Monday, September 19, 2016

Are you Still Up for the Challenge?

Hi everyone! How are you doing on the 22 push-ups for 22 days challenge? I posted about starting my challenge on the 30th of last month. It is now the 19th, so it's been 20 days. I actually finished my challenge a couple days ago only because I did double push-ups for a couple days. [pause] I didn't do them back to back. It was more like one set in the morning and one set along with my workout that night. Guess what! I'm able to do knee bends. Not deep ones, but knee bends just the same. I found out by accident and was quite please when my knees didn't sound like crinkly paper. I hate that sound...

Now for the not so good news. I've had some trouble with my eating. Yep. It's been a rough summer. Going through a lot of changes and still going through. I don't know what will come of my situations, but I'm learning not to be so stressed about it. Of course, I'm learning a bout of binging. Not to worry, I'm getting better. I was off for a few weeks. I had a mad love affair with fried chicken. No more of that, not even on occasion for now. I'm much happier eating healthier again. I've not come up with any new recipes or fun thing to do with healthy foods. Hopefully I will be inspired to do so soon.

As far as my troubles, I'm learning how to trust God better. You know...it's easy to say I trust God when things are going pretty well. I find when things are really bad that I want to trust Him, but I tend to worry. With this latest series of situations, I found myself trusting God for something I wanted and when I didn't get it, I felt lost and my trust waivered. Worry and stress became close bedfellows. That's when my eating took a turn for the not so good. It started with just being a little lazy about cooking dinner and then coupons showed up in my mail. How convenient...

My birthday was a little over a week ago. I had been off the fried chicken thing for a while and thought it would be safe to treat myself to a little on my birthday. I told a friend about it. I guess she saw something this time that she had not seem before. Usually she doesn't respond to my stories about overeating or not eating. This time she intervened. I didn't fully understand what she was doing at first. My friend has been sick for a while. She's doing some better, but still struggles with health issues. I haven't been able to be there for her like I want to. I just don't have the energy. I call to check on her when I feel strong enough not to cry on her shoulder. She doesn't need to know about my troubles. She's got enough of her own. Anyway, she offered to cook dinner for me and my son for my birthday. I wasn't sure I wanted her to do that. It would take lots of energy and she hasn't had much energy herself lately, but she insisted. In a moment of thanksgiving...me thanking my friend that is, she stated that she didn't want me to get the fried chicken. Okay, I get it now. So I reached over for the latest set of coupons I had taken out of the mail, tore them to shreds and put them in the garbage. I put the phone down for a second and cried just a little. I couldn't bring myself to tell her how much I really needed that.  

Somehow in the midst of all of everything I managed to complete my 22 day challenge. I'm proud of myself. I kind of enjoyed doing the push-ups. Just earlier today I did 25. I think I'll try to keep this as part of my regular routine. I won't say I'll do push-ups every day, but I will definitely do them more often.

I hope all is well with you. Summer's coming to it's end. I hope you've had a good summer. As for me, I continue asking God to continue blessing me with His grace and tender mercies as I am still in the trenches. It's quiet and still. I'll be praying for peace, joy and prosperity for us all.