The end of 5 x 5 and thoughts on the next program!

I am not the smartest tool in the shed.  I know this but sometimes it is way more apparent like when I am already into a strength training program and I decide that I am too fat and need to cut calories!  Everyone knows that if you are doing a strength training program, you should be eating adequate calories so that you can actually get stronger!  You should NOT decided to cut your current caloric intake in half and still try to lift heavy!  Oh well!  Less fat is more important to me at this time in my life than stronger! (I really want stronger but I need to fit into my pants!)

Ok, so today was the end of my 6 week 5 x 5 and I didnt even do any 5 x 5age!  *big sigh*  I miss The Boss!  I miss having someone who challenges me and thinks for me   but most importantly, expected more from me than I expect from myself.  I often lament to myself about being stupid enough to make him mad   Im just a girl, I cant help my hormonal influxes of self whatever it was that I did to make him mad.  Hmmmmm I cant even remember what it was any more!  Blah!

So off the feeling sorry for myself and on to this post.  The end, it is what it is and I like the 5 x 5 program and will come back to it again but probably in the winter when a little more flesh is not as noticeable!

This video pretty much says it all and well, sometimes talking is just easier than typing!

I got on the scale this week and after having jumped up to 170.8# last week, I am back down to 167.2# this week.     That makes me happy and takes away some of my disgust with myself for being such a pig!

My legs are still my biggest nemesis!  I still dont like them although they have come a long ways.  I will get them to a better place, I will, I have to!  I think I need to put lunges back in on this next program!

Abs, abs are abs are abs.  They are doing good and I am thankful that they are an easy body part for me!  I just have to get the extra fluff off and things will be awesome!

So all of this being said, I dont know exactly what I am going to be doing the next 6 weeks or what I am going to call it but I will figure something out this weekend.    Living life on the edge, I tell you!

 

I just cant stop trying to SQUAT!!!

 

I suck at squatting!  Its true!  It took me years to admit it and in my prideful ways I decided rather than keep trying, I would just give up on the squat!  Yep, it is way easier to give up than it is to go back to square one and figure out how to do it right!  So I would rationalize in my head all the reasons that I should just stop trying to do them and then stop doing them.  That sound like a good plan, right?  Cant do it, just stop trying!! Yippee skippee for me, I am a big loser!  LOSER spelled out in the air across my forehead!

Ok, so now that we have established that I am a lazy, excuse making, LOSER, lets move along to my rehab!   I have always liked Mark Rippetoes’s teaching/coaching/tell you like it is style.  Why?  Because he uses physics, angles and lines and forces, to tell you why you should do it his way!  I love that!  Mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, physics etc were always good subjects for me.  My mind thinks in absolutes and laws and rules and such and mathematics was concrete for me and I got it!  I wasnt always right with the answer but the process was absolute and that was a good thing for me.   I was wasting time on Amazon earlier in the week and Mark Rippetoe’s book “Starting Strength” Basic Barbell Training came across the bottom of my screen so I decided to get it, why not!

The book came in on wednesday and so I spent that evening going through it and Mark goes into great detail and pictures with how he trains for form on the squat as the first section in the book.  So I thought to myself, ” Self, you have to go back to doing squats now!  You cant give up on them without trying this way now that you have pictures and explanations and everything else to go with it!’   “Ok self, lets try it again, friday, we do them again!”

And now it is friday and I kept the weight low, and I did them!  I had on my batman and joker chucks and I squatted and watched the video and tried to make mental adjustments in my head and I did it again.  I am determined to retrain myself to squat properly!

I set up the bar low enough on the rack to get under it properly for the lowbar squat!  This has been an area where I needed to go but have not because it bothers my wrists and shoulders and I just wasnt willing to hurt like that but dang it, if you want to get something accomplished, you sometimes have to be willing to sacrifice!

I had my batman and joker chucks on and I was determined to get it done, something done, anything done!!

I had initially plotted to do 95#-115#-135#-155#-175#for how ever many reps it felt like were good but after the first set and then watching it on video, I figured I had best just stay with the 95# and get my form down!  So thats what I did!

I have some things to work on and get my muscle memory down!  I am going to swallow my pride and get my form down good and then I will work on moving the weight up!  At the end of the day, I would rather have great form and lift less weight than lift more weight and look like a loser doing because my form sucks and I am not getting full ROM!  Its a choice, loser is NOT my choice!

It is a fantastic and wonderful thing to live the fitness life!

The ease of self pity!

Everybody goes through difficult times in life and times when life just seems to be beating us down!  Take the two cats above, Popeye, the orange tabby, was brought into the clinic when he was only a few weeks old.  Found floating in a tree well with his sister after a storm and brought in for us to “take care of” whatever that entailed.  He was unconscious and his eyes were so infected that pus was running out of them.

It was a very busy morning at the clinic and we were prepping for a c section and I had one of the techs give them some SQ fluids with dextrose and a touch of penicillin and wrap them in a blanket in a heating pad.  I honestly didnt expect them to live.  When we got done with the c section they were actually starting to move.  We put them in a kennel, two blind kittens and gave them some milk and mushed up food.  They slowly started to eat over a few days and the female actually had one good eye but Popeyes eyes had been destroyed by the severe infection.

After a month or so we started letting them run around the clinic.  Popeye would follow his sister and he learned his way around the clinic.  He and his sister ran everywhere and he did fantastic.  We spayed and neutered the both and found the sister a home with some fantastic clients.  Popeye we knew we needed to keep because he had only ever known the clinic and he knew how to get around it.  Popeye has never felt sorry for himself!  He is probably our most friendliest cat and one would never guess that he couldnt see if they couldnt see his scarred up eyes.

Purr is the little grey kitten next to him.  She came in because she had been used as a chew toy between two dogs on the indian reservation.

This is what she looked like the first day she came into the clinic.  This was around the end of september.  Since that time she has undergone multiple surgeries to remove dead skin and try and get the wound closed.  The last one was about 2 weeks ago.  Through all of this she just purrs and loves and never feels sorry for herself!

It is so easy to start feeling sorry for ourselves!  I have been letting myself do this for quite some time.  The horse racing season started in Tucson a few weeks ago and I agreed to be the vet for them.  This means working 7 days a week for 10+ hours a day every day for now 6 weeks with no days off.   This will mean 47 days in a row with no breaks, no down time, no extra rest, just work work and work and more work and it is work.

I have been lamenting this fact and feeling extra tired and extra whiny for months now.   Yesterday I read a blog that I had been following for a month or so now about a young man who was an extreme outdoors man who had an accident and is now paralyzed.   (Click on the highlighted area above to read his blog.)   His post was about his dreams and how in them he could still walk and run and use his legs.  He wrote about how frustrated he was when he awoke and had his legs that did nothing and couldnt move on their own.

I left a comment, if I read a blog I always try to comment, about how I thought it was wonderful that he still dreamed he could walk because to me it meant that his subconscious hadnt given up.  He commented back  “Yes I’m not one for self-pity at all. I want to sometimes get so pissed off and shout from the rooftops and tell everyone how bad I have it, but I just tell myself to suck it up and deal with it. That being angry and jaded will do nothing to help my situation and that only I can help myself. And then I feel better…most of the time. -AB”  I spent the morning pondering on this statement!

Here is a man who has lost pretty much everything that he loved, he lost his joy and his living and his peace, everything!  He has every reason feel sorry for himself and be down and yet he isnt!  Who then am I, healthy and able to walk and make my own decisions to get myself into things, to whine and feel sorry for myself because I agreed to work!

Think about it, I bet you that 90% of people who get caught up in self pity and depression are in that state because of choices THEY made!   A bad marriage to someone they chose to get married to.  A bad decision at work that cost the their job.  A bad decision to get pregnant when they couldnt afford or emotionally support a child.  A bad decision to take a drug that they became addicted to!  A choice to not work hard enough in school to get into college.  A choice to lazy and not go and work even at a job that you dont want to do.  They are ALL choices that one makes!  The problem is that nobody wants to take responsibility for their bad choices!  Instead they want to feel sorry for themselves and blame someone else or the government or society or whomever!

Even if your life is hard and it is NOT your fault, what do you get by feeling sorry for yourself?  Is it doing anything for you?  Is being angry or jaded or full of self pity helping you in any way?   It has never ever helped me, only kept me down and full of self pity and bitterness and ruined my life!

We should get our eyes off ourselves and our problems and purpose to do something for someone else!  When we take the focus off of ourselves and set out to help others it is amazing how many people you will find who have life a heck of a lot worse than you and they arent complaining or bitching or feeling sorry for themselves!   I read a blog last week about a 25 yo beautiful young woman who is dying from cancer and yet she had the most beautiful video talking about hope and love and acceptance of what is happening!  Who am I to whine about having to work too many days in row!  I will at least be alive and still able to work!

Thank you Arash and Abigail and many others for being a bright and amazing light in this world full of self pity!

 

New Years Thoughts on Fitness and Health!

It is now the year 2013!  As a kid the movies depicted 2020 with flying cars and cities in the sky.  I dont think we are going to be there with the way we are going.  In fact I would be surprised if we havent started a civil war and are going backwards by the year 2020!  Such an optimist I am!!

On to my ramblings.  Thank goodness I have spent the past three years on the healthy fitness lifestyle so there are not any huge changes that I have planned more just  few adjustments.  I do have to say that I am most happy that I started this journey over three years ago because life is sooo much better when one is in shape and self body loathing is decreased.  Not that I love my body but it is dang sure better than it was in 2009 when I started!!

This was me when I was pregnant!  Over 200# and this wasnt the biggest I got!  Blah.  Even after I gave birth I was never really able to get rid of the extra baby weight.  Mainly because I was stuffing my face and not doing much exercise!

This was me a few months before a I started working out.  I was 175# and miserable!  This was a few weeks post ACL replacement and is the picture that really made me realize how out of shape I was and that I didnt want to be this way anymore!   Bodyfat was about 32%.

This picture was taken after five months of being back in the gym.  I wasnt really doing much in the diet department but at least I was working out so I was beginning to have a little shape.  My bodyfat was about 28% right here.

So here we are three years later and I know sooo much more than I did when I started!  That is a good thing because if one isnt learning and growing then they are doing something wrong!

I have learned that a set program is so much more effective than just going to the gym and winging it!  I have the boss to thank for that and even though he will no longer speak to me I am eternally grateful for his help through the first half of the year.  Because of his training and teaching I was able to pull 365# on my deads the first of last year!    I also was forced to really deal with my diet and not take shortcuts or what I thought were shortcuts and always ended up being longcuts!  Trust me ladies and whomever else might read this, fat burners and stimulants do NOT help you and only mess up your body!   Since stopping all that stuff I have felt better and have more energy than I ever did on what was supposed to be the best energy supplements out there!  Nothing beats clean eating!

In 2013 I want to get back to eating clean.  I have really slipped on that the past 6 months and it makes me not like myself and life is way too short for that!   I want to feel good and look good and that is only going to happen if I try harder at the eating part of life!  No more pizza as a convenience food!  Cut way back on the sweets!  Eat out less!   Those are some good places to start!

Here is a little video that rambles on a few random thoughts!

For several years I took my picture almost every single day!  It was a motivation tool I used and something that kept me from putting food in my mouth that I shouldnt be eating.  I stopped that a few months ago for a variety of reasons and now I dread taking pictures of myself!  Funny how stuff like that works.  What used to be a routine is now work and something that I dont want to do!  But I will do it occasionally because I think it is important for me to keep me from eating excessively and also to show other woman that one doesnt have to accept being fat and out of shape at 40!

So here I am as of yesterday Jan 1 2013!  Bodyfat is probably 15% which is way higher than I want it!  I have been down to about 13% and would like to get to 12% and be able to hang between 12-13%!

Last year I really wanted to get my legs shaped up and they improved a lot but still have a long ways to go!  This year legs are back on the top of the list for the primary area that I want to change.  I would also like to get my lats to develop a bit better.  I have a thick back and it is pretty strong but my lats are not very wide and I think a nice set of lats makes ones waist look smaller as well as ones legs.   I want to continue to work on my arms and get my shoulders separate a bit more.  I store fat there pretty easy and they are very blah right now!    I want to be able to press the dang 70# db for bench!  I have come close but so far I havent been able to get them up!  Abs will be more of the same.  I like that I have added in the incline situps.  I just need to get my fat down so that one can tell that I have abs.  I think that pretty much covers most every body part.

All I wanted for christmas was a treadmill and David got me a very nice one.  I am not a cardio bunny so my goal here is pretty low.  I figure if I can get on it at least three times a week for 30 minutes that that will sure as heck beat what I did last year which was a bunch of nothing!   Who knows, maybe I will find my groove and do better but I am setting the bar low because I do want to achieve this goal. 

I think that pretty much covers everything related to health and fitness!  I wish you all a most fantastic New Year and much success in the goals that you set!  Remember, be realistic and keep things simple!  You didnt get out of shape in a month or two and you dang sure wont get in shape in a month or two!   It is a lifestyle that you should plan on living for the rest of your life!  Enjoy because it really does make life better!

Where to in 2013!

Ahhhhh the new year!!  Or should I say the NEW YEAR!!   A new beginning is always a good thing, even if you dont think it is, it is!  One just has to change their mindset!  So much of our personal issues are because we allow ourselves too much time feeling sorry for ourself!   Its true and if you stop and examine yourself and be honest, you will agree.   This world is so full of whiny woes me, its everybody else fault and I am such a victim, that it is no wonder there are so many disorders going around today!  Enough soapboxing for this entry

I am not much of a resolution person but I do like to set a few goals for the new year.  Goals, yes, I know, much the same as a resolution but to me goals have more weight, they arent made to be broken like resolutions appear to be.  I find setting small attainable goals helps me to actually reach them and thereby allows even more goals to be set and achieved and thereby I am not sitting around feeling sorry for myself but actually doing something with my life that will make me feel good about it!

So what are my goals for this coming New Year?  That is a fantastic question and one that David asked me last night and I had no answer but have given it some thought this morning and I figured putting it out there would make me more dedicated to it!

Goals for 2013

 

STRIVE TO BE MORE CHRIST LIKE!

as a christian my desire is to draw closer to God.  To make Him center of my life ALWAYS, not just when things are going bad or are difficult.   I want to wake up each day in prayer and end each day in prayer and be in prayer all day.  It isnt easy, continual prayer, but it is something that I want to be better at and to grow in.

BE A BETTER WIFE

I am a horrible wife.  I admit it, I know it.  I dont try to be horrible but I dont try to be good either.  After working all day at the clinic I am tired and crabby and tend to whine too much.  I rarely ever cook and am not very good at making the monchers pick up all their junk so that the house is in better shape.   I want to do better at being a better wife and this will be one of my hardest goals to achieve because David never complains about how horrible I am!

EMMA- TO SPEND MORE ONE ON ONE TIME WITH HER

Emma is not a needy kid.  She is very independent and doesnt really like to be touched or held or loved and she is way over dramatic.  All of that makes it difficult for me to want to hang out with her because she is either pushing me away or being so whiny and dramatic that I dont want to be near her!   BUT that is not a good excuse to not try harder to be with her and to teach her that such attitude is not good.  Plus she needs to be most assured that I love her unconditionally!!

ZAC- TO NOT CATER TO HIS NEED FOR ATTENTION WITH BAD BEHAVIOR

Zac is very easy for me to love.  He is a mammas boy and actually wants to be around me.  BUT he has a tendency to behave badly and use that against me to get me to give into him.   He will do or say something that he shouldnt and then get all sullen up and look at me like I am the one who is wrong and then he will go to his room and shut the door.  The mom in me wants to go and make it all better BUT that is NOT the best thing. He needs to learn that he can not and should not manipulate through his behavior and actions and as his mother it is my responsibility to teach him that.

WORK- AS A VETERINARIAN AND EMPLOYER

I want to be a more compassionate veterinarian.  I want every client to know that I really do care about their pet and them.  I want the love of Christ that is in me to shine forth to them in such a way that they know that I am a believer and a christian.  I want to be a better boss, not like being better so that everybody loves me but better as in being a better leader.  To teach my employees to be the best that they can be and to know that I expect nothing less from them!  To end the year with less mistakes than last year by everybody!

GYM AND HEALTH-

To improve my performance in the gym.  To try harder at the exercises that I dont like and to push myself past my comfort zone in all exercises!   To eat better, yes, everyones goal is to eat better but I should really be better at this.  I did well for a few years and the past six months have completely fallen off the wagon!  I also am now the proud owner of a very nice treadmill and I want to use it 3 days a week.

 

Well that sums up most of the areas in my life.  I am sure there are many others that I should list and if I put more thought in it I would have a list that never ended    My life is pretty simple and I like it that way.  I do not need to be known for anything, I dont need to be popular, I dont need for the wold to know I exist, I just need to be the best me that I can be!

So what are your goals?  Are you trying to be a better you or are you trying to make it someone elses job to make you better?  Will you take responsibility for who you are and why you arent where you might want to be and do something about it?  I say, lets try it!  Lets stop giving the government and everyone else control of our lives and take it back and make it our responsibility to take care of ourselves!

 

What does it mean to love?

I have changed as I have gotten older.  I have changed A LOT!!  I had knew I was different but today it really dawned on me just how much I had changed over the past few years.  And I must say, I am proud to have changed in such a way.

I was born on a farm where we raised and named and then butchered our own beef and lamb and pig.  The barn cats came and went and one learned from a very early age not to truly love anything!

As I pondered on things this evening I likened the love I used to have like paint on the side of an old house or barn.  You know the paint on wood that peeled off and chipped off over the years.  A superficial love that kept one from getting hurt to deeply.   One never allowed anything to penetrate very deep because that way when it died or left, one didnt get that hurt.  I spent a good 36 years of my life that way, protecting myself from loving too deeply!  Seemed like a good way to be.

No one would have ever called me a loving person!  And to be honest, I was perfectly ok with that.  I didnt want to love, it was way easier to just be and to never open myself up to being hurt.  But what about you?  Would others call you a loving person?  Do you consider yourself a loving person?

Four years ago I opened a veterinary hospital.  At the time I was still pretty hard and unpenetrable to love!  I was a good enough business person to know that people had to think that I cared and loved their pet and I could fake compassion and concern with the best of them.  I played the part and went home at the end of the day and never gave anything or anyone much of a thought.

Thankfully God was working in me.  He was changing me!  He was loving me even in my failings!  He started teaching me the importance of truly loving and not just faking it!  Let me tell you, it isnt easy!!   To love truly, it hurts, it requires something from you, it takes time, it takes effort, it comes with a cost that is usually not repaid!

We were working cattle today and it was cold and many of them were sick.  As they were driven into the chute and the hydrolic chute closed on their head or neck the sick ones would just let it happen.  You could see the pain in their eyes, you could tell that they were hurting.  There was a welling up in me of great compassion, not just for the cattle but it reminded me of the pictures that I had seen of the jews in the concentration camps.  Treated like cattle.  Given no care or compassion by those driving them.  Falling down, being sick, hurting and the ones working them did not care.  It made my heart ache for them even though it was years before I was even born!

Let me tell you, that is change in me!  A few years ago I wouldnt have given a second thought to the heifers or what they were going through.  Not that I am some animal rights activist, I am not, cattle are still cattle and meant to be eaten but I am glad that I have come to a point in my life where I actually care about how they are treated.  It bothered me to see them fall and get stepped on. It bothered me to look over in the sick pen and see one dying while others stood around it and licked it.  It bothered me that the sick ones had sad eyes.

Maybe it is because my own precious babies are sick today.  They had fevers and didnt feel well.  I dont really know but I do know that God cares about even the birds that fall from the sky so I am pretty sure He cares about a sick heifer as well so if He cares, shouldnt I care?

Lets go back to the question a few paragraphs ago, would you call yourself as a loving person?   Let me ask you this, who do you love?  Are you just loving your family and friends?  Are you only giving your life to those who are involved in your everyday life?   A stay at home mom taking care of her kids and husband?  A husband working for his family?  Those are all good things but everybody does that right?  How does loving like that really make you a loving person?

Truly being a loving person means loving those who dont already love you!  It means giving of yourself and not getting anything back for it!  It means giving of your time to someone who doesnt care about you!  It means giving your resources to someone who doesnt know you from Adam!  It means loving the person who can do nothing for you!  It means giving of yourself and not wanting that person to love you back or give back to you!  That is what it means to be a loving person!

Let me tell you, God wants us to love those who hate us!  He wants us to love the unlovable!  He wants us to leave the comfort of our home and go out and give of ourselves to those who are in need!  Do you ever do anything for the widow or the orphan?  What about the man on the street begging for a handout?   Or the veteran who is suffering from PTSD because he went to war so that you could stay home and love your family?

I have changed!  I have gone from someone who didnt know how to love to being someone who wants to love!  I want to spend myself for others.  It is not anything that I have done but something that God has done in me as I have sought out His will for my life!  I still have a long ways to go but I want to be more compassionate and to love completely!   God wants His children to be doing and loving those who dont love us!  How else are we to be a light unto the world?  Let me ask you again, are you a loving person?

Healing is an action word!

“Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases,  Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies” Psalm 103:1-4

“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5

“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”  James 5:14-16

The word healing is a verb.  I am not sure how many people are taught grammar and english anymore but it doesnt seem like very many.  A verb is defined as -

a. The part of speech that expresses existence, action, or occurrence in most languages.

For some reason we seem to think that God should just heal us and we dont have to do anything for it.  Do you realize that Jesus took 39 stripes upon His back for your healing?  He had to endure some suffering, a lot of suffering for us to be healed!  And yet so often we think that we should just get it for nothing.  Not that God wont heal like that but I think more often He wants us to step out in faith and receive it!  He wants us to come to Him!  He wants us to take action!

Last week in our Study of the Word, David taught on the whole man.  It was a very fascinating teaching and one that I had never thought about before.  There is the body, the soul and the spirit!

So many of us want our body healed but dont want God to heal our soul or our spirit!  We beg God to heal our physical body, our heart, our arthritis, our cancers, our everything but we dont want or dont ask God to heal our mind, our emotions, our will!  We still want it our way but expect God to take care of our physical body and then we go around and proclaim that healing is not for today because we didnt get healed and we havent seen anybody get healed and therefore it must not be Gods will!  Let me tell you, it is Gods will!  But it is more His will that your spirit and soul be healed than your physical body!!

To receive healing we need to have the inner man healed first!  We need to take some steps to lay down our will, to STOP being ruled by our emotions, to NOT let our minds rationalize our sins!  When we start to actively clean up our soul and our spirit than you will be amazed at what God will do to start healing your physical body!   God loves us and He wants to heal us but He is more interested in healing the cause of our issue and not just the issue!

There is a man in the church who was having chest pain.  He went to the hospital and they told him that his EKG was horrible and worse than it had been and he was very scared.  Who wouldnt be?  Who wants to go through having a heart attack and all the diagnostics and such.  A few minutes later they came back and told him that they had been looking at the wrong EKG and that his was great.  As David was telling Zac and Emma the story Zac said, I know what is wrong with him.  He just threw it out there.  David looked at him and asked him what was wrong, Zac looked at him and said, I saw him out back behind the truck smoking.

I know that many people have addictions to smoking and alcohol and other things and it is a struggle.  I recognize that but how many people are seeking God earnestly, fasting and crying out for healing of this soulish addiction that is causing demise to the physical body versus praying and asking God to heal them of the result that this addiction is causing to their body?!  You see, it is bigger than just our physical body!  God wants to heal the root cause of the problem and not just fix the problem so that it can happen again!

How many people essentially worry themselves sick?  Worry and stress and cause themselves ulcers and lack of sleep and run their bodies down with increased levels of cortisol and over time they are destroying their body from the inside out!  They pray that God heals the ulcer, they pray that God will give them strength and energy, they pray for endurance, they want to just make it through the day but how many of them are praying and asking God to help them increase their faith so that they will stop worrying?   We worry about our health, our families health, pain and suffering that a loved one is going through, our job, our money, how to pay our bills, etc etc and yet the bible tells us clearly to not worry!  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  Matthew 6:25-27.  When we worry, we are essentially telling God that we dont trust Him to take care of us or our loved ones or our circumstances!  If we dont trust Him with that why should we expect Him to heal us because obviously we dont think that He does a very good job of taking care of us!

Worry is a mind problem!  Worry is what the enemy throws at us to keep us down and from receiving all that God has for us!   Yet how many people just accept it?  How many people lay claim to it like it is some sort of prize?  I am just a worrier, that is just what I am, I cant change it, it is just me!  Really?!  Sounds like a sickness to me!  Sounds like something that one should want healing from!  Sounds like a tool the enemy would use against us like unforgiveness and bitterness and hate and other soulish behaviors that we lay claim to and wont let God heal of us!

You want healing of these conditions?  It is going to take some hard work!  It is going to take action on your part!  It is going to take you living second by second in order to receive your healing!  When God healed me of unforgiveness it was the most amazing thing ever!  But no sooner had He healed me of it than the enemy started throwing it all back at me!  Every time I wasnt thinking of something specific the enemy would throw at me the things that the people I had forgiven had done to me and he would try to get me sick again!  BUT I defeated him!  How?  Every time he had me thinking of what they had done wrong to me, I started singing a praise song to the Lord!  I took action!

If you want healing from worry, or smoking or unforgiveness, or bitterness, or any other kind of soulish behavior seek Gods face!  Pray and ask Him to help you!  Ask Him for forgiveness!  Spend some time reading the word, praying and fasting!  Then when He heals you be prepared for the enemy to attack you!  And when the enemy attacks you and you crave that cigarette or that drink or you start to worry or you start to think of all that was done wrong to you, turn it around and start praising God!  Claim the victory that is yours because Jesus Christ conquered death and rose from the grave!  YOU HAVE VICTORY IN CHIRST!!  You do not have to be a slave to soulish sin!

Jesus took 39 stripes upon His back for your physical healing but even more important than that He rose from the dead and has the keys to death and hades in His hand so that you can be victorious over the devil and his schemes and attacks against your spirit, soul and body!  We have the healing!  Do you uderstand that?  It is ours!  By His stripes we WERE healed!  But we have to take action to get it!  We have to do some things to repair the inside of the house so that God can make the whole house beautiful and not just the external!  Who wants a house that looks great outside but is falling apart on the inside?

All that being said, some people will not be healed of their physical disease even though their spirit and soul are in line with God.  That is sin that is in the world.  Sin and death entered the world when Adam and Eve ate of the apple.  Some people wont be healed because maybe God knows that their strength and character that they have through the illness will be an example to those around them and others will come to Christ because of their suffering.  I am not God, I dont know why some great and godly people get sick and are never healed.  I do know that it is Gods will that we all be healed but we live in a fallen world!  It is also Gods will that all will be saved and receive salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ and yet there are millions of people going to hell every day!  The world belongs to satan and he is set on destroying it and us!

Are you hurting and in need of healing in your spirit, soul, or physical body?  What are you doing to claim it?  What sins might you be rationalizing in your soul, your mind, that might be the root cause of your physical illness?  Are you seeking to heal that more so than the actual illness?   Just because you might not call it sin doesnt mean that it isnt sin.  Just like not knowing what the law is doesnt make it ok for you to break it, we are responsible for our actions!   Jesus laid His life down for us and for our victory over the enemy and our healing!  He prayed for Gods will, not His!  He DIED for us!  Rise up and claim it!  Cry out for healing of the spirit and the soul!  Set your mind on things above!  Let God heal your inner man and see if the outer man doesnt get healed as a result!

Is the church Christ like? Are you?

 

“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”  1 John 2:8

“You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” John 13:13-17

“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1

 

I have written on this topic before but I find that I have to constantly remind myself that I need to be like Christ!  I am to be an imitator of Christ!  I am to walk as He walked!   I am to follow His example of love and humility and service to others with a willing and kind spirit!  WE the church, we who call ourselves CHRISTIANS, we are to be IMITATORS of Christ!  Not perfectly but increasingly!

We are so conditioned to respond as the world responds.  We think we have the RIGHT to react and respond like those living around us but if you are truly saved, you do not have that right!!  You were purchased by the BLOOD of Christ and you are to be imitating Him!!  You should want to be doing this!

It is no wonder that we are called hypocrites all the time because most of us are no different than the world around us!  Most of us claim to be christians and yet we act like the world and talk like the world and we rationalize our sins so we can fit in with the world!  We are so far from being Christ like that most people would probably never know we were supposed to be a christian!  It is like the old saying, if you were on trial for being a christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine awhile ago and they were telling me about how they had been hurt and it was hard for them to get over it and to want to have anything to do with the person who had hurt them.   As we were talking about it the Lord really impressed upon my heart about how we are to be like Christ to EVERYONE!  Regardless of how they have treated us or hurt us or regretted us!  We were to be like Christ!  As christians we were to be different, we were to CHOOSE to respond different than the world!

You see that is what we so often fail to do, we fail to choose to respond differently than the world when we are attacked or persecuted or hurt!  We are so caught up in the world that we think we are right in acting and reacting like it does, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!  You hurt me and I am going to hurt you back!  You did this to me and so therefore it is my right to hate you and treat you poorly! But Jesus tells us in Luke 6:29 “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.”

When Jesus was beaten and spit on and called names and whipped and hung on a cross to die did He curse those who persecuted Him?  Did He call them names back?  Did He lash out and strike out at them?  NO!!  He was silent and He hung on the cross and said “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do!”   That is how Jesus treated those who killed Him!!

We need to get off the politically correct, got do things the world way, its my right to be angry, they deserve it attitude and get on the example that Jesus set for us!  We are to be imitators of Christ!  There isnt any clauses to that scripture!  It doesnt say be imitators of Christ only if someone doesnt hurt you, or come against you, or treats you like you want to be treated.   We are to walk as He walked!  We are to be imitators of Him!

How do you respond when someone comes against you?  Do you do as the world does?  Or do you love them like Christ?  Do you place yourself above those around you?  Or do you humble yourself and serve others?  Are you imitating the world?  Or Christ?   Do those around you even know that you are a christian?

 

 

Thanksgiving?!

 “O Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, And a great King above all gods, In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.” Psalm 95:1-6

It is the month of November, the month of thanksgiving.   What are you thankful for?  A month or so ago I was talking to my mom and we were discussing how far out the stores start putting up halloween decorations and christmas decorations and yet there is rarely anything given or done for thanksgiving.   We discussed how ungrateful todays world seems to be.  Everything being mostly about what can you do for me and how does everything effect me with out much effort or thought put into how lucky we are and how blessed we are with what we have and can do in this country!

Here it is now the first day of November and all over facebook there are posts about dedicating the month to posting up what one is thankful for.  That is a great thing but why are we only doing it for one month?  Why is it that every other month goes by and we dont put the same emphasis on being thankful?  Do we not have anything to be thankful for the rest of the year?   How different would our lives be if we thought about what we were thankful for everyday and not what we were worried about?

A few months ago there was a client and a member of our church that was looking for a puppy for their son.  We had had to put to sleep their other dog because of cancer and their son had started having some difficulties afterward.  I asked the kennel help to go to the pound and see if there were any puppies there that matched what they wanted.  Sure enough there was a six month old black lab type pup and so we adopted it from the pound and brought it to the clinic and bathed it and dipped it and the kennel help spent hours pulling ticks off of it.  It was a very happy little dog and the husband came and visited with it and said that they would take it.

It was the sons birthday when they took it home and when I would see them at church they seemed pleased with the dog.    The other night I got a text from her and she said that because of the dog that I gave them they had to get their yard sprayed for ticks and now their family members dogs that were staying there had ticks because of the dog that I gave them and what was I going to do about it because I gave them the dog.  I have to be honest and tell you that I have really struggled with this.

There is an old saying that goes, “No good deed goes unpunished.” And it is indeed very true.  We had dipped the dog which kills all the ticks on it and sent them with spot on treatment as well.  We vaccinated the dog and gave them everything at no charge.  Ticks are very common here and their old dog had ticks on it when I went to look at it so they obviously had ticks in the yard to begin with but now the ticks were all my fault and it had cost them money and they wanted me to do something about it even though it has been over 2 months since we gave them the dog.

As I lay there in bed struggling with not being angry and wondering why people are so ungrateful, God brought to my heart how ungrateful I was!  How many times have I been mad or frustrated over issues in life and expected God to take care of it when I had not even been being actively thankful for not only all that He had done for me but just the fact that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me and my sins!!  Who was I to be upset at some person when I was the same way with Him!

God gave us His Son, He sent Him to the earth to live as an example for us and to die for our sins so that we could live in eternity with Him and yet we sit around and complain and get mad at God because bad things happen to us or our loved ones because of our sin or just sin in general which is causing the world to fall apart!  We get upset because we think God should be doing something different, we blame Him, we shake our fists at Him and completely forget about what all He gave us in His Son!!

Who are we that we have any right to be anything but thankful!??   Regardless of what we go through on this earth we get to spend eternity in heaven!  Regardless of how often or how bad we sin, we are FORGIVEN because of Jesus and His shed blood on the cross!  All we have to do is ask and repent and yet we somehow think that we should be entitled to more!  I am ashamed of myself!  I am ashamed for getting mad at a person for what I do to God!  Who am I to think that I deserve thanks when I often fail to thank God for who He is and what He has already done for me!?

I think that we need to change our hearts!  I think we need to change our mindsets!  I think we need to thank God each and every day!  365 days of the year regardless of what is going on because we are SAVED by the BLOOD of Jesus!!!  Forgive me Father for my selfishness and self righteousness!  Forgive me for being angry when I have done the same thing to you and yet you continue to love me and bless me!  Help me to love as you love!  Help me to forgive as you forgive!  Change my heart that it will not take offense but rather that it will be humble and compassionate and full of love regardless of the circumstances!

1 Thessalonians 5:18  in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

 

“Simple Workout” week 8b-legs

It was a good weekend.  The monchers had soccer games on saturday morning.   Emmas team actually played well and they won!  Whooppeee!  Emma was goalie for the whole game and luckily the ball rarely got to her!  She spent a bunch of time practicing random movements!  LOL

Is she sleeping?

Getting instructions to use her hands to catch the ball when inside the box!  She isnt listening

Practicing karate kicking!

Zacs game was after hers and he was upset that her team had won and I think he brought some bad luck upon his team because of his negative attitude because they lost.  He did play well though and I was proud of him for that.

Great elbow block to prevent a goal!

Focus!

playing hard!

After the game was over we headed off to Willcox to go pick pumpkins at Apple Annies

We went through the corn maze and got lost!  Really lost!  We circled and circled many times and luckily were able to find a way out back the way we got in!  Whew, not really sure I ever want to do that again!

Blah, I need to lose some weight!

Help, we are lost!  That is what Emma kept yelling!  LOL

After nearly escaping from the corn maze we went and picked out our pumpkins!

The great pumpkin

They had sunflower picking as well.  I didnt pick any but I did enjoy taking pics of them.

They had a corn box where the kid had a blast laying and playing in corn kernels!

Waiting patiently while I take pics of sunflowers!

We then went over to their orchard which was a few miles away and had pumpkin doughnuts and ice cream and ate way way too much

We took the back roads back through stockton pass and stopped to take a pic of the old Bonita Store!

Then on the other side of the pass we stopped to do some rock climbing and take more pics

David and the monchers!

Self portrait

We headed home and the monchers carved pumpkins, well kind of, they had me cut off the tops and they dug out the guts and then they were done.  LOL

We then watched Home Alone and the monchers laughed and laughed and then it was off to bed.

Sunday was church and a bunch of emergencies and some football and a walk and bed.

Rolled out of bed this morning at 4:30 and had absolutely no desire to go to the gym but I trudged out a bit before six anyway.

Legs

leg press

*400# for 10

*500# for 10

*600# for 10

*700# for 8

*750# for FAIL!!

blah blah blah!

 

lying leg curls

*25# for 4 sets of 10

 

walking db lunges

*30# db for 3 sets of 40 steps

 

HLRs

*20 for 3 sets

The morning has been odd.  We are headed to the Arizona Cardinals VS San Francisco 49ers monday night football game today!  The monchers are so excited as am David and I.  I have to head out to get the monchers here in about 30 mins and I feel like I am missing something or forgetting to do something or something!  LOL  leaving the office on a work day always freaks me out a bit.

Cant wait to share pics tomorrow!