Friday, September 21, 2012

It's time to dump this ditty

"Chew the meat and spit out the bones" is a saying we get used to hearing in church about preaching.  

It's time to get rid of it and purify the preaching.  Why?

  Bones are for the dogs; the church is the Bride of Christ. How pleased Christ must be to know some man--under the guise of preaching--is throwing bones to His bride!




Monday, September 10, 2012

The Great Dearth

No, it's true. I've been AWOL as far as the blog goes.  Today can be a tidbit day.

We continued school through mid-July and in spite of my  best plans to go all summer, we had to stop for about 6 weeks.  Life simply gets busy from mid-July to late August.  We are back in the swing of things minus a couple of subjects since I still have books I need to get.

I ran through the gamut of emotions regarding putting Sarah in real kindergarten.  I had the anxiety, the guilt, the fear, the sadness of my baby being old enough to go to school--but in the end, putting her there is the best thing for her.  She qualifies for 90 minutes of  speech therapy a week and I would be cruel not to do everything in my power to get her there.  

Kindergarten.  Days 1 and  were awesome.  Day 3 was horribly terrible.  She didn't want to talk about it.  Except she did get to play in the gym for a little bit--but otherwise it was unspeakable torture.  She had to write.  Well, at first, she confided in her sisters that she had to do math but this morning I learned it wasn't the math.  It was the writing and writing is hard.  I consoled her by telling her that Lego engineers have to know this stuff if they want to design kits. 






I finally took the plunge and joined a gym.  This has been in the back of my mind for about 5 years.  Something continued to hold me back but I've taken the plunge and I know what was keeping me away-- three rules of my religion

Rule 1: If you can't do it modestly in a dress or culottes, then you should not do it.
Rule 2: Like mixed swimming, mixed exercise should be avoided because your exercise actions could cause a man to lust and that would be sinning against him.
Rule 3: You should never workout with a man who is not your husband or brother or father.  That might lead someone to think that you were doing something inappropriate.

Let's talk about these, shall we?

1. I am overweight.  I gained about 20 pounds last year alone.  Seriously.  I tried walking, but I'm struggling with vicious plantar fasciitis right now and walking leaves me wishing I could just amputate my foot.  If I want to lose weight, I really don't have a choice outside a gym.  I have to put that silly rule aside and just do it, as Nike would say.

2. I am NOT responsible for a man's thoughts any more than I am responsible for the weather.  I am not at the gym to pick up guys.  I have no interest in talking to anyone there beyond the trainers.  I have a goal to reach and that is between the Lord and me.  I'm dressed modestly for the gym.  I'm not in shorts and exercise bra. I have a nice pair of capris and a shirt.  The men have to deal with their own demons.

3.  My trainer is teaching me ways to reach my goal.  He is a teacher.  He shows me how to perform the exercise and corrects me when I'm wrong;  he provides an example, and if necessary adjusts the exercise to suit my state.  We exercise in the middle of the room where there are people all around watching and listening to us. 

I understand that those 3 rules are extremely silly but they were there.  They were deeply ingrained in me.  The fact that I could set the silliness aside is a huge step forward.  The fact that I can admit it is even bigger.  

There's a lot more, but I have to write a history test.  I will try to get back here a little more frequently now that school's back in.