Color Run!!!

    You would think that from the way I feel after run/walking my first 5k that I just finished a marathon. I am exhausted and everything hurts, but more then that, I accomplished a goal. This was the first fitness goal I set for myself with my doctor this summer. I forgot to wear compression shorts today and in turn paid for it with bleeding thighs....my mother in law informed me that was TMI...but I'm kind of feeling like that's valid information for anyone else who is slightly fluffier would like to know, so it stays. That contributed a whole lot to my ridiculously slow time because you kind of don't want to run anymore when you're legs are literally on fire.
   
    The first thing I learned (which wasn't really a new revolution, but was an awesome reminder) is that I have amazing friends. I am significantly more out of shape then a huge majority of my friends. I was definitely the weak link. They could have run all 3.2 miles and I asked/begged them to go ahead and I'd catch up (how I planned on doing this I have no clue) about a million times and each time, they very emphatically refused. I kept my ear buds in and tried to survive kilometers 2 and 3...One was fine and I think I was numb by 4...so I was good again then, but they stayed right with me.

    My second lesson learned is that I am still way way out of shape. I have been doing 5k's regularly in the gym... on a machine. These machines do not take overpasses into account. Overpasses hurt so good...This 5k had 2 just in case you were wondering...we went over them twice. I think I told the road how much it sucked over and over again while I was climbing up them. But I kept going and I finished.   I finished with multi-colored teeth...that's what happens if you don't brush people....it's scary.

   I am a perfectionist. I have admitted this to myself and to everyone else in the world multiple times. I was pretty ticked off with myself that I wasn't running more of the race then I did. Right as the I started the last kilometer and I was really really getting angry with myself and my inability to keep running through the burning in the top of my legs, my playlist pulls up some Matchbox 20 jams. The song it started was "How Far We've Come". The whole premise of the song is that we as a society are basically destroying ourselves for the sake of "progress" so while it's a song that I absolutely love (and for the largest part agree with) and regularly jam out to...mostly because of my love for Rob Thomas, it's also not necessarily one with an encouraging message. The statement "Let's see how far we've come" plays over and over through out the song. It reminded me at just the right moment how far I've come. It's a little victory, but it's a victory none the less

Shrinking and Growing?

      Lots of times through my lifetime of being involved in churches and ministry and Bible college, I have been told to never be afraid to tell my story of what has been done in me through Christ. Those of you that know me well, know that I am not one to be afraid to tell anyone anything about myself ever. I am very forth coming with just about every type of information available, but I've never felt like I had a story of any significance at all to tell. I never had a drug addiction or suicidal thoughts or a drinking problem or slept with multiple people or parents that hated me or anything else. I didn't have a huge moment of when I decided to become a Christian as opposed to living a lifestyle of sin or anything like that. I lived a pretty non-climactic life surrounded by my Christian family and my Christian friends and I chose to follow Christ because it's what the right thing to do was and still is. 

    I have never really thought of myself as a sick person at all, but looking at my medical history, I would definitely fall into that classification. I had 14 hospitalizations before I was 2 (near-miss SIDS, allergic reaction causing my gastrointestinal system to shut down, asthma, allergies, etc, I can't name them all, but my mom definitely could) and a ridiculous amount since them. I've had 14 surgeries (4 surgeries to repair a broken arm, 3 torn meniscus, tonsils and adenoids out (age 3), c-section, hysteroscopy, 4 sinus surgeries including basically an entire rebuild), 3 broken bones, more sprains, tears and strains then I could count and have been diagnosed with 3 chronic conditions (PCOS, Hashimoto's disease, and asthma) and have more allergies then what I could even list if I tried. I am crazy accident prone, but the other side of that is that I have been just a sick person. I never ever thought that the healing from these issues would grow to be my testimony, but I'm thinking that is the way that this is all headed. 

    Last night I was shopping and was talking to two girls who were both extremely extremely overweight and I mentioned that I had lost 28 lbs since this summer and the quick question is "HOW?!" because lets be honest, every fluffy girl wants to be skinny. Every single one ever. If they say they don't, they are lying to themselves and to you. We all want to be healthy. I started sharing with them where I was before June this year. At that moment I realized exactly how sick I was. It is not normal for every doctor you see to honestly know your entire chart without needing to look at it for a refresher. I began sharing with them how we eat, that I exercise regularly and they looked at me like this is something they've heard hundreds of times and were honestly sick of hearing. I then began sharing with them all of the documented objective improvements that I have had health wise and all of the failures I had had in losing weight before and I saw a glimmer of hope for health in them. I saw the flicker of "well maybe this will work" in a string of absolutely hopeless feelings that had been seen in our conversation up until this point. Both of them had similar experiences to mine health wise up until now and were frustrated with the lack of results that they have had. So maybe through this experience not only am I being shrunk and shaped, I'm being grown and toned spiritually and emotionally as well. Maybe God is using this experience for me to be able to give hope to others and to help them find success as well.