This Christmas...
...what I've received this season
So here we are, just two days shy of Christmas. Our shopping is done, presents just about all wrapped, I even scored a set of replacement lights for the tree just last night. It's not easy finding lights 3 days before Christmas (mental note for next year...BE PREPARED!!!). The house smells great from the yearly "Cookiepalooza" extravaganza my wife partakes in. The biggest stress is the occasional last-minute lamentations of the younger guys over which side of the "Naughty/Nice" list they might be landing on.
I suppose the biggest challenge in the Christmas season in our house, is keeping the focus on where it truly belongs, on the birth of Christ. As a family that prays together and attempts to incorporate our faith into our daily lives, it often bewilders me how we get caught up in the commercialization of the season we hold so sacred despite our best intentions not to. That being said, on a personal level, I have found a sort of personal revelation of my purpose in the very endeavor that I have been focusing this blog on.
In the days preceding the start of my "mission", I spent a lot of time worried, excited and distressed over what I'd just committed myself to. After years of trying to shed the excess weight I'd been carrying around, I knew I would not accomplish it on my own account. So I put the burden where I knew I would embrace it the most, on one of my loved ones. Tying it into a fundraiser for some great people and blogging about it was going to keep me honest...and it has. Before doing this, I never thought I'd be where I am now, over the halfway point and at about 30 pounds lost (a little preview for my Friday weigh-in there). I am eating healthier, feeling healthier, LIVING healthier than ever before. I also feel I've had some other, deeper benefits from my undertaking.
The fact that I picked this time of year to start a fundraiser would probably not be considered the ideal frame of the calendar for most. It was mid-October when a flood of ideas and impulses hit me at one time. For starters, we were still spending Fridays going to Wrightsville Beach ,"Access 4 at 4" for our weekly sessions with "Team Jellyfish", Ocean Cures Fall tradition of adaptive surfing with some of their most devoted beneficiaries, Tommy being one of the regulars. I had been considering different ways to run a fundraiser for these folks who do so much and ask so little in return. I was also been getting more than a little concerned with my weight, which topped out at around 270 pounds at around this time. Not good for someone 5'11" tall and 48 years of age. This with the fact that I enjoy writing and had participated in blogs in the past, it all just seemed to come together. Just one problem, when should I start this diet/fundraiser/diary???
I decided that putting it off to the New Year, might just put it off permanently. In spite of the cons, like, asking for donations around Christmas and finishing up before tax returns are being received. I knew that the longer I had to make myself wait, the colder my feet were going to get...
Now, back to two days before Christmas and I'm realizing that not only do I have the supreme confidence in succeeding in this crazy challenge I put myself up to, but I am feeling a greater connection to Christ as a result of it. Christ's incarnation was to open the gates of heaven for us who chose to follow him. It was a fatherly decision made on behalf of His children. A sacrifice, one that He knew what the outcome would mean. Now I know that me stepping on a scale and taping my mouth shut to lose some weight that I myself put there, to God Himself taking human form and suffering the pains of the cross for our salvation, pales greatly in comparison (understatement of the year alert). This still happens to be a cross for me. A very real cross, one that I use to reject. Now, I'm embracing it. For my family's sake...finally.
Through Christ’s example, I am given the strength to accomplish this. Taking the life of a poor carpenter is about as humbling as it can get. Born in a manger, rejected, turned away, fleeing from Herod's savagery, dying an unimaginable human death, all so we can be with Him and in His presence. Just as Christ wanted and chose us, the choice I'm making right now is for my wife and children, so I can enjoy them and they can enjoy me, in good health and spirit. Sure you can say my choice is for me as well, but if it were only about me, then it would just be about pride and vanity. That was never my style. This choice to become healthy and fit is about my desire to be there for them and to be an example for them in both body and soul. Take whatever suffering involved in finally losing this weight and just offer it up to God for the suffering of others.
To imitate Christ, as insufficient in its comparison as it may be.
My goal has taken on an even greater meaning for me and has given me even more purpose.
A Merry and Blessed Christmas to all!
1 Peter 2:21~For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps
I suppose the biggest challenge in the Christmas season in our house, is keeping the focus on where it truly belongs, on the birth of Christ. As a family that prays together and attempts to incorporate our faith into our daily lives, it often bewilders me how we get caught up in the commercialization of the season we hold so sacred despite our best intentions not to. That being said, on a personal level, I have found a sort of personal revelation of my purpose in the very endeavor that I have been focusing this blog on.
In the days preceding the start of my "mission", I spent a lot of time worried, excited and distressed over what I'd just committed myself to. After years of trying to shed the excess weight I'd been carrying around, I knew I would not accomplish it on my own account. So I put the burden where I knew I would embrace it the most, on one of my loved ones. Tying it into a fundraiser for some great people and blogging about it was going to keep me honest...and it has. Before doing this, I never thought I'd be where I am now, over the halfway point and at about 30 pounds lost (a little preview for my Friday weigh-in there). I am eating healthier, feeling healthier, LIVING healthier than ever before. I also feel I've had some other, deeper benefits from my undertaking.
The fact that I picked this time of year to start a fundraiser would probably not be considered the ideal frame of the calendar for most. It was mid-October when a flood of ideas and impulses hit me at one time. For starters, we were still spending Fridays going to Wrightsville Beach ,"Access 4 at 4" for our weekly sessions with "Team Jellyfish", Ocean Cures Fall tradition of adaptive surfing with some of their most devoted beneficiaries, Tommy being one of the regulars. I had been considering different ways to run a fundraiser for these folks who do so much and ask so little in return. I was also been getting more than a little concerned with my weight, which topped out at around 270 pounds at around this time. Not good for someone 5'11" tall and 48 years of age. This with the fact that I enjoy writing and had participated in blogs in the past, it all just seemed to come together. Just one problem, when should I start this diet/fundraiser/diary???
I decided that putting it off to the New Year, might just put it off permanently. In spite of the cons, like, asking for donations around Christmas and finishing up before tax returns are being received. I knew that the longer I had to make myself wait, the colder my feet were going to get...
Now, back to two days before Christmas and I'm realizing that not only do I have the supreme confidence in succeeding in this crazy challenge I put myself up to, but I am feeling a greater connection to Christ as a result of it. Christ's incarnation was to open the gates of heaven for us who chose to follow him. It was a fatherly decision made on behalf of His children. A sacrifice, one that He knew what the outcome would mean. Now I know that me stepping on a scale and taping my mouth shut to lose some weight that I myself put there, to God Himself taking human form and suffering the pains of the cross for our salvation, pales greatly in comparison (understatement of the year alert). This still happens to be a cross for me. A very real cross, one that I use to reject. Now, I'm embracing it. For my family's sake...finally.
Through Christ’s example, I am given the strength to accomplish this. Taking the life of a poor carpenter is about as humbling as it can get. Born in a manger, rejected, turned away, fleeing from Herod's savagery, dying an unimaginable human death, all so we can be with Him and in His presence. Just as Christ wanted and chose us, the choice I'm making right now is for my wife and children, so I can enjoy them and they can enjoy me, in good health and spirit. Sure you can say my choice is for me as well, but if it were only about me, then it would just be about pride and vanity. That was never my style. This choice to become healthy and fit is about my desire to be there for them and to be an example for them in both body and soul. Take whatever suffering involved in finally losing this weight and just offer it up to God for the suffering of others.
To imitate Christ, as insufficient in its comparison as it may be.
My goal has taken on an even greater meaning for me and has given me even more purpose.
A Merry and Blessed Christmas to all!
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