Yesterday You Said Tomorrow

This has been my life for the last while ... I believe I first saw this image on Pinterest. It was powerful and relevant to my life. There are few things I have started in the last while that I have not finished, because I messed up, or my desire for something else was greater than my end goal, etc. I tell myself I can start again tomorrow. Sometimes I do, lately I have not ... Tomorrow has not existed for me because I am either busy beating myself up, or I am indulging in what I set out to give up and change.

I have been asking myself why I suck at life; seeking an answer as to my weakness; wondering why I cannot have the patience to endure and realize my end goal. The past two years of my life have been rough. In my life I have endured tragedy of personal proportions. But I have never done anything like what I did while figuring out my marriage and if it would last or not.

A year ago, I began running. Those who knew me growing up understood that running and I were NOT besties. I would swim across any body of water you challenged me to; bike any trail/road you plotted; you want  me to throw something? OK. Oh, running? NO. But, thank you for the offer ;)

I watched my sister train for half marathons and marathons. Each time she ran, I cried with awe and amazement at her accomplishment. She is incredible. Then I thought of all the excuses as to why that couldn't be me one day.

- I'm overweight
- My knees are not in good shape
- I have never run farther than a 10k
- I have asthma
- There is no way I can do something consistently for 4.5 hrs!
- Etc, etc, etc.

Then a message came ... I need one more person for our Ogden Marathon lottery. Sure! I never get picked for anything. I'll say yes because my friend needed help, and help is my middle name. After I signed up, I didn't think anything of it until the e-mail came ... "Congratulations! Your team has been selected."

*face palm*

Now I have to get training ... half marathon ... 13.1 miles ... ugh ... this will be twice as far as I have EVER run in my life!

So, I signed up for the Strider's Winter Racing Circuit. I got involved in a group called #tmfit. My personal life was falling apart, so all of this fit in perfectly. I needed a reason to focus somewhere else. Basically I needed an out for my hurt, anger, pain, fear, feeling of inadequacy, etc.

So, I began to run. I collaborated with my group. Someone held me accountable. Success. I accomplished my goals.

Summer came and went. My house was finally sold. With the help of my family, I moved out and shoved everything into 1.5 storage sheds, then moved into a bedroom in my mom's house. My body collapsed. I slept until sometimes 9/10 a.m. for weeks. This was particularly odd for me since 7 a.m. is sleeping in for me.

I couldn't bring myself to move back in with my now ex-husband. It was the strangest feeling. He was my husband. What was wrong with me?!? I should have wanted to be back with him. But I couldn't.

The last year has been one of the most heart wrenching years of my life, with the year before that coming in a close second. Never have I cried so much before (also something that is abnormal for me). With my emotions comes something else. It is an addiction I have battled all my life: food.

Yes, I have an addiction to food. It is my emotional comfort blanket. Ever since I was a little girl, I have eaten junk to soothe my pain/loneliness. On top of that, it was also social for me. That was how my mother's ex-husband communicated: through food. I am not sure if he ever knew how else to get people to hang out with him. So, for 16 years of my life eating out was our family communication/hang-out. Food was how Steve expressed his love/friendship.

When I finally turned in my divorce papers, I felt it would all be over. WRONG! The pain of learning how to heal was only beginning. After, I began to not feel liberated, but like an uber crappy human being ... again. My marriage was supposed to be forever. F-O-R-V-E-V-E-R! But ... I am now divorced.

So ... to soothe the pain of feeling like a failure at marriage and life, I began to eat. I didn't just eat, I ATE. And then I became angry, and ate some more ... I gained in the neighborhood of 20lbs eating junk and drinking crap. I slacked off going to CrossFit, so I was making a charitable donation to my gym for about 3-4 months.

My gym started Whole30. I thought that would be awesome. Nope. There was no accountability for me but a calendar that hung on a wall. Whoever was in charge wasn't aware I was participating because I received no information. I didn't finish.

The new year started, I planned to start in February to make my goal by my birthday. Nope. Didn't finish Whole30 ... again ... Fail.

Are you noticing a pattern here? I suck at life. At least that is how I feel right now and have for a few years now. I don't finish things. At least not when I am not accountable to anyone.

My CrossFit Box started 'Spring Cleaning'. I signed up. But again, I didn't hear anything back. I asked myself If I was going to make it. I started ... N-O-P-E!

It was a matter of five weeks before I would run my first FULL marathon. My training was crappy. Not even that was enough to motivate me into eating/training better. The only thing I have going for me right now is mental stubbornness.

So, the last six months or so I have been asking myself, when will I be ready to make the change? When will I commit and complete?? When will it be important to me?

The heartbreaking answer: I don't know. But right now, I am working on little things. When I am ready, I will attack it like a CrossFit workout.

Day 18: Let Them Be Men

I have posted this before, but today I must post it again along with another video. Part of love is sacrifice and honoring Priesthood. It doesn't matter if you are a father, or not. Men of God show the utmost love and sacrifice through honoring their priesthood.

It is written, "The priesthood is the eternal power and authority of God. Through the priesthood God created and governs the heavens and the earth. Through this power He redeems and exalts His children, bringing to pass “the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). God gives priesthood authority to worthy male members of the Church so they can act in His name for the salvation of His children. Priesthood holders can be authorized to preach the gospel, administer the ordinances of salvation, and govern the kingdom of God on the earth."

In my life, I grew up in a home without a man who held the priesthood. To say the least, it was difficult. But now I have wonderful home teachers who are ready and willing to help anyone at any time. Someday I want a marriage to a man who is just as ready and willing to bless our family through his calling on this earth.

Stand up and be men!

Until We Meet Again

They say that deaths come in three's. I hope I am done for a while. In the last two months I will have attended three funerals. The famed British poet and painter, David Harkins, once penned:

You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

Two family members and a former athlete have passed the rhelms of this life into another sphere. One of them was sudden, one was expected, and the other the result of a terrible accident. They lived great lives and blessed those who were around them with their presence. 

It is interesting to ponder over our lives and ruminate over what we have made of our time on this earth. When you leave this life, what will people say about you? What will you have accomplished? 

I am not talking about grand and glorious things, but the small and simple things. Who were you as a friend? Who were you as a son, as a daughter? Who were you as a sister, or brother? What kind of worker were you? Did people know you believed in God? Did they know you loved the Gospel?

What will people remember YOU for? When you stand naked, in a sense, before your Heavenly Father with no one else around you, what will be the sum of your life?

Paul, writing to the Hebrews, said, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the ^asin which doth so easily ^bbeset us, and let us run with ^cpatience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the ^aauthor and ^bfinisher of our faith;"

Earlier Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the ^amastery is ^btemperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible ^ccrown; but we an ^dincorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I ^akeep under my ^bbody, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."

We are to run with patience the race that is before us and we are also to remember that there is a prize at the end. When the scripture says that "one" will receive the prize I think about our talents. I can't imagine that there is only "one" prize or that only a select few will make it to the presence of God, but he does state, "But with some I am not well pleased, for they will not open their ^amouths, but they hide the ^btalent which I have given unto them, because of the ^cfear of man. Wo unto such, for mine ^danger is ^ekindled against them. And it shall come to pass, if they are not more faithful unto me, it shall be ^ataken away, even that which they have."

If we don't find, develop, and share our talents here on earth, it will be taken away from us and the prize we could have had in the end will not be ours. I don't know about you, but when I am running a race I will not only finish it, but I will obtain something for it (even if it is just the satisfaction of knowing I finished).

This is a race that will require everything of us if we run it right. I want to say with President Kimball that I will crawl bloody to the end for the cause for which I set out to do. You never know what will happen to your life ... So live every day to its fullest so that even though the dash may be short on your tombstone, it will represent a life fully lived with love, service and Christ-like virtues.