My musings on life, making peace with my body, finding balance in raising three children, being a wife, working full time and trying to live like Jesus.
I'm writing to you from the beautiful town of Verona, Wisconsin, home of Epic Headquarters.
I'm here for work training and while I miss my family, I'm not gonna lie, it is kind of like a mini vacation. This is the 5th time I've been here and the place gets bigger every time. It is such a beautiful campus and they feed you delicious and fresh food. I also enjoy learning, so it is a good deal all around.
The weather was gorgeous here today, so even though I did a quick treadmill run in the morning at the hotel, I decided to get out and find somewhere to hike after class. I decided to check out the Ice Age National Scenic Trail.
Look at how blue that sky is! Seriously, the weather couldn't have been more perfect. 70 degrees with a cool, crisp, fall breeze. I had only planned on taking a casual hike, but as I was on my way back I just couldn't help but run. It felt really good to just run because I wanted to and not worry about a training plan....seriously, I'm so ready to get this 10K done with (12 more days!).
I've been tossing around the thought of doing a blog post on teachers and how life altering they can be, but since it isn't really on topic, I kept pushing it to the back of my mind. However, a few things have left me to believe that there must be some reason I'm being prompted to write this. So I apologize for the brief detour that the rest of this post will be.
I've been trying to get through "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis for a couple of months now. It takes me forever to get through books. Today I read something that really resonated with me
"Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself." (Pg 78)
I love to learn. I'll be a lifelong learner. If I had unlimited time and money, I would be a college student forever. However, since I'm still paying for the last 7 years of my education, I need to do the educating on my own. I think that is why I am so thirsty for The Word right now and why I am finding so much desire to just keep digging. My brain is becoming sharper, I'm thinking about things I've never thought about before....I'm getting educated, and I'm not paying thousands of dollars to do it!
Throughout my 18+ years of schooling, I've had many teachers. Maybe it is just me, but I'm guessing that most of us can agree that a majority of the teachers we've had in our lifetime were just plain old forgettable. Not really great, not terrible, just average. However, there are some that are excellent and some that are horrible, both can drastically change the trajectory of a person's life. I've had both experiences.
My 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Schuette, was a horrible teacher, at least for me. It was one moment, one decision, that gave her that rank in my book. We had taken a science test that did not go well for me. I had typically done pretty well academically, but I bombed that test. The whole class had done pretty badly and she was upset and ranting to the class and apparently my grade (a D) was more noteworthy than the myriad of others. She proceeded to tell the ENTIRE class "even Tammy got a D, what happened?" I can still picture her disappointed look as she waited for me to say something, but I wasn't able to find any words as my lips trembled and my eyes filled with tears. I have hated science since that day and although I didn't know it was possible to have less self confidence than I already had at that point, my self doubt was taken to an entirely new level. I carried on in school doing the best that I could, but always feeling like I wasn't good enough. I frequently missed school that year because I was "sick" (too depressed) to go.
Fast forward a couple of years to my 8th grade year. As if being a chubby, self deprecating thirteen year old wasn't difficult enough, I got to do it as the "new kid". My 8th grade year started off with a lot of tears due to a lot of torment by one girl who was literally half my size. I think a nervous laugh after I accidentally served a volleyball into her friend's face made me an instant enemy. The old saying "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"....yeah, that is a bunch of bologna (I just had to sing Oscar Meyer has a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a to spell that correctly). I don't even remember what was said, but I know that many anxiety attacks, tear stained pillows and complete fear going to school each day were the norm. I didn't have any friends and I desperately wanted to go back where I came from. That was until my science teacher (ironic, I know), Mrs. Handy, picked up on something. She pulled me aside after class one day and asked if I was doing ok and I'm pretty sure I completely lost it and turned into a pile of tears. I explained what had been happening and she took action. I was so relieved, finally someone cared...I had gone for months with the volleyball and basketball coaches being completely aware of what was going on and doing nothing about it.
I ended up in the counselors office with my "bully" and after a few meetings, things eventually stopped. I could go to school without being afraid anymore, hooray! But that wasn't the end of the impact that Mrs. Handy made, although that alone would have left her in my good graces for many years to come. She also recognized that I was doing well academically and pulled some strings to have me put into the advanced English class. For a nerd like me, that was "making it" as far as 8th grade is concerned and it did wonders for my self confidence. For the first time in a long time, I actually felt like I was worth something. I started pouring myself into school and it was evident on my report cards. (We'll just gloss over the fact that I eventually ended up being obsessed with my grades in a very unhealthy way during high school.)
If she had never taken the time to invest in my life, I know I would not be the person that I am today, quite honestly, I don't know if I would even be alive.....which is the other horrible irony in this story. Mrs. Handy literally saved my 13 year old life and sadly, a few years later took her own. I still cry when I think about it. At our senior awards banquet we had to recognize a teacher or someone that had impacted our lives. Many students wanted to recognize her, she was just that awesome, but the school administrators politely requested that they choose someone else...I refused. I couldn't give someone else the credit that she deserved and I don't think there was a dry eye in the place when I got done with my little speech.
Teachers have incredible power and most of it has absolutely nothing to do with the content that is being taught in the classroom. Don't get me wrong, content is also very important, (Thank you Mrs. Nygren for being a phenomenal AP English teacher and teaching us how to properly write a research paper, many college professors have been pleased with your work) but years down the road, many of us don't remember most of what we learned in class, but we will always remember what the teacher helped us learn about ourselves.
So for all of you teachers out there that get bogged down by the piles of papers to correct, parents who think you are doing it all wrong and kids who seem like they don't even care, know that what you are doing is important and you could be changing someones life without even knowing it simply by paying attention. Thank you for doing what you do.
Do you have a teacher, coach or mentor who has changed your life? Let them know while you still have the chance.... (And let me know too, cause I like stories like that) As Jason Strand taught us at EBC last weekend, "If you think something nice, SAY IT!"
Today's post is very much a needed reminder for myself, and since I need reminding of this frequently, I'm guessing others may find some value in it as well, so I decided to blog about it.
I've been struggling lately with my runs....ok, so not just with running, but with life in general. Training runs are not going anywhere near as well as I would have hoped they would be at this point, and it frustrates me. I had what I deemed a "craptastic" run on Friday night. I had to walk after running 2 miles, lately I've been making it to the 4 mile mark before I need to take a walking break, so I was feeling defeated. I can't even tell you how many times along my 6 mile journey I said to myself, "Why in the world am I doing this?".
When I was about 5 miles in, the song "The Lost Get Found" by Britt Nicole came on.
I've heard this song hundreds of times before, but hadn't really listened closely to the lyrics.
Don't let your lights go down Don't let your fire burn out (Stand out) 'Cause somewhere Somebody needs a reason to believe
Why don't you rise up now? Don't be afraid to stand out That's how the lost get found The lost get found
I was listening intently trying to take my mind off of the fact that my legs were beyond tired and I was mentally defeated. When I heard those words, I lost it. There I was, running in what was now nearly complete darkness with a mile to go and I was bawling, like snot running out of my nose, gasping for air, no hiding it, bawling.
I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this because for whatever reason, I feel like it is what God wants me to be doing right now. I don't even completely understand it or know what the purpose is, but I'm trusting that He is going to us me so that someone, somewhere, can learn about Him through me. So that people who don't know Him or even do know him but haven't fully surrendered to Him can see the strength and power that he supplies me with daily to overcome the stronghold that food/obesity has had on me for so very long.
I need to keep going so that I can be a success story and give Him the glory.
There has been so much going on in my heart lately. I get overwhelmed so frequently because there is just so much that needs to be done, so many people who need to experience the love of Christ through The Church. People who need to be reached and hear the Gospel. Kids who don't have basic necessities. Women who need a safe place to grow and raise their children. People struggling with addiction. Children forced into sexual exploitation and slavery.....too much
I need focus. I have to keep reading and praying over Romans 12 until it becomes clear to me. James and I kind of made that "our chapter" for this stage of our life. There is so much good stuff in Romans.
I also need to work on telling myself the truth. I saw a great quote by Beth Moore last week - “We're going to have to let truth scream louder to our souls than the lies that have infected us.” James had to remind me of this when I got home from my run on Friday and told him how much it sucked and how slow I am. I have gotten quite good at lying to myself over the years. Whenever I do this this, whenever I tell myself how fat, ugly, slow, (insert countless negative adjectives here) I am, I pretty much say to God, "You know, you pretty much blew it when you made me, thanks for nothing pal." But the truth is that He made me to be me, just the way I am, because He has a purpose for my life. Psalm 139 has a thing or two to say about this
13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
I don't know why it is so hard for me to remember this. Why do I have to remind myself of this over and over? Some day it will stick, I'll just keep praying for that....may not be this side of heaven, but we'll get there.
There is so much more I could say tonight, but I'll leave it at this. What lies are you telling yourself today? Seek comfort in Psalm 139 and know that you are exactly who you are supposed to be. Don't be afraid to stand out, He has a purpose for you.
I just got done with an almost 5.5 mile run. It was very slow, but I kept moving, I only had to stop to walk for a couple of brief intervals. I was hesitant to even attempt a run tonight because it had gotten late and I had already taken the kids to the zoo and walked quite a bit, but my husband knows what I need and pushed me out the door. I had planned a 6 mile run, and probably could have finished it had it not been for the darkness in a not so great part of town. It felt REALLY good. I could have probably run faster, but my goal today was to just keep going and not have to walk, and I think I did a pretty good job of that. There is still a part of me that wishes I were faster, but I know that speed will come in time and right now I need to focus on the fact that I am doing it.
I sat down at the computer to unwind and started reading a couple of blogs and I stumbled upon a link to a blog written by an avid runner. It is called "Hey Fat Girl" and if you have ever thought that you were too "big" or inexperienced to intermingle with the incredibly fit, then I highly recommend you read it. I cried like a baby. This guy totally hit the nail on the head when it comes to the thoughts that I have when I meet people on the trail who are going so much faster than me or are obviously in much better shape than I am. It just made me feel good to know that some people understand the struggle and the negative thoughts that can come along with a journey like this.
Since the hubby's work schedule changed recently, I've had to change my running schedule around a bit. I used to do my long run on Saturday morning, but that doesn't work anymore, so the past two weeks I've run after church on Saturday evening. It is going really well, at least mentally, for me. Facing the biggest physical/mental challenge of my week is so much easier after being renewed with great worship. We are seriously blessed by the quality of our worship leader and band at "The Bear". I also strongly believe that the Holy Spirit controls my playlist, which is always on shuffle, but the song that I need to hear always comes on at the right moment. As I was nearing the end of my run tonight, I really wanted to start walking and I had started for a few seconds and then a new song came on. It was "Good Morning" by Mandisa. It is pretty much impossible to not pick up the pace when that song comes on, even if it was 8:00 at night. I started to think about how successful she has been in overcoming her addiction to food and weight loss and it gave me everything I needed to keep going.
I've been struggling a lot lately with feeling like I'm relationally challenged. I feel like I am horrible at being a friend, party due to trust issues and partly due to time issues. The trust issues stem way back to an experience I had in 5th grade. I had two "best-friends" that I pretty much did everything with. One of them was sleeping over at my house one night and she decided to call the other one while I secretly listened to see if she would say anything bad about me....and she did. My so-called best friend didn't even really like me and didn't like hanging out with me. Maybe that happens all the time to 5th grade girls and they let it roll off their back, but it has always stuck with me. To this day, it takes a ridiculous amount of courage for me to even pick up the phone and call anyone outside of my family because I pretty much assume that no one wants to hear from me or hang out with me. This makes it difficult to build and keep relationships going for me. There are very few people in my life, outside of my family, who I feel like I could even publicly call a "friend", and it makes me feel extremely inadequate.
However, tonight, our message at church was very much about relationships and friendships. Our pastor talked about how it is important to have a few close relationships that you can develop and the rest kind of have to stay at the acquaintance level. I felt a little bit better about things after hearing that. The women that I spend the most time with outside of work/family right now are my small group gals (ok, so half of them are family) and I think that I am in an ok spot. I wouldn't mind adding a couple of other non-family close friends to the mix, but I know that I need to step out of my comfort zone to make it happen. I guess it is something for me to pray about.
I've just been thinking a lot about my priorities in general. The book I'm reading right now is by our senior pastor (I think I mentioned that in my last post) and he talks about his top 5 priorities and how everything he does in his life is pretty much filtered through them. He's mentioned this many times during his weekend messages, and I've always kind of felt like I pretty much did that, but I've never actually taken the time to stop and identify them. My top four are pretty clear to me, but number 5 seems to waver. My top 5 are:
1) Strengthening my relationship with God and glorifying him in all that I do 2) Building and strengthening my marriage 3) Raising amazing kiddos who love Jesus 4) Keeping strong relationships with my family of origin and the in-laws 5) Transforming my body and mind to be healthier and stronger
Not going to lie, it is a struggle to keep them balanced, especially in this order. I believe that this is the order that they should be in. I think that keeping them in this order makes everything go better. If something doesn't fit in with these top 5 for me, then I really have to think hard about whether or not I have the time for it.
How we spend our days is so greatly influenced by our priorities. I think one of the best things that we did was remove the TV from our living room. We decided shortly after Rory was born that we didn't want the TV to be the focal point of our home or family. We still find ourselves in front of the computer too often, but not watching TV has been incredibly helpful in transforming my life. I always think it is interesting when I listen to someone tell me how busy they are, but they always know what happened on American Idol or The Bachelor. We all have the same amount of time each day, you get to determine how you spend it....choose wisely! (This is a reminder for me as well).
I have to remind myself daily that clean dishes, folded clothes and moderate organization aren't anywhere on that list. I get so frustrated and overwhelmed by the amount of work there is to do around here that I miss a lot of time with my kiddos. I'm trying to be better about just spending their waking hours with them rather than worrying about the dishes in the sink and the food stuck on the kitchen floor (but it is oh so hard to ignore).
So those are my thoughts for today. I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. Thanks for reading!
I might actually get into a routine for writing blog posts some day, but for now, you get my random bits of leftover time....which isn't much. So here are a couple of quick updates.
Today is the first day of my new job with IT. I'm writing this on my lunch break and so far so good! I was welcomed with some beautiful flowers, a nice note and a fun message on my calendar. Since I haven't always been 100% sure that taking this job was the best decision, I was happy to come in and see this. I am very excited to learn new things!
After hearing a message about Toxic Thoughts at church last weekend and doing some reading in Pastor Bob's book, 7 Simple Choices for a Better Tomorrow, I decided to take a leap of faith and sign up for the TC 10K. I had pretty much completely talked myself out of running it after my last blog entry, convinced that I would never be able to do it. It is just one of the many lies I have told myself, I can do it and will be doing it...it may not be a great time, but I will complete the race!
I have started the training and completed my first long run on Saturday after church. I had 5 miles on the calendar and was able to run all but about 3/4 miles of it. I am going to have to fight for it and continue to rely on God to give me the strength to do it. I'm confident that He is the one that wants me to do this, so I am trusting that he will be faithful in helping me complete it.
I've been diligent about tracking my calories on MyFitnessPal, sometimes it is a guessing game, but I always try to over estimate. Since I've started tracking I'm down about 5 pounds, so it is nice to see progress again. It hasn't even been that difficult to resist things that I know I shouldn't have, so I'm very thankful for that. I just keep hearing 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 running through my head and it is a reminder that what I put in my body and what I do with my body needs to glorify God. I've always known this, but haven't always done a good job remembering it.
I have a lot more that I could and would like to say, but this is about all the time I have for today. Thanks for reading!
