I lost a pumpkin!!

An average pumpkin weighs 9 lbs. That is how much weight I have lost since I started my journey to training for the Virginia Ten Miler, which takes place at the end of September.

This whole running/eating right thing is not about losing weight. It's not even about being a star athlete. I want to be completely obedient to God in every area of my life. I am not perfect. I will make mistakes and sin along the way. But, there are steps I can take that will be pleasing to the Lord. He has been telling me the past couple months that this is an area where He wants to mature me: to trust Him instead of food, to be a good steward of the body that He gave me, and to know that anything that I am able to achieve is completely based on His grace and mercy and love.

The reality is that I have lost a total of 9 lbs since I climbed up to THAT WEIGHT that was the heaviest I've been in my entire life. I'm not looking back. I'm not going back to that place.

No more! I am taking small steps towards freedom, whether it be yards, miles, or centimeters. I am moving forward.

My issues with food began a long time ago, but I believe that God began addressing them a few years ago. Here is a blog post that outlines what God was showing me all those years ago. It started with self-control, and Him showing me that I wasn't using any in specific areas of my life. Then it came to, "Okay, well I need to get a handle on this," then to, "I can't do this by myself. I need help."

That is where I am now. I am trusting that each mile, each pound, each choice of using food for fuel instead of a reward will be achieved completely by the Lord. Not by me. Because, if it were up to me, I would be having a doughnut hugging a box of doughnuts on my couch in my pajamas watching a "Downton Abbey" marathon.

"The only way we are going to get out of what we are currently in is to see that there is something greater." - Joshua Weir, pastor of The Village Vineyard, Columbus, OH

The truth is that God has more for me than doughnuts and pajamas and (as wonderful as it is) BBC. He has experiences and love and wonder and adventure and mercy and grace and healing and.... well... more things than I can list. And guess what? None of those things can be had by doing the doughnut-pajama-BCC thing.

Go figure.