10 things I hate about you..

I hate it that you don’t feel near, in these moments of great low,

I hate that while I believe in you, I’ll never really know.

I hate it that you gave to me, a great vision for my life

and now with just one punch, one hit came this misery and strife.

 

I hate  the person I think you are, I’m your child and you turn your face?

I’m standing here with arms outstretched in need of your embrace!

I hate it that I scream out loud in need of your special touch,

But that to step down and just intervene, just seems a step too much.

 

I hate that when I prayed for a great relationship with you,

That you would love me quite this much, and put this pain me through.

I hate the way I cried out and said God  ”whatever it takes” 

I didn’t quite expect you’d go, this far for your name sakes.

 

I hate it that I hate you and can’t bring myself to pray

I hate even more that deep deep down there’s truth in what you say.

I hate that while I look at the, reality in front

I’m force to read your word and put my foot down and be blunt.

 

I hate that on one hand I want to tool down and give up,

But that the way you made me means Id never have such luck!

I hate that while I hate this, hate this so much I want to scream,

I hate that I won’t ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER give up on my dream.

Health, Happiness and Honesty

I used to walk into the gym and know I commanded attention just by being there.  I was known as ‘hard core’ ‘crazy bitch’ and ‘flippen nuts!’ and I loved it. I loved that people saw me as someone committed to the cause, willing to work hard for it and someone who can push their boundaries. I’m embarrassed to admit it but I thrived off it. Trouble is I hadn’t realised just how much I loved it…

In the last month I’ve returned to teaching spin and returned to showing my face in the gym... I no longer pull the big weights out and do a 1 and half hour set before the class, I go to stretch out my back and neck so that it doesn’t give way or twist during the class. If I’m 100% honest, I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that I no longer live up to the expectation others and myself have on me… but in everything there is a lesson to be learnt.  

You see while I love to be fit,  I hadn’t quite realised just how much my identity had got stuck in it,  I’ve had time to think and question all of this and as I look back I can see that somewhere along the line, I stopped being sporty and started becoming a slave.  A slave to the ‘fitness industry’. By that, I don’t’ mean I now hate gyms and all fitness – NOT AT ALL! I love being fit and healthy and look forward to the day where I am back up to scratch again.  But my challenge is – Is the fitness industry really about fitness?  When you’re not eating meals just so you can lose weight, when you’re happy to be iron deficient, vitamin deficient and malnourished just to stay at 60kgs, when you can smoke just to keep your weight down or reject friends meal invitations for fear of what unhealthy meals they’ll cook, you can be assured of one thing – you are not longer trying to be healthy, you are trying to be skinny and at a push trying to be loved.  I know personal trainers who recommend tablets for weight loss, friends who train 3 hours a day just so they can go out at the weekend to fit into that dress, and people so obsessed by magic formulas and weight loss shakes that they spend more on it each month than their mortgage! I know people who on the outside we would kill to have their figure, but on the inside those lives I wouldn’t trade with for one single minute.

As I look in the mirror each day and struggle to accept my new self, the one that’s curvier and the one that’s not as gym obsessed. I challenge myself to look past the exterior and look into the heart.  Through all of this, I have learnt to love who I am more, not what I look like. In turn I have learnt to love others more.  If I have a cracking set of legs but use them to walk past the homeless person on the street what benefit is that?  If I have strong arms but don’t use them to embrace my family and friends then what’s the point? When what I look like, takes over who I am and how I treat my neighbour, one thing’s for sure. My life is out of balance and I am definitely not healthy.  

Lesson:  I am loved, for who I am.  The striving can stop, the mission is already accomplished – I am already 100% of the person God wants me to be right now.

Regardless of what the future holds; triathlons and trifle, spin or sausage rolls, weight lifting of weight gaining, I know that I have the most important part of my health in check – My heart.

“Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart”  1 Samuel 16:7

Demands my life, my all...

As a 31 year old female who LOVES all thing sporty and fitness-y, who loves eating healthy and would choose a slice of banana bread over a snickers any day, I didn't think facing death was something I would need to do anytime soon. But life has a funny way of catching us out when we least expect it...

5 months ago, I came home from the gym and felt very dizzy, having thought I  may have just over done it I prepared myself some food.  As a reached down for a pot and stood up, a shock wave of electricity rapidly spread through my left chest, arm, throat and face. I couldn't breath, my heartrate was through the roof and I felt an intense pain travel through every nerve down my left had side.  In this moment, I had one thought; "this is it, this is the end".  As the thoughts of my mum and dad hearing the news of my death shuttled though my brain like train carriages passing at high speed I grabbed my phone and ran for the door.  I shot down the stair of the flat and out into the open road.  A young man was walking by, I shouted at him to come near and as he approached I explained rapidly that in a minute I was going to die and told him "this is how I would like you to resusitate me"...  (still trying to control things right to the end!)

I'm surprise I'm alive to write this blog, as obviously, I did not die.  But this episode recurred 6 times in 6 weeks. Each time the doctors would send me away saying I was 100% healthy, a statement I dreaded to hear, as I knew, that I was not.  The physical and emotional stress of these recurring incidents took their toll.. each day I would wake and wonder "is this it?  Is today the day I die?" I thought I had a serious illness that noone could diagnose and was utterly convinced that my time on this earth was coming to an end. 

5 months on I'm alive.  I'm just back from teaching my first spin class in that time and I'm feeling 85% healthy.  I still have no answers, no doctors can tell me what happened to me that dreaded night in April, and noone call tell my why it happened over again.  I have my theories, and I know many friends and relatives have theirs.  To be honest, I've stopped looking for what is wrong with me and have turned more to dealing more with the fear of death.

Each day over the first couple of months of this trauma I would do all I could to avoid death, didn't go out, didn't go for walks, stayed in bed.. I had been trying to save my own life. I wanted to control when I leave this earth, and in the proces shut out any enjoyment that I may have experienced. fera binds us and holds us captive.
 Jesus says "He who keeps his life will loose it and he who looses his life with gain".  I agree. I was trying so hard to keep my life that I was having no life at all.
During my time of illness I remember crying out to God saying "But God, I'm here for you, I'm doing all this work for you, why is this happening?" I remember His echoing reply of "If it's all for me, then you won't mind if I tell you to give it up." I realised at this point that I was infact doing it for me. 

You see, when we become Christians we surrender all to Jesus - EVERYTHING.  We need to be so surrendered that we get up daily and say " today I am willing to die for you".  No project, job, family, life is ours, it is ALL Gods - "The earth is the Lords and everything in it".  God is in control, He decides when events do and don't happen, he has my days numbered.
I can't say that the fear of death is something that has completely escaped me, but I've given up trying to control it.  And you know what? It's freeing. I sat on a spin bike tonight with the fear of all those symptoms coming back and thought "Well, if I'm going down, I'm going down spinning".  Fear does not and will not hold me. Facing my fear, freed me.  Doctors will not determine what is wrong with my body or how long I have left, God decides! I know where I'm going when my days on this earth are over and I'll leave Him up there to decide when that will be. In the meantime, I'm spinning...


"I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, the life I live in the body, I life by Faith in the Son of God, who loves me and gave his life for me" (Galations 2:20).

Be Content

So, I jacked my job in 18 months ago, moved to London and am living the dream right? Yeah, on one hand I absolutely am!   I am 20 minutes from a walk along the Thames and coffee outside St Paul’s, I can go to a West End show mid week if I want or walk though Hyde park if I fancy a stroll. I start work at 10am 3 days the week and I live in a beautiful flat with 2 great gals. I have loads of friends, lots of fun and am definitely living the dream. I sometimes look at my life and think wow! I get to experience ALL this; things people only dream of, and I get to actually do it. I love my life here I do, but there is a flip side…

I left a comfortable salary and secure job, I don’t know one week to the next if I’ll have enough supply teaching to keep the ‘pocket money’ coming in or if the charity I work for will have enough money to pay me that month. We work on a month to month basis here and prayer seems to increase around pay day as we push through in faith that God will provide the finances and He does. I used to look at my life and know what I would be doing every day until I was 65 and time to retire, that brought with it some kind of shelter and security, I now have no idea where I will be next year, will I have a job, will the fitness thing work if it does will it pay me enough?   While all of this is exciting it’s so scary too!  My parents aren’t around the corner to fall back on, no husband to pay the bills if I don’t quite make it this month, nobody paying the mortgage if the tenant doesn’t may up.  Infact, if you look at all this you’d think “jack it in and go back to teaching!” But I won’t!

I was saved for a price.  I was put on the earth to educate people about fitness and health, and I ain’t leaving till it’s done!

Life is tough no matter where you are, what you are doing and who you are with, so embrace it, and learn to be content regardless of the circumstance.