A New Creation

If you're reading this through Facebook, it's because you haven't hidden my updates from your wall. First off, let me just say I appreciate that immensely. Secondly, if my Lose It! updates are beginning to get to you, you can hit the "x" next to my posts and then pick "Hide all from Lose It!"

Okay, with the disclaimers out of the way, I can now begin to tell you how much I am truly enjoying this weight loss/working out journey. The best gift my husband could have come up with, he gave our family last September - gym membership. Believe me when I tell you I was never a gym person. It freaked the heck out of me. We had made one attempt at going to a yoga class years ago and I even used their stationary bicycle once and then that was it. I was done. It was much, much more relaxing to stay home and drink wine and have a nice dinner. Much better than to be in a roomful of healthy, fit people all staring at overweight little me.

I cringe a little when I think of how much time I have wasted being afraid of the world and being ashamed of my body. I cannot pin-point an exact date all that changed but it had much (all?) to do with accepting Christ. Of that I am certain. I felt light and I felt free, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to run. I know. It surprised me, too.

Since last May, (I am dating May because I remember my birthday and how much I weighed - no other reason) I have lost 29 pounds and gained some muscle in the process. I have run my first 5k (3.1 miles), my first 4 miles, done many group classes in cardio-kickboxing, strength training, tried x-bike, learned to zumba and spent innumerable hours weight lifting as well as reading all I could get my hands on about sports nutrition and eating right.

In the grand scheme of things, compared to a real athlete for example, this is small, miniscule, but knowing where I come from and who I used to be, the changes I have made are truly remarkable. While I was never obese, I was overweight with almost no muscle and zero endurance. I couldn't run for more than two minutes. Today, I run two miles (at least) five times a week. I was weak, so weak my arms jiggled when I waved. Now I weight train with my husband three times a week and can bench 70 pounds, deep squat 65 and do tricep extensions with 45. I go to kickboxing and strength training classes twice a week and zumba classes once a week.

I love every minute of it. Every single, sweaty minute.

You may ask why I'm doing this. Is it pride? A desire to be beautiful? Strong? Or just healthy? Am I in a competition? Training for something? The answer to all these would be somewhere in the middle. The answer truly is, as I had shared with a close friend, is that I want to see what this amazing body God gave me is truly capable of. Not only is this an amazing, beautiful body He has given me, it is also God's temple. I am finally beginning to believe that. ("What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - 1 Corinthians 6:19) So, I suppose you could say that I am doing this as a testimony to God's grace.

Which is why, even though I'm a fan of shows like The Biggest Loser, it bothers me when they speak of "being selfish" and "doing this for yourself" and "loving yourself." No amount of telling yourself you're beautiful when the reality of sin is staring you in the face is going to make you believe it. No amount of trying to forgive yourself will work if you know you have broken God's law. We all know that, don't we? Aren't we all aware of something not being all right with ourselves? Maybe I'm delusional, but I think we do. No, I think I might just be a Calvinist in this one - I think unless the Spirit of God quickens us, we are dead. And I have been, for a long time. But I think I've been made alive and forgiven. I am a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

A Decade and a Year

January 10th, 2011 marks for me a decade of coming to America and a year of coming to Christ. It's normal and customary, I suppose, to ask what I have learned. We assume we learn as we experience events, people, life. We're supposed to be wiser as we're older. My father used to say that his hair didn't get gray just because the sun shone on it. Nestled comfortably in my thirties today, I find a few gray hairs myself and wonder what I have learned, if anything.

Much happened in the past decade - I fell in love with a man I couldn't believe really existed, got married, got a masters degree, bought some houses, got rid of all but one, acquired debt, went from wanting to be a writer to being a real estate broker to landlord to homemaker, gained and lost thirty-five pounds twice over, had two babies - one with an epidural one without, learned innumerable skills from painting (a house) to knitting (a small square) to sewing curtains to filing taxes and other government forms to baking pretty much anything to gardening tomatoes and pruning geraniums.

Marriage in itself has taught me a lot. When I read about God's "covenant love" and how Christ calls us His beloved, it makes sense to me. I understand it experientially, I truly get it as a reality because that is the love James has for me. It is an abiding, everlasting love, but more than anything it is an honoring love. There is much about love as honor, love as work I have yet to learn from this man who still does not call himself a Christian, yet lives Christ's word.

Parenthood was not what I expected either. But then again, who really knows what being a parent is like until you are one? Who knows the joy of holding something that  began as an orgasm and is now crying for warmth and comfort and food and diapers and will someday have legs that walk and a mind of its own? It's just like trying to describe what being married is like - it changes you, it makes you more giving, it reminds you of how rotten you really are and how far you are from what you really should be and yet, miracle of all miracles, you're there, you're enough... and you're needed, even loved.

A famous theologian once said, "Of what value is learning that does not turn to love?"And I think that's what this decade has been - a study of how to love. I'll admit I didn't have much of it when I first stepped on American soil. I was selfish, spoilt, always wanting my way, insisting on getting mine. Love, I think, was inside me but it was twisted. Manipulation, greed, guilt, depression, shyness, insecurity clung to me and their roots ran deep. Fear, the inability to forgive, anger, doubt - these were my friends for a long time. But I was in search of Truth and had been for a long time. (Aren't we all?) And some of my husband's first words to me cut through all that muck right to the core: "I need to be with someone who loves me." Truth has a way of doing that. Nine years later, another simple sentence by another Man: "I am The Way." Both answers to prayer. Both life-saving.

So don't ask me what I have learned. Because I am still learning to love.

3.1

If it is true that life is a marathon not a sprint, then I would like the race of faith to be a 5k. This morning was the first time I ran 3.1 miles. 

I have never been a runner. When I started running this summer, it was on the treadmill. I found out, much to my disappointment, that I could barely run for one minute without having to walk. So I started to follow this website's guidelines for a few weeks. Then my wonderful husband suggested I try running outside on the open road. So I did. First just a block, then half a mile, then a mile. And today - today! - three point one whole miles.

Benjamin Cheever in Strides calls the daily run "at first an ordeal and then an accomplishment..." and then "a staple like bread, or wine, a fine marriage, or air." 

Or prayer, I would add. 

Faith is often called a race in The Bible. James (my husband, not Jesus' brother) has noted many times that in his experience Christians seem to have an affinity for running. The book of Hebrews urges us to "run with endurance the race that God has set before us, looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." Isaiah prophesied that "those who trust in The Lord shall run and not be weary." I know a handful of true Christ followers who like to run as well. Maybe there is a connection somewhere but I don't think I know enough to explain it.

All I can speak of is what I have experienced and continue to, how I understand - in a very small way - what the character of Eric Lidell says in Chariots of Fire, "When I run, I feel His pleasure."All I can say is that His mercies truly are new every morning and there is no better way to experience them than in a sunrise run.