So, for anyone who doesn't know, I recently lost a TON of weight!
It has been crazy and cool! I cannot even tell you how much weight I lost in just a couple of months!
It started out really small and not really all that noticeable. But now, the difference is very clear!
You see, I had put on quite a bit of weight here in college. I guess that is pretty typical, eh?
I am sure that cutting back on JROTC workouts and did not help either.
This weight was really starting to get me down though. I was not happy with who I was looking at when I looked in the mirror.
I saw a girl, lost in her past, failing classes, not doing too much good for herself or anyone else and a girl who just was not happy. I could see the weight I was carrying all over me, my body and mostly my face.
So I started looking for a solution to all this extra baggage and weight that I have been lugging around for all this time. And I found it.
I sat down and prayed for many a day for some sort of resolve. After a few important conversations with a few of my close friends something clicked for me. This weight that I saw in the mirror came not from the pounds on the scale, but the guilt and pain in my heart.
My friends pointed out some key things that are probably more apparent to other people than they were to me at the time. And a few of my deeper thoughts and beliefs finally came together to turn my regrets and guilt into something more rational. They helped me see that my guilt came from regretting my past and the pain that came with it. From wanting to change my past to make a different today. But my friends helped me to see that I lived my yesterdays the best that I could and if I could have predicted the future I may have tweaked some things, but I cannot punish myself for not being a fortune teller. And to live in regret for things I can't change now takes away from God's light shining through me.
These realizations were great! And the pounds slowly started to drift off of me. But it was not enough to know God forgave me. I needed to feel His forgiveness and then let me forgive myself.
So I prayed more. For help to be healthy and happy. And to let go of what was so I can embrace what IS.
I went to chapel a few Sunday's ago and PG gave this incredible sermon. One of those creep the hell out of you sermons because you think he is talking to only you and only about your life, but you know you haven't mentioned anything about this to him ever. Yeah, gotta love those! I call 'em Goosebump Sermons. Anyway...
This sermon was about how we as people get filled up with great things, but if we never release them we get too full and break open and fall into pieces and crazy stuff! And that the point of the gifts we have in our life is not to hoard them, but to share them. To take them in and let them go. I felt like the same was applicable to the not so fun stuff. Just got to take it in and let it go. So PG starts handing out candy from a prop he used and when he got to me he handed me a rock (in the sermon the rock represented certainties in life, like Love). I was very okay with this because I really like rocks. Yeah, I am one of those people. But then I prayed with this little rock in my hand. And an idea struck me...
So I prayed over this rock for a little over a week. I prayed all of my worries and stresses into it. I prayed my past into it. My guilt into it. My hopes that distract me from God's will for me. Anything I could think of that I needed to let go of, I prayed those things into my little chapel rock. Then I decorated it and I prepared to let it go. I told some of my friends about what I was letting go of they (being the freaking awesome friends that they are) totally supported me in the best ways. And they joined me as I laid down my rock and left it. I left it away from me and where I live. And away from sight.
As I laid down my rock I cried a lot. I knew it was time to let go of what was. A lot of the things I had to let go of where painful to walk away from. Some of it felt great to leave behind, but it was mostly just really hard. As we walked away though I dried my eyes and I felt the rest of the extra weight rise off of me. I think it stayed with that rock. It is there for me to remember how far I have come and the lessons I learned. But it is also there to be THERE and not hanging around with me. Life is for the living. And so we must go on living.
I can't tell you how good it feels to have this weight lifted. I looked into the mirror when I got home and I smiled. Because what I saw was a beautiful, strong, brave, loving, caring person. And most importantly a lover of God.
I don't know what weight you are carrying around or how long it has been with you. But I hope you find peace with that weight one day so you can leave it in your past. And live in the now. It isn't to say that I will never feel stressed, guilt or pain ever again. But it is that I will be able to let it have its proper place in my life and escort it out when it has worn out its welcome. I hope that kind of relief can be experienced by everyone. Even if it is just once.
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