“Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change.”
— Jim Rohn
I know we all have sat around and just wished our life would get better. We wish it would be like Sallys life down the street that seems to have it all. First off, the grass is greener over there possibly, but you don’t know why. Maybe its AstroTurf! I have done that a lot over the last 10 years. When life sucked I wished I could have any other persons life but my own. What I didn’t know is that I just needed to take charge of MY life. The life that God gave me is all I need. I just needed to take it back and let it be the life that I was chosen to have. Good, bad or ugly, its my life and it will be good if I want it to be. If I see it as good it will be. As I reflect over my life and look back to the times when life and its subsequent choices were not so good I can see the err of my ways. There are lots of little reasons and lots of big reasons, but one very big reason that is strung throughout all of them. It is choice. Life is a string of choices. Choices that I make and choices that others make. You might say, “well you can’t control others choices that affect you” and I would say you are correct, but what I COULD have been in control of is how I responded to others choices.
When people wronged me, I didn’t stand up for myself. I turned in on myself, turned into a victim, and believed the lies that I somehow caused it. I let the light that I had dim and started hating myself. I started to believe what certain people were telling me. I was no good. I was not a good mom. I am lazy. I was sinking deep into a hole that was getting deeper and deeper by the minute. If I could send a memo back to myself with what I know now I would send a very simple letter. I think it would read something like this.
In the back of my mind I knew those things, but I let the negative voices overtake the good. I felt like I had been abandoned by God. I was so deep into that hole that I couldn’t see my future or my past to remember how strong I was. Luckily certain people in my life didn’t give up on me and they helped me to see the light that was always there and helped me build myself back one painful step at a time until I turned into a person that can write the letter that I would send back to myself.
But my initial point I was trying to make is that your life is what you make of it and it is up to you to chose it. To make the choices that need to be made in order for you to have that life. If you want to be happy then choose to be. If you want to feel closer to God then choose to be. The last 3 years have yielded the most change for me, but to be honest, it has been the last 2 weeks that have me reeling. I chose to go to counseling and keep going. I chose to accept life as a single parent because that is what was best for me. I chose to pursue a divorce because it was what was best for me and what is best for me in turn becomes what is best for my kids. None of these choices were because they were easy. They are far from easy, but the easy road is often not the correct one.
I believe that God allows challenges because of what it can do for us in a positive way. Sure, challenges can and have beat me down, but it was because I wasn’t strong enough and I wasn’t turning to the Lord for help. I was feeling that I only had me to get through the dark times. Feeling abandoned. A lot of people like the saying “God will never give you more than you can handle”. I believe that to be incorrect. First, he doesn’t give us things like that. He doesn’t give us challenges. He ALLOWS them to happen to help us. If we trust in Him and turn to him for help then we can handle ANYTHING we get. He allows things to happen to us hoping we will ask Him to help us through.
One of my favorite poems is footprints. The picture I have is similar to what usually is in the background of the poem. It is basically a person asking why God abandoned them because in their darkest times they only saw one set of footprints. God replied that it was because He was carrying him. I love that and I see that I was just like that person. I believe God had left me to fend for myself, but he was there carrying me until I could stand on my own two feet.
So, for right now, as I am pushing through this crazy pre op diet I am CHOOSING to do it. I am choosing to follow the diet despite the cravings and the delicious smell of the food that I cook for my kids because I am, for one, choosing for my life to be better because I deserve it. My kids deserve to have a happy and healthy mom. I deserve to be happy!
So, as my title says, I am 15 days away from my surgery (14 by time this publishes). I am not overly nervous. More excited at the prospects of my new life. I can’t wait to embark on the next leg of my journey. Getting closer and closer to the mountain!
Goal Update
Highest Weight 405
Last Weigh In 395 (7/28/2020)
Next Goal Weight 390 (8/6/2020)
Goal: I am doing my exercise video 2x per day for 5 mins. Today I hit almost 8 mins on my 2nd try! Getting there!
Surgery is 14 days away!
My Journey to the Mountain 