A gift from God

I am reminded today that we are sacred - our bodies are a gift from God. Sure we've heard this before over and over again. Our body is our temple.. treat it well.. yadda yadda yadda. But have you really internalized that for yourself? It goes deeper than just saying we are special... our bodies are an extremely intricate gift from God.

This thought has become deeply rooted in my heart. Since Jan. 1, 2011 I started eating much better.. And no this was not a New Year's resolution (I HATE those).. it was the date that the holidays were over! haha I enjoyed my food during the holidays. :) Anyways, I started researching lots of healthy, filling and tasty meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have never been much of a breakfast person but now I cannot wake up without it. It fuels my day. Making healthy choices at the beginning of the day motivates me to continue eating healthy... Before I would wait til lunch time to eat.. by that time I was STARVING and more likely to crave things that weren't healthy. I started to change my habits. In the beginning I would eat healthy no matter what.. I would not only count my calories but be paying attention to my nutritional intake making sure my meals were balanced well. This means going out to yummy restaurants and eating soup and salads without dressing, no appetizers and no dessert. If you know me well, I would much rather order other things when I go out. But I did it. Every day for a month. I ended up losing 8 pounds. At the one month mark my body was used to eating healthy as well as eating small yummy snacks every two or three hours. (this is key!) I've found AMAZING meals that have been so filling that I don't see how I can ever go back to my "not-so-good" eating habits. I'm at the point now where I have lost 10 pounds. I eat really healthy on the weekdays. Then on the weekends I indulge.. Pizza, Beer, good meals at restaurants... gotta keep on enjoying those things. :) The funny thing is that I cannot eat nearly as much as I had before because of my new healthy eating habits. And I feel better than ever! Oh I forgot to mention that I have also been working out a lot during the week..! :)
***Note: myfitnesspal.com (there's a FREE iPhone app for it too) is the secret component to my continued weight loss and healthy eating habits**

Anyway, today I continued the intermediate training schedule for the 8K and I had to run 5.5 miles. I mapped out my run on RunKeeper.. it ended up being 5.78 miles and went for it! The training schedule gave me permission to walk at the half way mark. Today's run was about endurance and not time.. but my prideful determination secretly paid close attention to the time. I realized half way through that I would do better if I listened to my body instead of trying to compete with myself for time. Once I did this I noticed that I was able to run at a slightly faster pace not stopping as much. Throughout the run I couldn't help but to keep God at the forefront of my mind. People popped up in my head and I prayed for them. The cool air reminded me how precious God is for creating our environment. However, it is very different running on country roads. At one point I was paying more attention to the ground and the cars coming down the road than my surroundings.. I turned my head to and my heart skipped a beat! Three HUGE cows were literally staring at me! Didn't expect that.. haha I prefer cows to the scary small dog I encountered last week (I purposely avoided the street the dog lives on).

As my iPhone was on shuffle, random songs would pop up. One song was the song Tim and I danced to at our wedding. God reminded me how sacred our bodies are.. how important it is to take our bodies seriously... by that I mean internalize the fact that our bodies are a precious gift from God.. we need to take care of our bodies. Taking care of our bodies spiritually is only one part of the equation. Taking care of our bodies physically - internally is extremely important. All the important things are that make our body function are INSIDE of us - especially our heart. God cares about our heart.. our spiritual condition and physical condition. When we eat fatty unhealthy foods, our heart is being affected.. if we don't eat enough food, when we eat the right amount of food, when we exercise our heart is being affected. Our relationship with God is a heart relationship. All of our thoughts, actions and words are reflections of our heart. It begins with the heart. Somehow I am beginning to think that taking care of our body and our heart is closely linked to our spiritually well being. If we understand our bodies better, if we understand what makes our heart beat fast physically (i.e. running, walking, etc), what makes our heart slow down... if we can learn to understand God on an even deeper level. If our hearts are in better conditions physically.. perhaps our hearts will also become in a better condition spiritually.. to a certain extent of course.. this is not neglecting continual growth in having a personal relationship with Jesus.

I think there's a lot of truth to this... maybe not for everyone.. but for me personally.. I know when God is speaking to me because my heart will start to beat really fast. Usually this happens when God has spoken to me and wants me to share it with someone else. I know the time is right to share it with the specific person when my heart feels like it's going to beat out of my chest. I am forced to be obedient to God in the moment because of my heart's condition. I am attentive and aware of the physical state of my heart. At the same time... my heart's physical manifestation is also a spiritual signal for me. If I understand what my heart feels like while doing other things like physical activities perhaps I will be able to discern God speaking to me on a deeper level because I know the difference even better. And while doing physical activities, my heart is getting a work out.. keeping it healthy and taking care of my body.

There's also TONS of scripture about our human bodies... being the arms and legs of the church, Jesus is the head... etc... If we are not taking care of our bodies, how can we understand these verses deeply? If we are not aware of our body... how do we know what it feels like to use our arms and our legs? This can start to become a little touchy because I am fully aware that some of us have physical limitations. Some of us do not have arms and do not have legs. However, we can all understand these concepts because we have a foundation for knowing what arms and legs are... if we cannot use them, we see others using them.. there's still a basis for understanding. And with taking care of our bodies.. sure it means eating well and keeping our heart healthy. This can be done in many different ways... The main idea is to take care of our bodies physically and spiritually.. whatever this means to each person.. it will have a different meaning. I hope this makes sense.. haha

Our body is also a gift to our spouse. Honoring God with our bodies, keeping it healthy physically and spiritually is also honoring our spouse. Everything is linked. It's amazing how every single thing points us to Jesus... So a challenge to all: Keep your body healthy physically (especially your heart) and pay attention to see how and if there's any spiritual growth because of it.. Try it for one month..

P.S. If anyone has great songs for working out please let me know! :) My songs are more mellow... I'm thinking an upbeat song will help me more.. lol :)