Perseverance Through Adversity

That was the theme of our all-school assembly today.  One of our alumni is a phenomenal football player and was signed onto the Seahawks’ 53-man roster as an undrafted rookie free agent. He went on to make the game-changing first touchdown grab in the NFC championship game that propelled them on to the Super Bowl.  Today he came back to inspire our students to push through adversity, because that is the motto of his life’s story. As much as he was there for the kids, his visit also inspired a lot (if not all) of the staff to do the same thing.  It all hit us in different ways – most of the staff taught him, so it was a really big deal and a proud parent moment, so to speak.  I never had him in school, but I was so motivated after listening to his story and hearing him talk.  It has motivated me through today and will continue to do so.

It is not easy to make a lifestyle change at all.  There are so many fall backs, but also so many things to celebrate. For example, my husband was a saint and made us dinner tonight after a long day of work.  It was grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (one of my FAVORITES), but it was definitely not 21DF approved.  Did i still eat it? You bet I did! Will I run an extra mile or two tomorrow morning to burn it off? You bet I will!  On the flip side, I was at a meeting before school this morning where there was a plethora of delicious looking donuts to be eaten.  Did I want a donut more than many things in life? You bet I did! Did I stick to my meal plan and ignore the temptation? You bed I did! That was tough, but so worth it.

Life is all about choices, and sometimes the bad ones knock us on our butt.  The good news is that Christ is with us through it all.  He pushes us to persevere through adversity.  If anyone is the example of it, He certainly is.  Christ’s earthly life was spent neck deep in adverse situations, but he persevered through, overcame death, and lives on to be our Savior.

I don’t think I’ll forget today’s lesson anytime soon.  I am so grateful to have been given the chance to hear it.

Eat: Awesome (except dinner, but I didn’t eat my carbs or cheese for the day yet anyways, so that was good at least).

Pray: Not as much as I should.  I am embarrassed that I still haven’t made this enough of a priority yet.

Write: I missed yesterday (whoops – fell asleep) but I’m back on track!

Run: I FINALLY RAN TODAY! It felt great and I am PSYCHED to hit the treadmill again tomorrow.  Oh, and I worked out yesterday too! 8 days strong!

Mondays are a pain.

Today was a long day. I am very tired. This will be a short post.  I will probably write like a 6th-grader the whole time. I should stop procrastinating on grad school work so that I don’t have to do it every Monday.

Eat: Clean! Woohoo! I made some AWESOME unstuffed cabbage rolls for dinner tonight (recipe here) and did a great job all day of staying on task.  I can do this!

Pray: I didn’t do too well in this department.  I need to start carving out this time.

Write: It is short, but it is finished.  I already wrote two very long discussion responses for grad school.  I am written out.

Run: I planned on this after school today, but I had so much prep to do that I ran out of time to make it to the gym.  I did kick some major butt during my Total Body Cardio Fix today though.  Waking up early to hit up the treadmill tomorrow (yay for running; yuck for hampster wheels).

Good. Night.

Fuel for the Journey

Jon and I didn’t know it at the time, but blessing upon blessing started pouring out over us this past August.  I had been hunting for a church home in Central PA for about two years at that point, and he had been on that hunt with me for the past 11 months.  As we were moving into our house, we kept driving past this not-too-huge Evangelical Free church, so we decided to give it a try the following Sunday.  Ever since that first day at Susquehanna Valley Evangelical Free Church, we have felt at home.  The members of the congregation have welcomed us in fully, and the pastor and other staff have been incredibly friendly and have reached out to us in so many ways.  We went to church there this morning and listened to a phenomenal sermon on the battle for our heart.

Our nature is not to have a heart devoted to God, but to rather have a heart that is divided and torn between duty and devotion.  So often, we love God out of duty, and love worldly things out of devotion, instead of loving God fully out of devotion.  We love the Lord our God with some of our heart, instead of giving him the whole thing.  If we try to give the whole thing, there is always the “but this” piece that holds us back.  I think this is why Lent is such a powerful season in the church.  Lent pushes us to look deeper at our “but this” things that hold us back from a closer relationship with God.  We try to give those things up, and often only do so for some of the time. I am more than guilty of this.  I try so hard, but the “but this” just keeps me back.  I could love God fully with all of my heart, but I can’t give up my laziness.  I can love God fully with all of my heart, but I can’t give up my control over my life.  I could love God fully with all of my heart, but I can’t let go of these past sins that hold me back.

God calls on us to let go to the things that tie us back and surrender to Him.  I still haven’t figured out how to do this yet, but I keep reminding myself that this is what I need to do if I want to feel revival.  I keep praying that God will show me the way and will help me to release my “but this” moments to the wind.

After church this morning, I had a blast playing and helping to facilitate the dodgeball tournament at my school.  We went to Bible Study with our young couple’s group afterwards and enjoyed some wonderful fellowship in the middle of our 5 Love Languages series.  We are so grateful that they have brought us into their group so open-heartedly, and we are so grateful for their friendship, presence, guidance, and example in our lives.

Eat: SO good today! I may have gone overboard on my hummus intake at Bible Study, but with carrots as the vehicle, I’m okay with that!  Everything that I ate was clean today! Woohoo!!!

Pray: A lot. See above for details.  God is moving in me, but I need to LET GO!

Write: I am loving the routine of it.  I feel better and more centered as I head to bed.

Run: No run today because I had zero time to fit it in. But, I shoveled our beast of a driveway this morning, played dodgeball and ran around like a maniac trying to manage things, and just finished my Yoga Fix.

Peanut Butter Egg?

Churches are beautiful, glorious, wonderful creations.  Churches that make chocolate covered peanut butter eggs are at the top of that list. Except when you’re on a diet, and you’re trying really hard to stick with it, and you are at beautiful coffee shop and it is staring you in the face.  Without hesitation, I bought it and then stared at it for another hour.  Then without hesitation, I split it with my husband and for the two minutes that I slowly consumed it, I was in chocolate peanut butter heaven.  And then it was gone. And then I felt an insane amount of guilt. Sigh…temptation is such a little bugger!

The good news? My day reversed from my pit of peanut butter despair and I had a much healthier finish than I had started with.  Overall, my husband and I had a pretty lazy day, but it was so necessary to just sit and be still for a little.  It was a good reminder that God is often found in the still small voice, not the hurricane.

Eat: Breakfast wasn’t the best choice, but I was at a farmer’s market and it was hard to deny.  After my morning lapse, we rounded out the day with an Amish-raised hormone an antibiotic-free roasted chicken and potatoes that my incredible husband prepared.  I am blessed to be married to an amazing cook.  Shakeology for a post-workout snack and I am feeling great now!

Pray: I focused a lot on God’s still small voice today.  It was a good reminder to slow down and relax in the quiet every once in a while.

Write: It is getting more and more challenging to remember to do this, but I am finding that it helps to fill out my busy day as well.  I am really starting to enjoy the time for reflection.

Run: It has been snowing for the past 12 hours, so this clearly didn’t happen.  I killed my Dirty 30 today though! I never thought I would be able to push through those Renegade Rows but I did.  Feeling stronger every day (and realllllllly looking forward to hopefully a long run and some yoga tomorrow!)

T.G.I.F.

Teaching is an awesome profession, especially where I work.  I love my job and I am so happy doing what I do every day.  But I swear that a day off of work is twice as much work as a day at work.  Coming back from a day off was a bit stressful today, but my kids actually did a pretty excellent job of staying on top of their work.  They are finally starting to become self-sufficient; maybe something that I am doing is finally the “right” thing to do.

Softball is getting back into full swing and try outs start next week.  I am so nervous about how my time management is going to be affected.  Fingers are crossed that I can stay on top of things still.

Eat: Everything I ate today was healthy! Finally! My portion control wasn’t the best at dinner time, but at least I made smart choices. I am always STARVING by that point, so I think that I need to do a little more to space out my calories earlier in the day so I’m not so ravenously hungry come dinnertime. I also want to point out that I bought donuts and muffins this morning at Dunkin Donuts and I didn’t eat a single one.

Pray: I hosted my monthly Bible study with a group of senior girls before work today.  It is so amazing and incredible to spend time with a group of young ladies who choose to wake up early to meet and talk about Jesus. I am so grateful that God has led me to this opportunity and that I am able to share and learn and grow with them.

Write: Done! This is my most consistent streak ever.

Run: No run today, but I did wake up at 4:30 to get my Cardio Fix in before Bible Study.  It kicked my butt, and I was so glad that I got it out of the way!

An Adventure in Charm City

Today was AWESOME! My husband and I decided a few weeks ago that we needed to burn a personal mental health day soon, so we planned to take today off.  We knew we wanted to go somewhere on a day trip, but we were stuck between a few options.  After a ton of deliberation, we finally decided to head down to Baltimore and we loved every minute of it.  It was a relatively short drive from Harrisburg, and super easy to navigate.

We spent the morning at the National Aquarium and it was so amazing.  It was incredible to see so many different fish, birds, turtles, sharks, dolphins, and everything in between and know that they all were beautifully designed by an almighty Maker.  He shaped them each for their own purpose, and their ability to astound us humans just by being alive is phenomenal.  My personal favorite moment was when a young boy was checking out a tank in front of us and was SO excited that he saw an eel, so he screamed (and I mean complete outside-voice screamed) to his family “YOU GUYS!!!! I FOUND AN EEEEEEEEEEEEL!!!” It was beautiful to see a child so excited about a unique part of God’s creation and so happy to see a piece of nature that not many people get to see outside of a controlled environment.

After we saw everything at the aquarium, we went to Philip’s Seafood at Inner Harbor and had a delicious meal.  I actually enjoyed an oyster for the first time (although I’ve tried them before – just didn’t enjoy them) and made a healthy choice for my meal instead of going with my gluttonous desires (more about that later…).  After that, we wanted to kill some time before a local brewery opened up.  I had heard about a cool taproom in the Fell’s Church neighborhood so we went and checked out Max’s Taproom.  It was AWESOME.  They had so many unique brews on tap, so we indulged a little on some Belgians that we know we will probably never get our hands on again.  Totally didn’t stick to my diet with that one, but it was a special trip and so worth it.  After that, we drove a little bit out of town to go to Heavy Seas Brewing.  It was a lot smaller than we had expected, but they had some solid stuff on tap.  We split a flight and called it a day and came back home.

Today was one of those days where it was absolutely necessary to take some time to get away and slow down. Work has been so busy for both of us lately, and we were so glad that we were able to take some time to enjoy each other’s company in a city that was fairly new to both of us.  We are already planning our return trip, and we are even more anxiously awaiting June when we can take another full week off of work together to enjoy God’s creation up in the Adirondacks.  Quality time with my husband is absolutely priceless, and I was so grateful for every minute of it today.

Eat: Better than last week, and a little better than yesterday! Shakeology for breakfast always kicks my day off great. At lunch, instead of going with the absolutely delicious sounding crab cake reuben sandwich with fries, I went with a crab cake salad with artichokes, tomatoes, and corn.  It was SO yummy and even though the crab cake may not have been the best thing – I had to get some kind of seafood in Maryland.  Dinner was a flatbread sandwich and salad. YUM!

Pray: I had some quiet time to sit with God tonight and it was so relaxing and rounded out this busy day.  I need to make my time more intentional and start working it into my mornings.  My day needs to start off in a more balanced fashion.

Write: Done 🙂 No grading today though!

Run: No run today because it was freezing and I was not driving into work to hit the treadmill.  I was so so so tempted to skip my 21 Day Fix workout today because it was 8:30 at night and I just wanted to head to bed with my hubby. BUT, I didn’t skip it, and I went hard at my pilates fix and my abs totally feel it already.  I am so glad that I did it though.  I feel ready to slip into a nice cozy bed and cuddle up with my love until my early morning workout tomorrow!

Remember that you are dust…

I was raised Lutheran and chose to consider myself Lutheran up until a couple of years ago.  I still understand and appreciate my Lutheran roots, but now I find it so much easier to just say that I am a Christian.  I don’t follow a theology; I follow Christ. But growing up Lutheran taught me a lot about liturgy and helped me to grow a lot of respect for the more “ceremonial” high Holy days.  Ash Wednesday was always one of my favorite services to go to, and I can’t quite explain why.  It reminds us of our sinful nature, our mortality, and that no matter what, our physical body will exit this world simply as dust. The solemnity intrigues me as does the symbolic display and reminder of our baptism.  We proudly wear our ashes on that day to show that we are good catholic (little c) Christians who went to church that day.  My motivation now is to wear my ashes every day, not necessarily as a black smudge on my forehead, but as an outward display of my decision to follow Christ.

I was constantly reminded of my serious lack of ability to resist temptation and stick to my goals today.  Everything really started off great, but as soon as my husband put out an idea for a seriously delicious dinner, my portion control went out the window.  It was a struggle, but I know that I at least made some healthier decisions that I had the past few weeks.  That is what is important to me.  I am not expecting perfection on day one, but I am expecting progress as I move forward.

Eat: I made good choices until dinner time, and then I chose to have about twice as much steak as I should have, and really couldn’t resist the creamed corn for some reason (sweet tooth anyone?).  Of course I just had to celebrate National Drink Wine Day, and the Malbec was delicious.  2/3 of the day followed the plan.  I’m a bit disappointed in myself, but I’ll take it for now.

Pray: I didn’t spend as much time on my devotion as I had hoped to this morning, but I had some awesome time during my workout to turn on our local Christian radio station and just check in with God.  I believe my prayer of the day was “Please help me make it for one more minute. Please help me make it for 30 more seconds. Please help me start to like the treadmill…”

Write: Done. I also wrote a bunch of nasty grades on my students’ half-hearted attempts at a project. Sigh…

Run: 30 minutes on the treadmill first thing this morning.  I hit 3.44 miles which definitely isn’t where I need to be right now, but once again, I’m looking for progress from here.  I also am deeply praying for warmer temperatures because I don’t know if I ever can like the treadmill.

Tomorrow: Jon (my husband) and I both took a personal day off from work.  We are going to go on an adventure and put our cell phones away for the day (except for pictures of course).  We are not checking our work emails.  We are not answer work calls or text messages.  We are just taking time to be young newlyweds on an adventure.  I am unbelievably excited for it!

Preparation

I would consider myself to be a (mostly) healthy person.  I eat right (most of the time), exercise (fairly) regularly, spend (some) quality time just with God every day, take (limited) time to learn new things daily, and (occasionally) take the time to reflect on my day.

And there lies the problem.  I try so hard to make those statements true, but there is always a condition established to make the statement true.

In 6 and a half weeks, I hope that I can say the following without my nose growing:
I AM a healthy person.  I eat right, exercise regularly, spend quality time just with God every day, take time to learn new things daily, and take the time to reflect on my day.

My motivation and inspiration is Jesus.  My foundation and support is the word of God. My sidekick is the Holy Spirit.

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.”
– Matthew 4:1-11 (NIV)

Following his baptism, Jesus fasted for forty days and resisted temptation.  He lived on the word of God and relied on the Holy Spirit to be his wingman against Satan.  God also calls on us to let go of the things that burden our lives and knock us out of balance.  With God’s foundation, Jesus’s example, and the Spirit’s guidance, we, too, are able to let go of what burdens, bind up what is broken, and grow in faith and love.  On Easter, I hope to emerge broken, fixed, and ready to grow and be salt and light for Christ in the world.

That long-term goal sounds great, but there is a lot that needs to happen in order to accomplish it. Because of this, I’m breaking my journey down into a series of short-term daily goals that will serve as my checklist of sorts.  Here’s my daily to-do list:

• Eat: clean. I will be following the Beachbody 21-day fix meal plan as strictly as I can for all 40 (+6) days of Lent.
• Pray: daily and often.  I will commit to spending at least 15 minutes of my day (either in chunks or all at one time) immersed in the word of the God and in conversation with God.
• Write: about my journey.  I will write a daily update, even if it is only a few sentences long.  I also want to spend more time reading a variety of literature to grow my own knowledge.
• Run: daily.  I will either run, do that day’s 21-day fix workout, or do both every day.  I need to get back in this habit badly for so many reasons.

It sounds so simple, but it definitely will not be easy for me.  Time management will be a huge issue as I am currently balancing my full-time teaching job, part-time graduate school, recently-married homeowner life, and will begin coaching softball next week.  Motivation has always been an issue for me, so I am relying on God’s word and on support from those around me (including a 21-day fix challenge group that I am in) for support.  I fall victim to temptations all of the time, and I am often a lazy, sweet-snacking, sleepy sloth.  I will have to challenge myself holistically, but making holistic changes is the only way that I can truly grow.

Check back often (daily, actually) for updates on the challenges, changes, and growth that will occur between now and April 5th.  I am excited to share the journey with you.