 4)
11. My faith and profession as a dietitian also collided when I started incorporating mindful eating and mindful living.  Mindful eating lead to weight loss and lead to mindfulness of the presence of God. (See “The One Thing I Did to Lose Weight AND Strengthen My Walk With God”)
12. Throughout my life I had already written several ‘nutrition and faith’ blog posts through writing and journaling, I just didn’t know it!
13. The Blog name and niche seemed so clear. (Part 4)

 Feeling Called to Blog? Want More Information about How to Start a Blog?

Have you noticed any signs from God or coincidences that you think are leading you to your calling?  Are you feeling God’s call to serve in some way? Maybe you are even feeling called to blog?

Do you feel called to blog, but don’t know where to begin? My next post goes through the steps to start your own blog. You can check it out by clicking on this link: “How to start a blog when you feel called to blog.”

About Mindfulness in Faith and Food, LLC

Mindfulness in Faith and Food, LLC focuses on how to live your healthiest, happiest, most meaningful life through faith-based mindfulness and evidence-based nutrition.
Several branches fall under the Mindfulness in Faith and Food, LLC umbrella. One is Mindful Vending, which is one of the few dietitian owned and operated vending companies in the nation! Ngo is also the author of several books including Faith, Mindfulness, & Nutrition, Mindfulness in Faith and Freezer Meals and The Nourishing Meal Builder. You can also find evidence-based nutrition articles, recipes, convenient healthy snack lists, inspiring faith stories, and faith-based mindfulness techniques on her blog, Mindfulness in Faith and Food.

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