[500 words on] Looking to the Lows…

The past few weeks have been really low for me. Thinking about the son I lost, working hard and not sleeping enough, dealing with loss of a community during a time when I want community the most.

And this week was the worst, emotionally. I was tired, I still needed to work, and Bill wanted to me to cook instead of cooking as he promised. I was at the end and all I could think of was trying to find a way to escape. Trying to find some way to make myself feel better, to make myself feel valuable, like I was worth something. My mind went back to my traveling days, the best years of my life.

I remembered that when I was traveling I didn’t worry about that. I was more concerned with working when I could, saving money, streamlining my life to the point where all the things me and my children owned could be carried in three backpacks. It was good a good life….

Why?

Because I wasn’t trying to find a way to make myself feel like a queen. I wasn’t looking for someone to make me feel better about my self. I was simply living, searching for joy in what I had and in the lessons that I learned from using and being happy with what I had.

I had forgotten that craving attention and looking to people, or how you look, or what or who you know are temporary. Oh yes, it is sweet when get a taste, but you never really have it, it never lasts as long as you want it to, and you are willing to give up more and more of your life to get a another taste of that false glory.

The taste never gets bigger, but the cost always does until you have lost everything.

I had left the [cult]Church, where many women clawed and bit to gain a little bit of status, as we were considered less than by the [cult]Church leadership. They put on heirs, they belittled, they manipulated, they cried and whined, they put out, they felt entitled. And I didn’t want anything to do with them.

It took my dear friend Lucas to remind me:

They’re doing this because they have nothing; those little tastes of glory is all they have. They are too weak to look to the lows of their life, address the truth that they are nothing and find joy where they can in that. Promise me that you will never waste time feeling sorry for yourself. Face your weakness, your flaws, your bad choices and be glad that you had the good sense to learn a lesson instead of chasing a fantasy. Queens must have subjects and subjects choose who they will follow. You can show off as much as you like, but if you have to show out to get attention, you are nothing more than a brat in a pretty dress.

I forgot this. I won’t again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[everyday worship] Crossfit 11-19-2012

WOD

This WOD is a benchmark…

This WOD has a name.

Her name is Helen, as you can see in the image.

Helen and I have met before. That time she made me cry and she made me puke a little.
We spent 15:09 minutes together and in that time we ran 400 meters (a hair under a quarter mile) did 21 kettlebell swings (using 18 pound kettlebells) and did 12 ring rows. Then we ran again, did the swings again and did the ring rows again… then we did all of that one last time.

No breaks. No air in my lungs (only fire) and there was some puking. I thought I saw Death coming… it turned out to be Justin to help me up off the ground.

Helen was harsh and I didn’t want to see her for a very long time.

So you can imagine how hard I prayed and cursed the white board when I saw that she was gracing me (I was the only one at the 7pm workout) with her presence.

Things were a bit different. No fire in the lungs (there was still not enough oxygen), and while I did puke, Death was not there (Tired and I Can use a Burger Right Now were there, however) and I shaved nearly a minute off my time.

And I did 3 sets of 5 Power Cleans at 75 pounds afterwards.

It is places like this that I find the encouragement to follow the path. It is hard and it will always be, I reckon, but with each time, it gets easier, or you know what to do or it doesn’t bother you as much, or you see more clearly than you did the last time… you get the idea.

And progress may not be HUGE, but the difference you see when you think that you are making no progress can make all the difference…

Not if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with Epson Salt.

[everyday worship] crossfit WOD 11-14-2012

The Workout Of the Day (WOD) for 14 Nov 2012… it hurt…

I wanted to worship today… so I decided to go to Crossfit.

It sounds silly on the surface, but when you think about it (or at least when I think about it) it actually makes sense (to me…)

You walk into the box and look at the board. You see the Workout of the Day, or WOD, and you know what’s involved. You know that it’s going to hurt. You know that you will run out of air before you run of workout.

But you do it anyway. You know that it will make you stronger. You know you will have to dig deep. You know that you are competing against your desire to stop and go to the closest Krispy Kreme.

And I know that those are the times that I pray the hardest.

And I do pray. And when I am done I praise Him because I know that it was only through Him that I survived.

This is the essence of worship. So I went to Crossfit.