Not Allowing Life to Side Track One's Goals.

Today is officially the eighth day of my 30 day challenge. For those just joining me, I recently made the commitment to change a couple of things in my life. First and foremost, I committed to spending more time contemplating God and the relationship I have with Him. Second, I committed to working out. 

Thus far, picking up the Bible itself, or my latest read on prayers, has seemed to be next to impossible. It is adamant that I figure out how to be more consistent in this area of my life. It is times like these that I miss taking Bible classes. 

My second goal is to get back into shape. This part of the challenge I have done well with. It is easy to fit in a set of squats here and there as well as to work in some ab exercises or various stretches. Yesterday, I not only skipped adding in any Taebo, I skipped both my video journal and my blog post.

It was one of those crazy days where time seemed to get away from me. With a cub scout outing planned that evening, I had prepped dinner ahead of time. The outing was a 20 minute drive away so I knew we'd be getting back at bedtime to boot. As we headed out the door, I found myself being asked to take along a couple of extra children. What's two more when you already have 7 in tow? 

Things were moving right along until my car stopped running right in the middle of a one way road. I managed to pull over so that traffic could get around me. Just as I jumped out to lift the hood and see if there was a quick fix, a sherriff pulled up along side me. The last thing in the world I needed was to be towed. I knew the issue was with my battery. Where it sits is falling through and I had recently used a bungee cord to try to lock it into place. Unfortunately the street I turned on had rail road tracks going across it and in the process of bouncing over them, the battery had shifted enough to hit other metal and ground out. I was afraid I might have fried it and LORD knows I don't have a dime to my name right now so there would have been no buying a new battery. I prayed that it crank over but when I turned the key, nothing. Thankfully instead of calling a tow truck, the sherriff actually offered to help push us over to a side area so that I could work on the car. The kids were amazed at his act of kindness and even more amazed as several other people jumped out of their cars to help. Another kind man offered to give me a jump to see if that would help and sure enough the van fired right up and we were back on our way. There is nothing like being stranded with 9 children in tow!

We ended up being a mere five minutes late to the event and the kids had a fantastic time. Our den is responsible for the trunk or treat games this year so the gist of last nights meeting was to scout out the 4-H's event and see what games we might like to host for our event. The 4H people really put on a great event fully loaded with a haunted house and hay rides. By the time we left, I was beat. 

When we got home, we finished the few things that had to be done before going to bed and I shut the house down, fully intending on getting back up to record my video journal as well as to write. Those two things never happened as the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off and it was time to wake up the children. 

Today I have been more successful. I managed to get in a 30 minute workout this morning and when I put the babies down for a nap, I read a little bit out of my book on prayers. I even managed to check on my insurance plan and verify that they had received the documents that they had requested for renewal. I even managed to get both my athletes scheduled to take their physicals at the doctors office. Currently it is 7 PM, the chores are done, the children are out playing. Three of them need to get in a shower before bedtime, but all in all, today has been a success.

With that being said, I still have trouble looking in the mirror (smirking). If you've ever been overweight and have begun working out, I am certain you know what I am feeling. After a week of flexing all of my muscles, I can feel them again. Some feel better than others (ha ha). So when you feel like you are shrinking but the mirror stares back at you as if nothing has changed, it is tough. I know from experience that it takes about 30 days for your appearance to begin to catch up with your effort. This is why it is so important to stick with working out for a full thirty days. Anything less, is almost a waste of time and energy.

I am thankful to have friends that are in the process of working out and losing weight for their posts encourage me. Which brings me to todays encouraging word:

Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. ~ Ephesians 4:29 (NLT)

Wouldn't it be great if we all listened to that advise? Today I encourage you to reflect upon the way you interact with others and for the rest of the week attempt to let nothing negative come out of your mouth. Until tomorrow ~ be blessed and be a blessing!

Wendy, mom of many, girl who walks with God.

(c) Wendy Glidden 2018

Today I did take off from attempting to do the Taebo Cardio workout. It has been so long since I've been active, I know I need to take baby steps. In the end, I would like to do this video in its entirety twice a day. Thus far I'm up to 30 minutes. Yesterday I pushed it and did the routine twice. Once in the morning and the next time before bed. Sleep is definitely another thing I need to work. I fell asleep again and it about to happen again.

Drife