Tag Archives: health

A Lot Like Dying…

13 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by in Reflections

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When I first thought of this post three months ago, my aim was to highlight the beauty of life…just the gift that each moment (crazy and otherwise) is. Moving from home made me realise the impact my absolutely boring life had on so many people I hold dear, and it hit me: people would miss me if I died. I am by no means unique in that regard, so, as is the case with most of my ‘light bulb’ moments, my mind penned a post. And then life happened.

It shouldn’t be possible for so much to change in 90 days. Then again, maybe nothing changed, and that is the problem. I don’t know, but I think we all have at least one thing that, if it were different, we’re convinced we would be different. Whereas I didn’t blame my environment for the scary creature I was, part of me retained the hope that a change of environment would lead to the blossoming of a better Lori. I’m not known for my optimism, so this ‘better Lori’ was pretty basic. You know, maybe just a few notches below ‘normal, functioning human being’.

Funny enough, so many things in my life are finally going right. I am closer than ever to financial independence (however real that struggle is), I have access to the resources I need to get my health on track, I finally have the time and space to get to know myself and God again, and I’ve met some awesome people. What could go wrong?

Deception is a bittersweet poison. I knew better, but I really thought I could get my act together. That act needs to be abandoned. I am never going to be some new and improved version of myself, because I can never outrun the kind of propensity for self-destruction that composes the fibre of who I am. No amount of effort will disguise the stench of death that clings to me…that I cling to. I am never, no matter how fit I get, going to outrun myself.

I have the things I thought I would never have, a life I can finally enjoy, yet I have never felt closer to death. This is the truth I must own–that, even at my best, I’ll do my worst. Seems that should have me running to the Saviour.

‘Cause I am a sinner
If it’s not one thing, it’s another
Caught up in words
Tangled in lies
You are the Saviour
And You take brokenness aside
And make it beautiful.

“Brokenness Aside” by All Sons and Daughters
Words and music by Leslie Jordan and David Leonard
© 2011 Integrity Music
CCLI#: 5881109

Solitaire?

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Le Shrinking, Reflections

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I’m the only one who can live my life.

That has got to be the scariest thing I’ve thought about in a long while. Whereas it’s indisputable that I’m, at heart, a loner, there’s phantom comfort in knowing that looking around does not yield a barren landscape. I’m so used to living on the fringes of my world (my sister would say the problem is that I have a world…:P) that I don’t often spend time in it. The price paid for that tends to be total disrepair.

Change is hard…and I have to change. As great and supportive as people are/can be, and as grateful as I am for the amazing people in my life, no one can do this for me. No one can hold my hand through the process of learning to breathe…not to the point that they can make me function in ways I refuse to. No one can make me get up one day and decide to do more than take fleeting glances at what it means to live. I want no one to.

I’ve never been that person who can’t be alone, who doesn’t know the value of silence, who finds the company of self to be petrifying. In the same breath, the alternative leaves me most out of my depth. This is who I am. Just a weirdo trying to glean lessons without having to be knocked senseless first. I’m no superhero. I’m not even a real person most days, but I’d like to think I’m learning what that looks like.

This is who I am…and I embrace that fully, remaining cognizant of the reality that I am not static. I will not always be this person, but if I don’t engage in the process, I may not like the person I become.

I’m the only one who can live my life. And, I will.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’

Ezekiel 37:5, 6 (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Facing The Fat

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Le Shrinking

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I’ve never been skinny. Like, never. Perhaps that is why being fat has never bugged me. Or, maybe it is because I never took the time to really look into it.

Whatever the case, I spent three superb months with my sister, and spent two or so of those months attempting to get my health on track. Clearly, two months could have been nothing other than a start, but it was a start I needed. I came home roughly 17 pounds lighter. Whereas that may look small, especially relative to the over 150 pounds of excess weight I carried, the difference was obvious.

Since then, I’ve regained a few of those pounds, lost much of the muscle tone I returned home with, and slipped into a pattern dangerously close to the one I had before I left. For all my talk of not caring, I’m a bit of a paradoxical perfectionist. I’d rather do nothing, than not give something my best (very often, an unrealistic best).

Absolute. Garbage.

If I hadn’t told myself I was too busy, too tired, too insert-adjective-here to hold on to the healthy habits I’d developed, I would have been that much closer to my goal of proper health and fitness. So, maybe I wouldn’t have worked out for two hours a day, but even twenty minutes every other day or ten minutes every day would have made a difference by now. If I had chosen to take each opportunity as an individual entity, rather than summing them up, I would have made more healthy choices.

I rather doubt I’m going to get to a place where I tell myself I’m going to do this for the next year, the next six months, whatever. What I do have is one “today” after another. For today, I can take each moment and choose to be healthy. I can choose to sit around the computer or I can take a series of ten-minute breaks throughout the day…and walk, run, jump, stretch…anything.

Most things in life are like that, I think. Whether it’s staying away from someone you know is bad for you, becoming healthy, getting close to God, or just being more disciplined. Whatever your “fat” is, it doesn’t have to define you or become your prison. If we would take each moment of each today for the chance it is, we would make better choices.

No day is a waste after one bad choice (or even more). There is always hope. Always at least one person we can confess to for accountability purposes. Always grace. Always Strength that is perfect in our weakness.

Honestly, I have no plan. And that’s okay.

So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Romans 9:16 (NKJV)

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. Romans 9:16 (ESV)