The Fat Kid in Gym Class

For about the past 9 weeks, my cousin and I have been training for a 5K.  Those of you who know me personally or follow me on Facebook or Twitter are probably pretty sick of hearing about it by now, and for that I'm sorry.  It's just that talking about it a lot makes me accountable to, well, the world, because if I back out I have to announce to everyone that I didn't do it. 

You see, I was (and still am) always the fat kid in gym class.  As a kid, I never showed much interest in organized sports or outdoor activities.  I was more of the nerdy book-reader type.  So I never learned how to challenge my body, how to push myself physically, how to go beyond what I felt was possible for my body to accomplish.  When I hit middle school and gym became compulsory, when "dressing out" became a curse word in my vocabulary, this was a conundrum for me.  Here I was, straight A student, getting C's in gym because I couldn't pass the Presidential physical fitness test.  When it came to the written bowling test, I was an ace in the hole.  I knew all the rules of soccer, or enough so that I could get an A+ on the multiple choice exam.  But unfortunately, that only accounted for a minimal percentage of the total PE grade.  Me getting a C in 7th grade gym sent me to the school counselor in a mini-hysteria, since the idea of ruining my perfect GPA over not being able to run the mile was a complete shock to my perfectionist mentality. 

From that point on, I pretty much embraced the idea that me + sports = unhappiness, so I did whatever I had to to get by in gym, until after 10th grade and it wasn't require any longer.  Tenth grade signaled the end of me ever being physically challenged by an entity outside of myself.  It wasn't that I didn't want to be physically fit.  I wanted to keep up with the pack as they ran laps around the track.  But the cruelty of teenage kids, coupled with a strong sense of pubescent worthlessness, made it easier to just give up.  Climb the rope?  No thanks.  Take the pull-up test?  Are you kidding me?  What, do ya want me to pull my arms out of their sockets?  Refusing to participate was easier than trying and failing. 

Even then, though, I longed to be a runner.  My brother was a great cross country runner.  My two aunts that I looked up to so highly were marathon runners.  One of them even carried the Olympic torch!  And from the time I was young, I had helped them at the annual "Rotary Ramble," a 5K that they sponsored that was pretty much the main event in the annual calendar of their small town.  I had passed out t-shirts to runners and helped hundreds of runners register for the race, all the while wistfully wishing that somehow I could participate. 

Post-college I decided that working out was important, so I got a gym membership and have pretty much belonged to a gym consistently since then.  I go to the gym in spurts.  For three months I'm committed to working out, and then something happens (like vacation) to interrupt my routine, thereby resulting in me reverting back to old habits.  I've never pushed myself to do something that I felt was physically beyond my ability, though. 

In early December, I was thinking about getting in shape, and I decided to do it.  I would run a 5K.  Instead of being the one volunteering at the event, I would be the one registering and receiving the t-shirt.  I asked a few friends to train with me because I knew I'd need the support. 

So here I am.  Nine weeks later, training for my 5K that is in little over a month.  I've pushed myself physically more than I ever thought I could.  More than the physical challenge is the mental one.  Because although my body mostly says, "Wow, this sucks, but we can do it," in the hard times of training, my mind is often louder.  In those really tough parts of the run, my middle school brain tends to come to the forefront, reminding me how ridiculous it is to try to run when I'm just the fat kid in gym class, telling me how silly I look and how pointless this is.  It's in those times that I literally have to talk to myself out loud!  If you've ever been around me at the lakefront when I'm running, you probably have thought that I'm a schizo weirdo, but please understand, I'm just cheering myself on so that the voices outside become louder than the inside middle school ones.

In one month, this fat kid from gym class will cross the finish line of her first 5K.  Yep, I said first, signifying that it won't be my last.  When I cross the finish line, I'll probably laugh.  Or maybe cry.  I'm not sure yet, since finishing isn't something that I ever did in middle school gym.  Whatever it feels like, however I react, I know that that day, when I cross the finish line, the fat kid will officially be put to rest.  I anxiously anticipate her funeral.  :-)

A Contrast in Christmases

In one of my favorite episodes of The Office, back in season two when it was still funny, Michael Scott says something about Christmas that has always made me laugh because of its truth to me. He says,

"Presents are the best way to show someone how much you care. It is like this tangible thing that you can point to and say 'Hey man, I love you this many dollars-worth.'"

Silly as it is, I've always had a sort of anxiety about gift-giving because it seemed to me that I was never able to purchase a gift that was good enough for those I love. Money is always in short supply, it seems, right around the time that gifts are due. Whatever money I can scrounge up for a gift never seems adequate. I mean, really - "Hey friend, thanks for walking with me through that really bad breakup. Here's a $20 Barnes & Noble's gift card. Go read a book."

I digress. The point is, in past Christmases, presents have been very important to my family. Maybe because we're not as good at telling each other how much we love and treasure one another, we try, like Michael Scott, to somehow express our love by assigning it a dollar amount. And believe me, Christmases past have NOT been skimpy. I have been showered with gifts, money, gift cards, electronics, and the like.

This Christmas, however, was different. Times have been hard. Many of my family members are in the construction industry, or at least construction-related industries. This kind of work has all but dried up in Northwest Indiana, leaving so many of my family members with a significantly lower incomes. Because of this, my family agreed not to exchange gifts at our family gatherings.

So what had normally been a "presents extravaganza," with gifts piled higher than my grandma's four-foot LED-lit tabletop tree, with the kids panting in expectation of what gift they would open next, would have to be something else this year.

Without the distraction of presents, we had to INTERACT with one another. Gasp! Shock! Dismay! Instead of the focus being on presents, we played games together like Mafia, where, in true Studdard/Hendon family form, most people (including me) lost their voices attempting to compete with the volume level in the house (we're a loud bunch). We shared old memories of one another, as my sweet Aunt Barb gave everyone a jar labeled "I remember" that was filled to the brim with slips of paper of her memories of us. We looked through old photo albums, laughing at the haircuts and stone-washed jeans of yesteryear, yearning for the now-in-style maxi-dresses in pictures from the seventies, wondering in amazement at how much so-and-so looked like Uncle so-and-so, and reminiscing about the fun that we'd shared in all the seasons, not just the Christmas ones.

And it was the absolute best Christmas ever.

After we finished our family Christmas and headed home, we were excited to let my little niece open all of her gifts since she hadn't been with us earlier in the day. Even in the face of financial hardship, we had all set aside money to lavish her with gifts so that she wouldn't feel the affect of the economy in her Christmas. So she did have gifts piled high, waiting her under the tree. And as she went from gift to gift, eagerly tossing aside the gifts she had just opened to move on to bigger and better ones, I wondered, what are we trying to accomplish by the way we "do" Christmas?

I understand that the fathering heart of God pours gifts out to his children, gifts we don't deserve, gifts that we often toss aside after looking at for a few minutes, in exchange for want of another grander, better gift. And if God graciously gives his children gifts, then it only follows that parents, inherently flawed yet made in his likeness, would seek to bless their own children by giving them presents. But when we pile gifts high, allowing the kids to open them, look at them for a few short seconds, and then shoving another gift in front of them, saying "Open this one!" aren't we setting them up for ingratitude? Aren't we giving silent assent to an attitude that always is yearning for more, for what's next?

In my immaturity, I assumed that any Christmas that didn't look like the one full of presents wasn't really Christmas at all. But this December proved me wrong. Presents weren't needed to make this a true Christmas. Having them there may have distracted us from really loving on one another, from laughing together, from singing and playing and just being family.

For the sake of Christmases in the future, I hope that I remember this one. I hope that, whether it's a season of want or plenty, we as a family emphasize the love instead of the gifts, and are able to recreate what we experienced this year. It wasn't about assigning a dollar amount to our love, but it was about truly loving one another, and showing it through our time, attention, and interaction. And it was a real, true Christmas.

So Kind

Psalm 103:8 (KJV)
The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

There have been so many times in my life that I've come to the end of my own mistakes, come to the end of my own bad, self-centered decisions, and have had to experience the pain of the result. This is the ugly side of the oft-used biblical reference "you reap what you sow."

Many times I've sown seeds out of the desire to fulfill what my flesh wants, only to reap the inevitable result of corruption and destruction.

And as much as I've deserved a swift kick in the rear from God for my ignorance, my pride, my lack of reliance on His way as the best way, He's never done that to me. When I've been in the pit, face-down in the dirt of my bad decisions, God has never rubbed my face in it.

Why? Psalm 103:8. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and (just in case you forgot what I said two seconds ago) PLENTEOUS IN MERCY.

That word mercy in the Hebrew is beautiful. It means "desire, ardour, in a good sense, zeal toward anyone, love, kindness." It cracks me up that this verse mentions mercy twice, once at the beginning and once at the end, but it's so wise of God. We forget that his mercy is waiting, ever-present, plentiful, abounding, overflowing. In face, we prefer Murphy's Law to God's, quickly assuming that anything bad that could possibly happen will, waiting "for the other shoe to drop." We expect the worst, enter situations skeptically, not hoping too much out of fear of disappointment, instead of remembering that His mercy is available, here, present, and plenteous.

Plenteous in the Hebrew means "much." Not a whole lot of depth in that word, huh? When I was a kid, and my dad would look at me and say, "How much do you love me?" I would stretch my little arms out so wide, wide enough that they were practically behind my back, and say, "This much!" What I was doing was a physical representation of what I wasn't verbally able to express. To my little five-year-old self, stretching my arms out wide meant that my love for him was infinite, inexpressibly big.

So how much mercy does God have for you? How much zeal, how much desire, how much enthusiasm, how much passion, how much love and kindness? THIS MUCH. I'm so thankful for the kindness of God in my life today, for his infinite patience with me. Not a foot-tapping, eyeing-the-clock, how-long-until-you-get-your-act-together, eye-rolling patience. Not simply a tolerance of me or my behavior, but a beautiful zeal for me in both my successes and failures.

The Year of No Limits... to living by my feelings

I know it's a little early to do a Year In Review, but I've been thinking a lot towards 2010. In conversation this week I was talking about the year 2009 as "The Year of No Limits," and before I had a chance to think, I said, "This has been a crap year."

Wow.

The minute the words were out, I knew they weren't true. And to classify an entire year as "crap" ... that's a little overly-dramatic, right? This has been a groundbreaking year for me. I bought a house - something I NEVER thought I could do as a single woman on one income. I got out of credit card debt - yet another feat I NEVER thought would be accomplished without divine intervention (thank GOD for his intervention that made it possible). I had an opportunity to be a part of a groundbreaking worship recording at City of Life. I accomplished projects at my job that were difficult and time-consuming and hard; things I'd never done before and never thought I'd be asked to take on. Yet I accomplished them and (most of the time, if it was in my power) did them excellently.

Yet those words betrayed the position of my heart. Because while so many amazing things have happened to me this year, my own personal mental state, my spiritual state, and my emotional state has been pretty out-of-whack. I started the year with a break-up, which is never fun. Plus, this was my very first break-up, so I was experiencing feelings I never had before. For once, I didn't know how to handle something. And while God was incredibly merciful to me and worked a miracle in healing my heart quickly and fully, I think starting the year this way sort of threw me off, emotionally.

I began living from and out of my feelings. Insecurity gripped me and drove me, guiding my decisions. I literally felt like I was living on the brink of losing my mind, as my fears surfaced and took the driver's seat.

And, unfortunately, as all these amazing things happened to me that I listed above, I was so disconnected from all of them that I didn't truly enjoy any of them. I was so busy scrambling, working, striving, grasping, all to maintain some kind of security for myself that I couldn't provide anyway (Hey did you know I'm not God? No, really!), that these glorious moments passed as nothing more than a bother.

I'm looking forward to a fresh start. I've been truly putting effort into putting my feelings in their proper place. I've been re-ordering my life and letting God re-introduce himself to me, starting with the basic and only lesson I'll ever really need for life with him: his love and, more importantly, his LIKE for me.

Develop In Me A Longing That Is Unrestrained (Richard Rolle)

I ask you, Lord Jesus,
to develop in me, your lover,
an immeasurable urge towards you,
an affection that is unbounded,
a longing that is unrestrained,
a fervor that throws discretion to the winds!
The more worthwhile our love for you,
all the more pressing it does become.
Reason cannot hold it in check,
fear does not make it tremble,
wise judgement does not temper it.

A Psalm from me to You

My heart is like an overflowing fountain
Like an endless series of waves breaking on shore
Praises keep on coming and coming and coming
For You have come to my side at every cry for help
At the mere whisper of a need, You have provided
And in moments when I wasn't wise enough to know I needed help, You came anyways, without me even knowing
For these things, I praise You
For these things, I exalt You
For these things, I magnify You
Lover, Protector, Provider, Shield, FATHER

Are You Hungry?

I'm sure you've heard people talk about being hungry for God. We sing songs about it, hear messages about it, and even pray for hunger. This talk has been especially big around City of Life, as the spiritual climate escalates and we prepare to experience more of the supernatural than ever before. My pastor mentioned recently that he didn't believe that God could MAKE anyone hungry, and, in fact, to pray for God to stir up a hunger or make us hungry for Him was an impossible request. He asserted that we have to make ourselves hungry.

You know, when I first heard him say this, I was a little offended! I had prayed, "God, make me hungry for you" many times! But the more I think about it, the more I believe him to be true.

There are many theories about why we become physically hungry for food. However, most scientists agree that hunger has a physiological part and a psychological part. First, the physiological part: our bodies were created with certain chemicals like insulin and glucose, along with hormones, that cause us to be hungry. In a quest to regulate these chemicals, we become hungry until our brain and stomach are satisfied.

Then there's the psychological part. No doubt you've looked at the clock around noon (or whatever time you usually eat lunch) and become hungry simply because of the learned behavior of eating at a certain time. I know this from teaching. One year my class had a 10:30 a.m. lunch. I've never been a breakfast eater, and the thought of eating so early in the day was a little strange to me. But yet, a few weeks into the school routine, when 10:25 would roll around, my stomach would begin growling at the thought of lunch. Or what about the psychological affect that our senses have on hunger? You may not be hungry, but sometimes hearing the McDonald's jingle and smelling their delicious french fries is enough to make you take on the dollar menu! (If you're like me, your thoughts are now calculating the length of the drive from where you are right now to the nearest McDonalds. Stay with me here! Focus!!!)

At any rate, spiritual hunger has the same components. God created you with an innate, inborn desire for Him. Kind of like the physical component of hunger - it's built in. We've all heard the "man was created with a God-shaped hole" message a thousand times, right? In the core of all of us is a hunger for God. The wise ones fill it with God. Yet most attempt to satiate it with whatever is available that tickles our fancy and comes at the least cost to us. Slapping the snooze alarm a few times is easier than getting up and spending time with God. It makes us feel good. It fills (for a time) that need, that hunger, for God. We fill our lives with work, family, entertainment, church, friends... all GOOD things, yet none of which can truly satisfy that deep hunger. If the hunger for God isn't filled with God, then all of other pursuits are basically idolatry. Ouch.

The problem with filling your spiritual hunger with things that aren't God is that eventually, it shows. Just like a strict diet of mountain dew and sausage pizza would lead to vitamin deficiencies and weight gain, thus causing a physical manifestation of what you've been taking in to your body, a diet of idols eventually shows in your disposition, your faith, and the fruit that your life produces.

And then there's this other component of hunger for God, the learned part, similar to the psychological aspect of physical hunger. I believe that there's a mental component to our hunger for God. Being around people who stir you up, who encourage you to press in for more of God, has an effect on your desire for God. "Like iron sharpens iron," sometimes we are driven to search for God because the people around us encourage us to. We see our pastors and spiritual leaders delving into Bible study and teaching us out of the rich treasures they discover, and it inspires us. We hear believers around us praying passionately, using different words and different communication styles than we've ever heard, and it pushes us to go further in our prayer lives.

Just as your environment can encourage you to pursue more with God, it can also dissuade you. I've been in circumstances where I am hanging around new people, and when one of them asks me, "Are you hungry?" I make a casual statement like, "I could eat," or "I'm ok," even though my stomach is growling and I am ravenous. Or like when you go to a restaurant with a bunch of girls, and you're really hungry, but the others order salads with fat-free dressing, it dissuades you from ordering that big greasy bacon cheeseburger that you have been craving all day. In these environments, I choose to limit my expression of hunger because of my surroundings... I don't want to seem out of place, or greedy, or look unladylike. When we surround ourselves with people who have low standards and who mock those who pursue God in a deeper way than the norm, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Their hunger (or lack thereof) will mirror itself in our hunger.

The word says in Psalms that "Deep calls to deep." I believe that spiritual disciplines, such as regular, daily Bible study, is tough at first. It's a LEARNED process. But as you get further in, deep calls to deep, and the more you do, the more you want. What starts as a learned, environmental thing becomes something that possesses you and drives you.

So, are you hungry? Honestly? If your answer is no, then why not? Stir YOURSELF up. Examine the areas that you may've replaced your desire for God with different things, and then clean house! Get them out of your life! Surround yourself with people who are hungrier than you are, and let their hunger rub off on you.

God wants to fill your hunger. Why pick at a salad when he wants to be your cheeseburger? :-)