momentum

This week was not a huge success by numbers only: weigh-in revealed I had not lost, not maintained, but had somehow managed to gain half a pound, even after running four days last week. Of course I was pissed off: all that hard work seemed to be for nothing. I wanted to boast another great week and inch ever closer to that pie-in-the-sky goal of mine. Not this week, apparently.

Mike talked to the congregation this morning about momentum, and how to maintain that spiritual momentum: trust, obey, and humble yourself. Simple words, but so difficult to do sometimes, especially if you've been conditioned to buck at the word "obey" like I have. Spiritually and physically, it's really hard to maintain momentum when things are not going your way. Why did I gain this week? Why did work have to be so hard? Why did we have to lose two babies in a row while everyone else seems to be growing them in droves? I don't know the answers, but I know how I slow down and want to quit moving when those things happen.

Being healthy is so much more than the running I do or the foods I eat. It is becoming a spiritual discipline, an act of trusting God to run the show when I've tried to do this by myself so many times before. I cannot expect to move forward if I do not, well, actually move forward. No one will move my legs for me. On those days when it is overcast and I am really feeling tired, I don't want to move. On those days when I have not planned well, I don't want to take the extra 5-10 minutes to pack a healthy meal for myself. I do not want to make the small steps to move forward. But I hear Him calling to me, giving me everything I need to do what I need to do: the energy, the skill, the basic coordination of one foot in front of the other, the abundance of healthy options.

A lot of people have expressed their admiration to me that I run; I usually get a comment like "I could never do that". I spent so many years thinking that exact same sentiment: I was weak, I was disinclined to anything athletic. I was the one who got picked last for teams, who went terrified to every P.E. class. I never joined a team or athletic club. Of all the many sports that remained foreign and undoable, running was pretty much at the top of the list of Things I Cannot Do. I told myself that I wasn't able to do anything more than the occasional fast walk or lap in the pool, and I certainly wasn't disciplined enough to do any of that on a regular basis, I thought. I completely and utterly believed myself.

So to find myself doing the very thing I thought most impossible - running on a regular, disciplined basis, and doing well at it and enjoying it - is no small miracle. I can hardly believe that I can call myself a runner, but I can. The little girl inside of me - the one who was always picked last - is crying with delight when I think about what I can do. I do not run fast and I do not run far, but I always, always keep going. I hear God telling me that I am so much more than I believed myself to be, and that creates my momentum.

I'll leave you with a movie clip that Mike shared with us and that struck a chord in my heart: God, I won't give up on you. I'll run until I finish this great race, and you are there right next to me the whole way.

my morning routine

Side note: I lost 2.6 pounds this week for a grand total of FIVE. I'm also running faster and my jeans are fitting much better. The muffin top disappeareth.

Anyway, here's a glimpse of my morning:

if you really want to fly...

"Hope for the Flowers" is the story of a caterpillar named Stripe who watched fellow caterpillars climbing and stepping on and over others with no idea about what was at the top. When he asked others what was at the top, the answer was, "No one knows, but it must be awfully good because everybody’s going there."

Stripe tried for a while and even met a lovely female caterpillar named Yellow, and they tried together and gave up together. Stripe tried again, and one day, as Yellow was waiting for Stripe to come back, she discovered a grey caterpillar struggling to get out of a cocoon. She offered to help, but the grey caterpillar said, "No, I have to do this to become a butterfly."

Yellow asked, "What is a butterfly?"

The grey caterpillar replied, "It is what you are meant to become. It flies with beautiful wings and joins the earth to heaven. It drinks only nectar from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another. Without butterflies, the world would soon have few flowers."

Yellow asked, "How does one become a butterfly?"

The grey caterpillar replied, "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."




I thought about that story today as I went down the running trail. How easy is it for us to get stuck in a rut, follow the same old routine, and stay on the ground, wishing we could fly but being unwilling to undergo the metamorphosis? Beautiful butterflies are not born that way. They become. They give up the relative safety of living on solid ground to take a risk and reach higher, become more beautiful than they have ever been.

It's been a better week for me. I've eaten healthier - not on a diet, thank you - and made myself move more and found some very useful ways to let off steam and anxiety that do not involve peanut butter M&Ms. I found out this morning I let go of two and a half pounds over the past week, which a friend gleefully reminded me is ten sticks of butter. I was torn between my celebratory mood at having dropped the weight and disturbing visions of my body made completely out of butter (with bar-shaped chunks now removed).

I want to fly. I do. I know I'm going to need to resist the urge to buck against the cocooning process: there are some areas of my life that need to be altered, and I just don't like change that much, even good ones. I need to stop treating living healthy like a phase, which I've done time and time again. I'm going into this with a lot of faith and a not-so-great track record - I'm acutely aware that there is an entire congregation of people (literally) who witness the amazing yo-yo effect I do every 8-9 months, and it's a little unnerving to me, feeling like the Great Fluctuation.

So, here's to one more day of the butterfly effect. And one after that, and another after that. For now, though, I'm just working on today's cocoon.

melts in your mouth, not in your hand

Every now and then in my life, I get these stunning reminders that I cannot do life all by myself. I don't mean "all by myself" like a desert island dweller or hunch-backed hermit, but, you know, independent, on top of my game, smooth and unblemished. It's probably not a coincidence that peanut butter M&Ms have been a fixation of mine lately. Hardy candy shells are good for those M&Ms I've downed lately, not human beings or their hearts.

I submit the following evidence to you:



I really hate this picture. I shouldn't, because it was taken just a couple of days ago, and I have not radically altered my appearance since then, so this is pretty much me as I present myself to the world each day. I don't want to say I hate how I look. But I do. I look large. I feel large. I'm not bedridden or waddling or struggling to walk down the hall, but it's a direction I could go. I had this picture taken on purpose: sometimes you need to see exactly where you are to help define where you need to go and how you need to get there.

There's more under the surface, too. I have been anxious. I blamed it on school, the constant threat of homework and shifting schedules and unfair exams for the past 15 months. When I miscarried, I blamed it on my uterus. When I miscarried for the second time this year, I blamed my God. When I graduated, I blamed it on boards. All those things are done, and I'm still worked up. I could blame it now on starting a new job, the upcoming holidays, unrest in the Middle East, Orlando traffic, El nino, whatever. I'm starting to realize that there will always be something. And my God, I cannot keep feeling like a wind-up toy that's been wound too far. It makes me want to eat a lot and hide under the covers. It makes me not call my friends, and I felt so lonely tonight that I just broke down and cried after I couldn't get a hold of one of my best friends that I haven't spent quality time with in, I don't know, forever.

For now, life is taken in little one-minute bites. I've started eating better this week. It's hard, but it does feel better. I'm looking for someone to help me (professionally) sort out all the jumbled emotions I've squashed over the past two years, trying to be in control and not all messy and untoward. I'm getting out the running shoes - walking first for a while - because I remember feeling calmer and clearer when I did that. I'm calling friends. I'm praying a whole lot. I'm trying to shed the hard candy shell.