The Beauty of the Mountain

Good morning fam, Are you planning to come for LG Sunday evening? If so, can you let me know so that I know how much food to provide? We start at 6:00 and will be wrapping up around 8. Come and bring a friend! Let's consider today the beginning of any new health plan. Those first few weeks where we follow everything precisely and the scale is being "our best friend" can be euphoric. Yes? Sometimes we feel we have finally arrived and found something that "works for us." I have been here and said that more times than I can accurately count in my life-long battle against the bulge. That feeling is absolutely a mountain top experience and is really necessary those first several weeks when drastic boundaries are established. But LIFE happens. The boundaries get tested and the mountain soon becomes a valley with day-to-day challenges and obstacles. It happens to us all! I love reading Oswald Chambers because he's real. The valley walk, where we are tested in our health goals isn't just to teach us to say "no." Two year olds can say "no" without considering the consequences. I really believe in the valley the opportunities for teaching can be used greatly to shape our character. I have always been a closer - some start projects and never complete them. I work diligently to close what I start. But with my health, I could never remain steadfast to the plan because the plan was never adopted as my life. It was always a diet. However, as I allowed my character to develop and understanding to grow beyond being "tested" in the diet, I came to embrace the truth that stopping and starting with health goals was not teaching me anything except I was a failure. My character needed to be shaped so that I would quit looking for the easy way out, the quick fix solution, the "no work for Kathy" answer. My will and resolve needed to meld into a shaped commitment that shouted, "no matter the obstacles or the height of the journey, this is MY journey and will remain. I refuse to stop and start - embrace and abandon." This shift has kept me to my course for almost three years now. Where are you today? Mountain top of something new and exciting or living life in the valley and determined to remain steadfast? We can do this! PK "We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, “What’s the use of this experience?” We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God’s purpose. Our life lessons are learned in the valley. Jesus brought the disciples OFF the mountain to live their life. The valley is our day to day - the mountain for visitation." Oswald Chambers