Week 7 Day 6

It was so hard for me to get up this morning. I normally get up with my husband since he still has to work Fridays. But this morning, I couldn’t. This whole week has be energy-less and tiring.

In fact, I barely made it to my chiropractor and acupuncture appointments this morning. I was ten minutes late (versus the minimum of 5 minutes early I usually am). Thankfully, my chiropractor was also running late so it worked out just fine. But as I was sitting in the waiting room, my acupuncturist came out and mentioned how tired I looked. And then as I responded to her, I noticed my voice even sounded tired. I think it’s a sign…

I felt good after my appointments, but of course was ready to go back home and sleep. Unfortunately today’s workout looked a bit long so I went and did half of my chest workout at the gym so that I could go back and finish the other half with my husband later. However, I found this to be a mistake.

I didn’t know that my husband would be coming home exhausted as well. So upon taking a nap, then followed by going out for supper, the workout didn’t get finished this day. But I did go to sleep early and that was a bonus.

Week 6 Day 4

I finally got it last night on the treadmill. I finally thought up a few examples that really showed me things that were very difficult to forgive, but I have forgiven. As I reviewed my list, I realized these things hurt me more than they have ever made me angry. I narrowed my list to four things as I only wanted to summarize yesterday’s topic before presenting what I had prepared for today. My list consisted of the following: My father did not attend my high school nor my university graduations, my sister almost died due to the doctor’s mistake of putting latex elastics (of which she’s allergic to) in her mouth following jaw surgery causing her to near death, my friends burned down my family’s camp in a drunken stupor one Halloween night which contained years of memories that will never be replaced since my family was in the middle of renewing the insurance, and finally, the one that is still able to make me cry at any moment, is the fact that my grandfather died when an impatient driver went to pass a semi-truck and ran head into my grandparents’ vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Four extremely difficult situations I had to go through.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that yes, these things cause me sadness, but I don’t hold grudges against the people who were guilty. And here is what I figured out:

1. My life philosophy: Hate what the person did, but don’t hate the person. The truth of the matter is, if sin did not exist, the person would not have done what they did. God did not design us to be this way, but we all sin because of the fall in the Garden of Eden. When Jesus returns, sin will no longer exist. Therefore, just as we reflect on ourselves being sinful, hate the sin but not the person.

2. Allowing someone to suffer what we choose to be consequences for what they’ve done is a method of passing judgement. We are not the ultimate judge. Yes, Earth has judges for major sins that are here so that hopefully less sin will be created, but who are we to gossip about those who have made mistakes against us? We cannot claim to be the judge that God is, and thus should not carry out such punishments.

3. I thought of the story in John 8 where the people brought forth the prostitute expecting Jesus to agree that she should be stoned. However, Jesus responded in a way they didn’t expect, and that was that whoever had not sinned should be the first to cast a stone. Yet, nobody could because everyone had sinned. In this same way, how are we to again, punish others in such a way yet expect forgiveness for when we do something?

4. In a way, Jesus became the person you are upset at. Jesus did not just die for one person’s sins, He died for ALL of humanity’s sins. Think about that. In order to truly die on the cross for us, He had to essentially become all the bad things that we are. He became the bad in all of us. And I thought if I were to see the face of Jesus in the person I’m upset at, would I really be able to stay upset? This is a hard one to think of…

With that being said, I quickly summarized and prayed that those ideas would stick for anyone having difficulties with forgiveness. I then proceeded to continue with my topic for today.

Today’s School Spirit Week day was Tacky Day. Quite frankly, I hate this day. I don’t find “fun” in dressing tacky. But I do it to support my students. So tacky it was. When trying to think of a topic associated with dressing tacky, it quite easily came to me that the topic should be on how life can get messy. And I had a great personal story about this that I was given permission to share, and that was on my step-sister, Natalie.

Natalie was a child with a free spirit that did not easily get along with my dad. Quite understandably, it is hard for a man to come into your life that in a way seems to be taking place of your dad. I can completely relate to that. But she was encouraged by her true father to move out early. She moved out with her boyfriend at the young age of 15. She then proceeded to get involved with drugs which eventually led to many (I believe up to 15) times of being in and out of rehab. Then, the fearful happened. She became pregnant.

During her pregnancy, she seemed to come clean. She moved back in with her mom and my dad, and although there were still some arguments between my dad and her, she seemed to be doing alright. Several months later, twin boys emerged. They were premature, but healthy. I sing my praises to God that those boys were and still are healthy. So many things could have happened. But as they were now born and she fed from a bottle, it was becoming noticeable that she drank.

One Christmas break, my sister and I were at our dad’s, and our step-mom noticed she was getting an alcoholic drink. And so, my step-mom locked up the alcohol in her bedroom. What came next, none of us were prepared for. She went ballistic. She was pounding on the door, screaming that it was unfair, that they should allow her to drink, and finally that she was going to get her babies and they were going to leave. This got so out of hand that it got to the point, the almost unbearable point for my step-mom, that the babies were in danger and the police needed to be called. Keep in mind, my poor dad is running three things at the same time: apologizing and trying to lighten the mood for my sister and I, trying to console and counsel my step-mom, and keeping my step-sister and her babies in the house while keeping unwanted people out.

When the police came, they gave her the option of going upstairs to say good-bye to her babies. She fought and fought them until they eventually and literally dragged her out of the house. If only I could share with you the nightmare. I have never heard someone scream and yell like I heard her scream and yell that night. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was being stabbed to death. The awful things she was yelling at her mother would definitely be carried for a long time. That’s when I really knew what addictions could do.

She was released the next day, and I expected that when she called, she would at least ask how her babies were. But do you want to know the ONLY question she asked? When her mom could come get her and take her to get her Methodone shot. No joke. I was in shock. To care about a drug replacement shot to help with her previous addictions over the care of her own children.

Later, she did move out into her own apartment with her children, but by that Friday, my dad and step-mom had the boys over for a sleep-over that they would never return from. She was not using her finances for the true care of her children but rather to feed her addictions, and so learned that she could live on her own again while visiting her children as they were kept at my dad’s.

As much as I’d like to say that she got the help she needed, I can’t. I can remember a conversation we had late one night where she was telling me that the worst thing for her was realizing that she had no dreams left. She used to want to be an actress, to be all of these big things in her life. But she realized that her addictions have drained all of these hopes, all of these goals and dreams out of her, and she had nothing left. Perhaps this was one of the most painful realizations for her. Because one night, in winter, I received a phone call from my dad. His voice was shaky, and he sounded as if he was ready to cry. As much as Natalie and him fought, she was still a huge part of his life as his step-daughter. And I believe this is what made it so difficult that the police had shown up on their doorstep the night before asking them to come and confirm the identification of the body they had found under a bridge. Upon investigation, they had come to believe that she had jumped off the bridge as there was only one set of footprints in the snow that led to the railing and thus leading to the body below. What a hard thing to accept. After years and years of drug abuse, of alcohol abuse, and of accepting that you have nothing left to live for in life, I can only imagine the pain she must have been in. She knew that rehab wouldn’t help because it hadn’t in the past. She couldn’t seem to escape the relationship abuses from men, the fact that she couldn’t find the help she needed nor the inability to escape the addictions that had control over her. This was nothing short of terrible.

Of course, the following fear came that child services would take the boys away. But my dad and step-mother fought for custody of the boys and thankfully were awarded it. And to this day, they are doing the best they can while parenting as grandparents. They boys are doing so well, I’m happy to report. But one day, and my father has talked to me about this, he knows the boys will ask where their mother is, and why they don’t have one like all of the other kids. And he fears that conversation. He fears revisiting and telling them that their father has never wanted anything to do with them and that their mother was so involved with such horrible things that she couldn’t take care of them and eventually couldn’t even take care of herself. What a hard conversation to have with children. I can’t even imagine.

I asked the other teachers and staff to think about the children we have difficulties with, to think of the things we don’t know about in their home lives, the burdens they carry to school each day. Because sometimes, it only takes one family member to make life messy for everyone else. And when especially dealing with children, those background messes need to be considered.

I had to rush through this worship a little as you can probably imagine as it got a little long. But I left people crying and with deep thoughts. Because the truth is, sometimes life sucks. Life can be unfair. The devil is at work so much in our lives, trying to tear us away from our Father who loves us, and unfortunately he uses things like drugs and alcohol that have a way of hooking us and can be very difficult to get away from. Things like drugs and alcohol have a way of consuming people and making the gift of life that God has given us seem pointless. And unfortunately, I see the devil in much of Natalie’s life, laughing and smiling at her misery. And yet in the same scene, I see tears running down Jesus’ face as He watches the destruction of His daughter, the one He loves more than anything. It’s a sad scene, not an easy one to grasp and still not the easiest one to talk about. But as my father said, it’s important to use these stories to help prevent others from making the same mistakes and if this story will help someone, then it is worth talking about.

I didn’t workout today as it was a rest day, but I do hope that you reflect on this, especially if you or someone you know is suffering with addictions. Addictions are something so incredibly unfortunate and cause so much pain to everyone. Take intervention now. Pray that the God of healing, the God that has already defeated all evil in this world will help you overcome. Because there is no power greater than God’s.

Week 6 Day 3

Today’s worship carried a substantially difficult topic. I looked at our Spirit Week and today was Jersey Day. Side note: I wore a Broncos jersey! Go Broncos! But as I was trying to come up with a topic that would associate with Jersey Day, something to do with teams, I quickly realized that the most immediate topic was that of teamwork. The only problem is, I think our staff honestly works well as a team. So this topic was just not striking me properly.

I continued to think and think and think until it finally hit me: forgiveness. It connected in my brain when I thought of the pressure athletes have to win. How often do we get mad at them when they make a mistake, when they miss the winning goal, when they play horribly? How often do they likely get yelled at and ridiculed for mistakes that we may as equally make in our own lives? And with mistakes often comes the act of forgiveness.

Now, this was a touchy topic to talk about. Because the act of forgiveness is called upon us by God Himself. When asked how many times a person should forgive, Jesus said, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22). Yet, how often do we not forgive people? How often are we hurt and then carry around that hurt the rest of our lives? I went over Bible verses about forgiveness, and over some expectations of forgiveness. Forgiveness means not using the event against the person (not holding a grudge). It means not gossiping about that event and person, as well as a few others. However, I was not satisfied with the way this worship ended because it was ended with the thought that forgiveness is still difficult even though the Bible gives us so many examples. And I was challenged by this to come up with how it was easy for myself to forgive others. And this is something I would think about constantly until the next morning.

Today’s workout was focussed on legs and abs. And as usual, leg workouts kill me everytime. I was so tired and worn out, not to mention in pain. I’ve noticed that our coach has dropped the reps down to 10 for almost all body parts, except legs. Our legs reps remain at 15. Oh does this ever push your legs. Ah! So glad when I finished.

Week 5 Day 5: The Revelation

Sorry guys. I realized I had made a mistake and quickly changed it! Yesterday was not the revelation day, today was and somehow I mixed up the names! Sorry about that. It’s now fixed 🙂

So every Thursday at work, instead of a normal worship, we have “Thankful Thursdays” where we go around saying the appreciations we’ve had. It’s a great thing to do, and one of the things I reflected on was my class this year. Not that they are perfect, not that they are always easy, but that I’ve seen maturity in them, even in the way they accept their consequences. I am so proud of them and look forward to helping them the rest of this year.

Following worship, we went about the usual day but I was so happy to welcome them into my classroom this morning. And when they went to gym, I sat and reflected on something that completely dawned on me: I’ve been happy, truly happy. I don’t know why, I don’t really know anything about it other than I felt completely and totally happy. Can I just say WOW? What a feeling! To be honestly happy. It’s amazing. I know my food and workouts have been going great, I’ve been taking care of all the medical issues, there have been major improvements, my husband is working and hopefully we’ll get his FBI check soon so he can have residency soon, I’m still in debt, but I’m happy. And that says something!

The day went well. We were planning a surprise wedding shower for our principal and it went amazing! We had a million laughs, and come to find out, this was their only shower, and she had never been successfully surprised before! We did awesome!

Now of course you’re probably wondering about my food choices while at this shower. So here is what I did. I ate half of one of my meals before I went. I then allowed myself a small selection on a small plate. I normally would have tried some of everything, but I limited myself. I was hungry for seconds, but I only allowed myself a plate of veggies. I did very well! Though in hind sight, I would have been alright white a lot of those things. They didn’t even seem worth it. Way too much sugar after being without refined sugars. I will know better next time.

We also had a staff meeting afterwards which of course meant that it was a late work night. But I still made it to the gym and had an awesome workout! Tonight was a circuit of shoulders, arms, chest and abs followed by 12 minutes of HIIT.

And of course, here are my meals for the day:

Meal 1

I had to cook this one a little more at home. I like my meat well done. This is a potato mash with egg whites, steak and a tomato.

Meal 2

I ate this one before I could get a picture last time. Homemade hummus with carrots, celery and rice crackers.

Meal 3

A tuna salad wrap with apples. Absolutely yummy!

Meal 4

So apparently I ate this one before a picture was taken. Sorry! It was cottage cheese with cinnamon and a very fine chop of honeydew and cantaloupe.

Meal 5

I didn’t take a picture of this one because you saw it yesterday. But since I don’t eat pork, the other option was to have the same chicken salad I had yesterday. I was so happy to eat it again. Yum!

Week 2 Day 2

I woke up today still not feeling the greatest. But, it was a “Fun Day” for the students which meant we were going to a large recreational center where they could swim, play on a large indoor playground, hang out in the Youth Lounge (games), play sports in the gym, go skating, and eat at a food court. All the teachers were required to do was stay at their stations to make sure everything went well. It was an easy day to handle when you don’t feel well.

A mistake I made was that I didn’t get up early enough to finish packing my food. So I did hit a sugar low in the afternoon with nothing to make up for it. I’m not diabetic, but I’m pretty sure it was low sugar because that’s the only thing I can think of that would have made me feel like I did.

Thankfully, the food court had an Extreme Pita where you can pick what you want to fill your pita with. Easy again to fit your macros.

It was a long day at work with a very serious meeting I had to attend after school. But it wasn’t until I got home that I realized I had a headache. As usually, my husband came home and wanted to take a nap before we went to the gym. But as the time went on, I noticed my headache was pretty much like someone taking a hammer to my head.

Now, I’ve worked through headaches before. I’m used to going to the gym no matter what unless I’m on bed rest for being so sick. But this headache was quite possibly the worst headache I’ve ever had, so I knew it was probably best to stay home and try to sleep it off. No medications or liquids were helping. So I set my alarm for 4:15 a.m. and headed to bed.

Sad Gym Events: Prayers Requested

Tonight as I was walking into the women’s washroom, I noticed a printed poster on the wall. It was a picture of a woman’s hand with a ring on it. Some poor lady had lost her engagement ring at the gym. My stomach sank.

You see, a little over a year ago, I had stupidly put my wedding ring and engagement ring in my pocket and thought they would be safe while I worked out. You cannot imagine my horror to realize they were no longer in my pocket. Not only that, but to know that my husband was unable to work, and he had worked MONTHS at his last and final job to pay for those rings. I was ready to freak out.

Fortunately enough, I found one of them. It must have rolled out of my pocket and stopped over by another machine where I found it. But I still was missing one of them, and that’s when I told my husband what happened.

To say he was upset would be an underestimate. He was quite devastated. Especially looking upon the fact that my rings were worth several thousands of dollars and there were many people at the gym. How easy would it be for someone to pick it up and put it in their pockets? Way too easy.

I went and notified the front desk, notified the custodians, and continued to look many times over the gym, praying the entire time.

I cannot begin to tell you how blessed I was. A man came over and asked what I was looking for. I told him I had lost my ring. He asked me to describe it, and so I did. And lo’ and behold, he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out my ring. Talk about a huge sigh of relief. How easy would it have been for someone to walk out the door with my ring in their pocket. I can tell you that I’ve never made that mistake again.

So seeing this poster hits home really closely. I feel for this woman. And to know the feelings that come with losing your ring; awful. So I’m going to pray and ask for extra prayer for this woman to find her engagement ring. The power of prayer can do extraordinary things!

Post 3-Day Refresh Mistake

So, I did the most ultimate rookie mistake. And I’m going to share it with you so that you don’t do the same thing I did.

The day after the 3-Day Refresh, I’m STARVING and EXCITED for food. But there are no groceries in the house because I didn’t want to have any temptations here. So when my husband calls to say that he’s done work and it’s time for me to pick him up, I’m quickly on my way and noticing restaurants on my way over. 

My husband had a big headache, was hungry, feeling sick, and due to the weather, had been sweating at work all day, and quickly together we make the decision to go out to eat in an air conditioned restaurant. But where do we go? Pizza Hut.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind pizza every once in awhile. But after feeling so great, knowing that my body was functioning so well, this was the wrong route to go. And for all that missed food time on the Refresh, I completely indulged! Boneless chicken wings, cheese garlic breadsticks, pizza and cinnaparts. Now obviously, we did not finish the whole meal. We barely touched the cinnaparts and I could only eat a couple pieces of pizza, but the breadsticks and wings were gone. 

Can I say disaster? I felt AWFUL. I could tell this was not healthy for my body. I could tell my body was not happy. I could tell I did not make a smart, healthy decision. Talk about feeling yucky.

Ugh…

Now, the extra carbs did help me with my leg workout later, I can absolutely say that. But were there better places to get my carbs? Absolutely. I did not need to feel as miserable as I did. And the worst part? I probably would eat the wings again, but I’m good without pizza or breadsticks or cinnaparts for a very long time. 

So my advice for Post-3-Day Refresh: Don’t eat junk! Eat healthy, whole foods. Trust me, your body will completely thank you for it!