inspiration

185 pounds

Suzy Taylor Oakley accountability, Batesville, fitness, friends, health, inspiration, photography

I forgot to tell you in the last post that my weight was 186 (that’s 8 pounds gained since my knee surgery and subsequent down-hill slide into indulgence).

Since I wrote that post Wednesday night (I had weighed that morning), I’ve lost a pound. Friday is my official weigh-in day, so I’ll try to remember to post each Friday. My blog-every-day plan kind of hit the skids when school started in September. It was a loooong semester.

Now that I have an iPhone (a birthday present in late November), I’m looking for a good calorie-counting app. I’m trying one out but not sure I like it. If any of you can suggest a good one, please leave a comment.

Today will be a bit of a challenge, because we’ll probably be eating at a restaurant in Memphis and I’ll have less control over the food prep. Bruce, Mom and I will be going to Southaven, Miss., for the memorial service of a dear friend, Barney Sellers, who died Monday. He was featured on the front page of Tuesday’s Batesville Guard, but you have to have a paid subscription to view more than a few paragraphs online. Here’s a link to the article in the Memphis paper, The Commercial Appeal, which is free (you have to register only if you want to post a comment).

I will write more about Barney in a future post. He was one of a kind.

Prediction Run winner, 2 years running

Suzy Taylor Oakley fitness, health, inspiration, running

 

I don’t like to brag, but please indulge me today as I do so. I rarely get the opportunity. 🙂

If you’ve read Suzy & Spice for at least a year, you know that last New Year’s Day I brought home the trophy in the women’s division of the New Year’s Day Resolution/Prediction Less than 4 Mile Fun Run/Walk. It means I predicted, closer than any other female in the event, the time it would take me to finish. (I predicted 50 minutes and finished in 50:17.3.)

What’s funny is that I hadn’t gone there to participate – I was there for Bruce. I saw some friends there, and they talked me into signing up at the last possible minute (I had just gotten back into walking/running a few weeks earlier, after being lazy for 10 years). I merely ball-parked a number to put on the registration sheet. You’ll have to read my 1/1/11 post – “How to win a race without really trying” – for the full irony. (I hope it makes you laugh.)

Leading to this year’s run, many of us had been complaining on Facebook that participating would keep us from going to church – or at least keep us from going to church on time, or going to church smelling good. (After all, people have to sit next to you …)

I debated and debated, and finally – late Saturday, after an incredibly great run along the course with my sweetie – that I would enter, would go to church sweaty and stinky and would just have to warn people not to get too close. I would have to miss the post-run awards ceremony, but since it’s a “fun run” it wouldn’t be a big deal, right? (Saturday evening, I had forgotten the sweatiness factor and foolishly made plans to have lunch with Mom after church, so that forced me to go home and shower; I couldn’t embarrass my mom by sitting at a restaurant sweaty and stinky. And I was only 10 minutes late for church.)

Saturday’s run was only my third time out since my Aug. 11 knee surgery. The surgeon wouldn’t let me walk or run for “three or four months,” so I had gotten lazy (and gained back some of the weight I had lost). I had done one walk in November (my knee hurt a lot), one 30-minute jog on the hotel’s treadmill on Christmas morning in Oklahoma (my knee didn’t hurt at all) and then Saturday’s Prediction Run course with Bruce (my knee hurt some, but so little that I silently said to myself, “I’m back!”).

So I entered, and again I predicted 50 minutes. After all, I had been off most of the past 4 1/2 months, so I knew my time wouldn’t have increased much, if any. (Plus we timed our run Saturday and had some idea how fast I could do it.)

Ringleader and timing master Ken must have been reading our Facebook posts, because once the last two people (a dad and daughter who – yes! – were slower than I was) crossed the finish line, the awards “ceremony” began.

And, once again, somehow I managed to take home the women’s trophy. My 50-minute prediction was off by about 18 seconds, only this year I was 18 seconds faster than my predicted time! Woohoo!

Do you realize than an 18-seconds-faster finish means I took more than half a minute off my time (remember, I was 17 seconds slower than predicted last year)? That may not seem like a big deal to you, but I hadn’t entered a race/run since my May 7 emergency-room visit for plantar fasciitis. (Yeah, you can read about that, too, by clicking here.) Granted, it was a flatter course this year, but I’ll take what I can get.

So please enjoy this moment with me, because I am not likely to have another one for 366 days (remember, 2012 is a leap year).

Some parting thoughts:

  • The prediction run is the only time I ever have or ever will beat my sweet – and really fast – friend Betsy Tucker in a running competition (sorry, Bets), because speed is not the issue; predicting your speed is. Bruce and I have been there to cheer her on as she has taken home awards and broken state records this past year. Today she and her husband cheered for me!
  • Thanks go to Cindy for helping me win this morning. She talked about not being competitive, so I took advantage of that (sorry, Cindy). I asked what she had predicted, and when she said 48 minutes, my competitive spirit kicked in. She just wanted to enjoy the beautiful scenery and the sweetness of being out there (we talked about how richly God had blessed us with the gorgeous scenery along the river and with the good health to be out enjoying it). I, on the other hand, shared that I didn’t start out to run competitively but that it sure was nice to win the trophy last year. So when she said 48 minutes, and I knew my prediction was 50 minutes, my goal was to be sure I was never more than 1 minute 59 seconds behind her. (It takes only one person and one fraction of a second to beat you, and there were no age divisions – just one male and one female winner.) I admit it, friends: I’m competitive.
  • Last year I received a “real” trophy, but, as you can see from the photo, this year’s trophy was a bit goofy and whimsical. I absolutely love it! Ken and Michelle, keep up the good work! (More on them in a future post.)

See you back in this space one year from today. I hope I have a goofy trophy to show you.

Book review: ‘How Shall We Feed Them?’

Suzy Taylor Oakley book reviews, books, God, inspiration, living in community, volunteering

I have been told by more than one person that I’m “very practical.” I take it as a compliment (although sometimes it’s not intended as such).

Being so practical, I was pleased to spend 90 minutes this evening reading Marty Girardier’s How Shall We Feed Them? A Practical Guide for Organizing a Food Pantry.

Not only did it touch the practical side of my brain, it spoke to my spirit.

Girardier, who reorganized her church’s food pantry before moving to a smaller church and partnering with the larger church’s pantry, has learned by experience and dedication what it takes to make a success out of feeding the hungry, the poor, the disabled, the unemployed and the down-and-out – one bag of groceries at a time.

She knows it takes a hands-on approach to the practical matters of stocking the pantry, distributing bags of food, organizing volunteers and the 101 other things involved in such an undertaking. But there’s another hands-on task we’re called to. It starts by realizing that we, the church body, are the hands and arms of Jesus in the world. We have been called to take a very hands-on approach to ministering to a person’s spirit as well as his stomach.

An effective and spirit-filled food pantry volunteer is not merely someone who fills a bag with canned goods and ramen noodles; it is someone who isn’t afraid to stop what he’s doing and ask the unemployed dad or the woman with crying babies if she can pray with them. It’s someone who not only prays with that desperate person on the spot but remembers to pray for him long after the brief encounter is over. We are Jesus to a hurting world. Jesus didn’t just fill stomachs with food – he served as the Bread of Life so that we would never hunger again, and Living Water so that we would never thirst. In fact, He’s still doing that – to us and through us.

But back to the “practical” stuff (as if Bread and Water aren’t the most practical things in the world!).

Girardier offers all kinds of tips on organizing and maintaining a food pantry. I was minimally involved years ago with the food pantry at my previous church, and I hadn’t heard of some of these great ideas – ones that take the ministry to another level of caring. They even caused me to come up with a few of my own ideas.

  • The ministry included encouraging cards in the bags of food that were prepared ahead of time. Sometimes the bags also included Christian magazines or other materials.
  • At holiday time, the Sunday school children made Christmas, Easter or Valentine’s cards to include in the bags.

Each chapter ends with a “Stop and Pray!” section, followed by a segment called “A Storehouse Blessing” – a story shared by someone who was blessed by receiving from and/or giving to the food pantry.

The back of the book includes checklists, forms, a sample reminder postcard and other aids to getting and staying organized.

Scripture and biblical principals are abundant in this book, thus the part that “spoke to my spirit.” My two main spiritual gifts are giving and serving, and it seems that Girardier may share those God-bestowed gifts. This book blesses the giving and serving parts of my brain, not to mention my heart.

“Organizing the food pantry, distributing food, collecting food, writing encouraging cards, and stocking the shelves are pieces of a bigger plan God will use to show His love to those in need. Meeting a food recipient’s physical need is just the first step to showing God’s love.”

It’s not the government’s job to feed the needy. That job belongs to the body of Christ. He calls us to feed His sheep. Let’s do it.

If your church is thinking about starting or revitalizing a food pantry, please get a copy of How Shall We Feed Them? You might even want to buy a copy for every member of your team. It is available from the publisher, Pleasant Word (a division of WinePress), for $8.75.

Girardier also has a blog called Pantry of Praise. Check it out. You’ll be blessed.

Book review: ‘Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me’

Suzy Taylor Oakley book reviews, books, God, humor, inspiration, reading, religion

I don’t know where to start.

I just finished reading Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir … of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron.

Maybe the jacket blurb from the archbishop of Canterbury (!) will help: “This is neither a simple memoir of hurt endured, nor a tidy story of reconciliation and resolution. It is – rather like Augustine’s Confessions – a testimony to the unfinished business of grace.”

Ian Cron grew up with an alcoholic father, a reality that shapes his life to this day. At age 16, he discovered the surreal truth that his father was a member of the CIA. When he wasn’t unemployed.

This is not a typical memoir.

Having grown up in a family of teetotalers, I can’t exactly relate to Cron’s harrowing, sometimes bizarre tales, but he has a way of telling the story that puts the reader in his shoes. Each sentence puts us closer to understanding – and feeling – his pain.

Ever since I began reading the book, I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe his writing style. Understated hilarity. Reverently irreverent. Dry witted. Brutally honest, no doubt, but in a gentle way. (Can you be brutal and gentle in the same breath?)

Cron is Anne Lamott for the clean-mouthed crowd. No F-bombs, no I-hate-Republicans rants. Just honest – and real.

Cron finds grace in the simple yet profound truths of life and makes them, yes, hilarious in an understated way (maybe that’s the definition of a dry wit). At times I laughed out loud, many times I chuckled, sometimes I merely smiled.

“The music at St. Paul’s [Episcopal Church] won me over as well. I’d never been in a church where people sang with so much enthusiasm. Catholics don’t sing – we murmur, then look surprised if a melody emerges.”

The simple. And the profound:

“I can see the couch from the kitchen. I stop cutting parsley and remember that [my mother] taught me how to ride the Dragon Coaster and what to do when you’re flung into the mouth of whatever it is you think will kill you. Throw up your arms and laugh until you come out the other side. That lesson has saved my life once or twice.”

I’m no good at writing book reviews. I just know when I like a book, or when I love a book – this one, for example – and I enthusiastically tell my friends they should read it. Some books fit into a niche, useful for a particular segment of the population; this one doesn’t fit into a neat category. It is for everyone looking for grace.

Aren’t we all?

This review is part of my agreement with BookSneeze. The publisher sends me a free book, and I agree to post a review of it on my blog and one other online publication. No pressure is put on me to write a positive review – just an honest one. (Click here to learn how you can get in on this sweet deal.)

20 pounds and then some

Suzy Taylor Oakley accountability, family, fitness, friends, fun, God, health, inspiration, medical, nature, running

Before I get to today’s news about me (it’s always about me, right?), I want to give a special shout out to Chelsea Willis, a young Batesville woman who has won two gold medals this week in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece. (She won golds in the 400- and 800-meter relays.) Way to go, Chelsea! You are showing us what can be accomplished with hard work and determination, and you are making Arkansas proud.

Today at our weigh-in at work, the scale showed a 2-pound loss. Finally! The past two Fridays I had lost less than a pound and was a bit frustrated. When we began the first Biggest Loser contest in February, I didn’t care whether I won or lost – I just wanted to have the accountability. By the end, when I had been in the lead for a few weeks, I wanted to win it (and I did). Now, in this second go-round, I definitely have become competitive about it. But I’m really just competing with myself – I have no idea how anyone else is doing, except for one co-worker who recently started sharing her successes with me. She has lost about 22 or 23 pounds to my 20.6, but she had more to start with so my percentages are better. And Biggest Loser is about percentage, not actual pounds.

So, back to the exciting news of the day: I’ve met my 20-pound goal, and then some – a total of 20.6 pounds, to be precise (and we all know I like to be precise).

Of course I have to maintain the 20-pound loss for a week before I can reward myself (in case it was a fluke, or some kind of scale malfunction, or I pig out next week and gain 6 pounds). I’ve changed my reward from a pair of sandals (more expensive than my new idea, plus I’m not sure my injured foot is ready for wedge sandals yet). I can get a six-month subscription to Runner’s World magazine for $9.97, so that will be my reward. I’m told the Sara Low Memorial 5K (Sept. 10 in Batesville) will be featured in the August issue.

(In case you don’t know, Sara was a Batesville High School grad and a flight attendant for American Airlines. She was on the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center on 9/11. One of her high school running buddies, Mindy, co-founded the 5K in her honor five years ago. This year is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, so my guess is that the Runner’s World feature will focus on that. It would be nice to read of other memorial races relating to 9/11.)

Thursday evening Bruce and I went to a planning meeting for the Sara Low race. If you’re looking for a way to contribute to the local running community, let me tell you we need volunteers for this race. Post a comment letting me know you’d like to help, or e-mail Ken McSpadden at macandmichelle@sbcglobal.net).

I would love to run the Sara Low race, but we’ll have to see. Despite the fact that I still have a bum foot and my right knee is a mess, I’ve still been running (I’m registered for next Saturday’s Army National Guard 5K at Lyon College, the route we’ve been training on for the past three weeks), but I have an appointment Tuesday to get my knee examined. (No news on when I will get my head examined.) If my doc sends me to a specialist, and that specialist recommends knee surgery, I won’t be able to run the Sept. 10 race. Bruce and I will be traveling in early August, so any potential surgery would have to wait until after that. This would put me out of commission in September, I assume.

Despite how crazy the thought might have been eight months ago (just before I started exercising again), I really have come to appreciate running in a way I never did before.

I have to admit it’s a love-hate relationship, but mostly love:

  • I love the health benefits (my foot and knee problems notwithstanding), and I love the feeling I get when I’m finished, or when I’m about to be finished. I love that I’ve learned to push through pain and discomfort – although it could be argued that I haven’t had much to challenge me in that area; I’ve never run more than a 4-mile course, I’ve never had to run on ice, etc., etc. I love the sense of accomplishment, even when what I’ve accomplished is minuscule. I love seeing the progress I’ve made, even when it’s slow and barely noticeable. I love how it has helped me to shed more than 20 pounds in less than five months.
  • I love being outdoors, even when it’s hot, humid, cold, dry, wet or wild. I haven’t told you, but I got caught in the thunderstorm that popped up early Tuesday morning. I was up on Main Street when the wind started blowing hard, headed back home when the rain started coming down hard, and really hustling when the gravel and dust from the overpass started flying into my eyes. It was kinda scary and kind of exhilarating at the same time. (Yes, I know, I’m a lunatic.) The next morning a lady I see each day around 6:15 slowed her car, rolled down the window and said, “I was kinda worried about you yesterday morning in that storm.” I didn’t tell her, but I sure wouldn’t have turned down a ride home if she had offered it. I see and wave at some of the same nice folks driving (or walking or biking) by me every morning on my route, and I would have felt safe hitching a ride with her – at least safer than I felt in the storm!
  • I love, love, love the time I have to myself out on the streets of Batesville as the sun is coming up. Is there a more perfect time to talk to the Creator of the universe than when a new day is dawning?
  • I love that Bruce and I are working out together and growing closer because of it. I love that he has a team to coach and feels a sense of purpose that he lacked before we moved to Batesville. He really loves coaching the ladies, and they (we) really love him. Plus, I get the added benefit of having a live-in running coach! (So far the positives have far outweighed the negatives.) Check out Bruce’s blog for his running tips and encouragement.

I can’t think of much I hate about running right now, except maybe that I still don’t have much lung capacity despite the speed (albeit small) that I’ve gained (an indicator of increased fitness, so you’d think I could breathe better by now, darn it!). Several months ago Coach Bruce told me I might never have the lung capacity I long for. I’ve had respiratory issues, mostly mild but still nagging, for much of my life, so it’s just hard, hard, hard to breathe when I run. I guess time will tell whether I can ever run an entire race without walking. Argh!

But mostly my relationship with running is love.

And today I celebrate it because it has been a large contributor to my weight loss.

Did I mention that I reached my 20-pound goal today? I did? Good. Also remember that I started walking/running in mid-November, added the healthy-eating component in February but didn’t get serious about it until April 5. It has taken me nearly three months to achieve a 20-pound loss, but that’s okay. In fact, it’s appropriate – a healthy way to do it, mentally and physically.

Remember that when you tell yourself you can’t do it. When you don’t see any progress, or you see so little change on the scale – or in your breathing, or the tightness of your pants, or your blood pressure or cholesterol or triglycerides – remember that baby steps will get you where you want to go if you’re patient.

Remember, friends, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

 

Just checking in

Suzy Taylor Oakley accountability, fitness, food, health, inspiration

I am still alive. I’ve just been busy – and tired.

My week has been a bit difficult, foodwise. I have strayed off the path a bit – not too much, just enough to make me a little annoyed at myself. Stress will do that.

Tonight I wanted to write a longer post here but had to write my Thursday post for the Connect+Scripture blog at my church, then edit the Friday morning post and get it ready to publish. This is time consuming, and, even though I love Connect+Scripture, it sometimes causes me to neglect other things I need to do (such as sleep).

Last week’s weigh-in at work had me close to my 20-pound goal. I’m rethinking my reward. Instead of sandals, I’m considering a chin-up bar that will hang in the doorway (I need to work on my flabby arms). Or getting a replacement for my favorite necklace, which I lost nearly three weeks ago (ironically, because of the Biggest Loser contest! It was in my purse instead of on my person in the minutes leading up to the weigh-in, and it fell out somewhere along the way). But I may save the necklace for my 40-pound reward; it costs nearly $40, and the chin-up bar is $18. On the other hand, I may have to make my rewards ones that don’t cost money; we’re still trying to sell our house in North Little Rock, so pennies are still being pinched around here.

I’m so tired tonight I’m bordering on incoherent, so I’m going to sign off and crawl into bed with the very good book that I’m reading.

Good night, sweet friends.

These mountains that they call hills

Suzy Taylor Oakley accountability, fitness, friends, God, inspiration, running

“Well, we’re stuck here in these hills that they call mountains.”

– Lyrics from “Meet Me in Montana”

Let’s begin with a summary of a few facts, some established in previous posts and some new:

  • Runners are crazy.
  • I have become one of them.
  • Some people talk to God while they run. My friend Stacy uses her time to listen to praise music and pray. I told her the only praying I can manage when I run is, “God, please don’t let me collapse and die.” (He seems to be listening.)
  • Bruce and I participated in the 10-week women’s running clinic – as trainer and participant, respectively – that culminated in a 5k race in Conway on May 7.
  • Some of the ladies from the women’s clinic “caught the running bug” and wanted to continue after the clinic ended; Bruce agreed to be our coach. We’ve been running the routes of some of the upcoming races.
  • The group is composed of a handful of members of the women’s clinic, the Run for God Bible study and the White River Road Runners. Bruce and I are members of all three, and our hybrid group has become a tight-knit little family unit because of our common goals.
  • Wog means walk/jog. That’s a term used by our Run for God teacher, Phyllis. (For me, running and jogging are interchangeable terms, although they might not be to “serious runners.”)
  • We’ve taken on a mantra: “I love hills … I love hills.” This came out of watching a video at our May 5 prerace pasta party. The young woman in the video completed a marathon, all the while smiling and repeating, “I love hills.” For our group, it started as a joke but has become a mental tool to fool ourselves keep one another motivated.
  • Bruce refers to most hills as “bumps.” But it is a proven fact that Bruce is insane, so no further comment is necessary, except this: He changed his tune slightly after we ran the Army National Guard 5k route Tuesday night in 92-degree heat and 1,000 percent humidity. Now he admits some hills are closer to “humps.”
  • Since I injured my foot, I have been doing more walking than jogging. This leaves enough oxygen in my brain to write blog posts while I walk (although I was running while I wrote my New Year’s Day post – much of it while climbing the hill pictured above).

So … on to these mountains they call hills.

Bruce and I moved here from North Little Rock. From the Park Hill neighborhood. From a street called Cherry Hill. There are plenty of hills in North Little Rock. Now we live in Batesville, home of plenty of hills.

The point is, we know hills.

Until this week, our group had been training on the White River 4-Mile Classic route, which starts and ends downtown on Main Street. The race route is now clockwise, and this is a good thing. When Bruce and I ran the Classic in 2001 and 2002, it was counterclockwise, and the start and finish were both uphill (previously established fact: Ending a road race uphill should be a felony).

The race route isn’t merely a reverse of the old course. It’s now strictly downtown and around west Batesville. This keeps runners off the busy U.S. highway. And, in keeping with future federal statutes (I can dream, can’t I?), both the beginning and the end are downhill.

The hilliest parts are in the neighborhood where my brother and mother’s houses are, so I had wogged those streets many times before we started training for the 4-mile.

Here’s the part I find ironic: The hilliest hill (the one we hate [and by that of course I mean “love,” because we love hills!], the one where I wrote a chunk of my New Year’s Day post) isn’t Hill Street, and it isn’t North Heights. It’s the street that’s difficult going up and going down (it’s hard on your lungs and calves going up, hard on your knees and your sore toe going down). This hill is not a hill to take lightly. It’s not the steepest hill in the neighborhood, but it’s longer – a relentless incline. It’s one where you do some serious talking to Jesus before you reach the top, and then you thank Him when you get there.

But, no, the hill is not North Heights or Hill Street – it’s the hill that connects the hills. It’s Craig Street.

I have renamed it Craig Mountain.

Our pastor in North Little Rock is a mountain climber. He takes church groups to climb Colorado’s “fourteeners” (mountains of at least 14,000 feet), and I believe he has now climbed all 53 of them. Bruce and I went with him in 2001 and climbed the sixth-highest, Uncompahgre.

To say Craig Loibner likes to climb mountains is like saying that I “like” chocolate. It is a huge understatement. His entire family is into this mountain-climbing thing – wife, children, grandchildren, in-laws, outlaws. It seems to be in his blood. It’s one of the many gifts God has given him.

Craig not only is an outdoorsman, he is a gifted teacher, and he doesn’t waste a good gift by going to Colorado merely to climb mountains and sit by the campfire telling stories. He uses each trip, each mountaintop experience, as a teaching tool. He has dedicated his life to teaching others about God, and he is building a legacy.

There’s no telling how many people, young and old, have gone on to do the same because of Craig’s commitment to sharing the good news of Jesus. I could never list for you all the things he taught me in the 16 years I attended Fellowship North, but it would include the ability to take on mountains, both physical and spiritual. (After all, without the hills, we wouldn’t appreciate the flats.)

Bruce and I have loved Craig Loibner and his family for many years. I say a prayer for them every time I traverse that hill … or hump … or mountain.

Craig Loibner would look at Craig Mountain and laugh. For me, it’s a mountain. For him, it would be a mere bump in the journey. He wouldn’t break a sweat.

And thus I dedicate my wogs on this little mountain they call a hill … to Craig and his family.

I'll let you know when the city gets the sign changed.

Glimpses of light

Suzy Taylor Oakley accountability, fitness, God, health, inspiration, living in community, reaching out, running, work

Some days I want to reach my weight-loss goal now.

Some days are easier than others in “sticking with the program.” One of my stated goals in this journey, however, was to encourage others to make positive changes in their lives, too.

God gives me glimpses of light in small slivers sometimes. Today He gave me this glimpse, one I have seen in other areas of my life but hadn’t associated with my physical-fitness journey until now: If I lost all the weight I needed to lose as fast as I wanted to lose it, I wouldn’t learn nearly as much as He wants to teach me along the way. (And how physically unhealthy would that be? We’re not even gonna go there.)

I’m trying to get a healthy-workplace team established at the bank where I work, partly because I need a community of fellow sojourners to help me stay motivated, and partly because I want to be an encourager to others. This, too, will take time, and I’m okay with that.

At the rate I’m losing weight – about a pound a week – I will reach the 160-pound mark (goal weight, not pounds lost) on Feb. 10, 2012. Lots could happen along the way. I could get injured (oh, yeah, I already did!), I could get sick, I could lose my focus and veer off the path (for the umpteenth time). Heck, I could even change my goals. All sorts of things could happen to sidetrack me. No one knows the future, so I’m trying not to take that February date too seriously. I’m trying to learn as I go, gaining insight as I lose inches.

A few years ago, when my previous church set a God-sized goal to pay off $1.2 million of facility debt in 15 months, one of the members of a small-group study I was leading expressed skepticism (or, dare I say, cynicism). Among other things, he thought the church was setting its sights too high and asking its members to sacrifice too much. I urged him to consider what God was going to teach us in those 15 months. It was an exciting, encouraging time for our congregation, and so many wonderful stories came out of it. The last Sunday morning of December (15 months after we started), a relatively small last-minute donation (just after the church service ended) helped push us past our goal. Needless to say, we had a huge celebration.

God did teach us a lot that year. He taught many of us ways we could sacrifice, big and small, that didn’t necessarily cost us a penny: Maybe we raised money by doing something good in the community. Maybe we taught our kids that the family’s weekly movie night could mean watching a DVD and popping our own corn instead of piling into the car and spending big bucks at the theater. Maybe it meant not spending 4 bucks on a cup of coffee at a retail store every morning (and perhaps realizing we needed to give up the habit, anyway), then keeping tabs on what we were saving and dropping it into the offering plate come Sunday morning. Or maybe it did mean shelling out money – but the emphasis was on giving, not spending. And maybe some of us hadn’t been giving anything to God but started doing so during this emphasis on living beyond ourselves. Many of us learned the true meaning of sacrifice and obedience that year.

And if we had not experienced that 15 months as a community – the body of Christ – we wouldn’t have learned nearly as much about God, about ourselves and about our capacity for giving, and trusting. And we wouldn’t have the stories we members and former members still tell about that time in the life of our church.

So this journey I’m on – the one revolving around getting a healthier body – it’s not just about me. If you’ve been reading my posts these past two months, you know it often seems as though it’s all about me, but it isn’t. God gave us each other and told us to help one another along in the journey of life. It’s not just about me.

The Father  gives me glimpses of light when I keep the eyes of my heart open. Sometimes He has to pry them open, and sometimes I open them just enough to see what He’s teaching me.

Today my eyes opened just a slit, and I think I got what He was trying to tell me.

Sticks and stones

Suzy Taylor Oakley accountability, fitness, God, health, inspiration, running

“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

This children’s rhyme has been around a long time. How true it is depends largely on the individual. It depends on how strong you are, how resilient in the face of taunts, ridicule and discouragement, how grounded you are in the truth of this:

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

It takes a strong person to let crass, crude or careless comments roll off her back. Even when the speaker is “merely” careless – and perhaps would take back that unintentionally hurtful comment as soon as it hit the airwaves, if she could – words can and do hurt. We must take care with our own words and the words spoken to us by others. We can’t control what others say or think about us; we can only control our own words and our reactions to others’. And we can control what we say and think about ourselves.

The only way I can do it is to be grounded daily in the truth of Jesus.

I’m not always good at it. It’s easy to get sidetracked in the busyness of life, forget His words – which give life (John 6:68) – and let the meanness of the world sneak up behind me, spin me around and smack my fragile ego in the face.

What’s worse than letting others talk smack about me is when I do it to myself.

In controlling our words, it is not just about what we say to others. I would submit that we speak much more devastating words to ourselves, in the privacy of our own minds, than we ever would dare utter to another person.

I won’t give you my personal hit list – I’ll let you use your imagination, because you probably have a  list of your own. But there are words and phrases we women have in common, particularly when we’re focusing on our bodies and losing weight (and, let’s be honest, when are we not focusing on our bodies?). Some of them we say in the presence of others, and some we say to ourselves (either silently or aloud).

We were bad because we fell off the wagon. We cheated and don’t deserve good things. This evil food must be avoided. We have fat thighs, stomachs, hips. We will never succeed. We always mess up! We’re stupid for even thinking we could do this. (OK, so some of these are on my personal list.)

We even have special phrases for (supposedly) getting ourselves to abstain from a particularly delicious yet fattening food.

“A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” (Whoever came up with that one must hate dark chocolate, and garlic bread, and key lime pie …)

“No pain, no gain.” (Usually used in reference to exercise – and it’s literally true, to a point. But it has been used in dieting, too, although the hoped-for “gain” is actually a loss.)

At some point in a person’s journey to wholeness, the words and phrases made up by desperate dieters start sounding hollow. I realize that a pithy phrase can capture the spirit of the moment and create a new way of looking at things. Some of them have even helped me, and will help me in the future. (I’m partial to Garfield the cat’s line, “Diet is Die with a T.”) But relying on man’s wisdom (and my own off-kilter way of looking at things) is what got me to where I am: a lumpy, out-of-shape mess who has three sizes of clothing in her closet. By the grace of God, I haven’t resorted to some of the crazy things others have tried: diet pills, laxatives, colonics (if you don’t know, don’t ask), starvation, intentional vomiting. But I have said lots of crazy, unkind, untrue things to myself.

Bottom line: Grounding ourselves in the truth of Jesus and letting Him be our strength is the only way to wholeness.

Over the years I have come to cherish these words of the apostle Paul:

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10, NIV).

Paul had more than his share of hardships, persecutions and insults. In these verses, he isn’t telling us to go looking for insults, but if we know Whose we are, we can take anything the world hurls at us.

Just don’t let yourself be the one doing the hurling.