WIW!

Weigh in Wednesday here we are again!

This week I've shed another pound. Which puts me at 181! Which also puts me at 80% of where my doctors expect me to be... overall. But I'm only 6 months out! Wahbam! I'm incredibly proud of myself for making it this far so quickly. It's taken a lottt of perserverence and determination, but I've done it and I'm at a really good place with myself right now.

I'm finally finding peace with who I am in with who I want to be. I've figured myself out and in the process, if you've read my letter to myself, you know I'm trying to find my faith again. I always knew something would lead me back to God, but I didn't know how, when or why. I've tried many a time to go back to church or to find a new church, but I still haven't gotten to that point. I'm not sure when I will, but right now, I'm just praying a lot and hoping that He leads me to a good new church home eventually. I'm in no rush, I'm just reading a lot and getting inspired by the words of some amazing Christian authors.

So far I've delved into one by Max Lucado, "God Came Near" which personifies God in a more tangible way. Less as a "gray matter" and more as a "best friend whose face you can see and whose shoulder you can lean on." That's what I've been missing. It's taken me a while to realize what was missing and I feel silly for even admitting that it took me this long to come to terms with what I already knew in my heart. There was a hole that has been there for several years, and I'm ready to fill that void with His unconditional, requited love. I have every knowledge and faith that He will help me to become whole one day at a time.

I'm also trying to figure out what my calling is in this life. I've always said I want to "work with people, helping people." And although I do love love love that I am able to help people at my job, I feel that I'm meant to be more interactive. More faces, less papers. I see myself staying here for a while, but not forever. I think my heart has always been and always will be in Education and that is something I am going to start doing research on, and praying about. I don't know where it will lead me, but something tells me that I'd be much happier and fulfilled as an Elementary teacher. I feel I missed my calling, and I think that's because I doubted myself and my capabilities in college. I regret that now, but I forgive myself for that, and I know that with this confidence I can do much more than I ever thought possible.

I've always been more capable than I give myself credit for and that is something that I'm working out. I honestly never thought that I could lose weight. I just saw myself gaining 10 pounds a year for my whole life. How sad is that?? I had given up. I had lost faith in myself, in my strength, in God and in.. well.. everything! Without those things, who was I? Just a 25 year old girl, tryin to get by. Granted, I've done a LOT of things in my life. I've traveled the world, I've graduated from an excellent University, I've bought my own condo, I've loved, I've had my heart broken, I've broken hearts, and I've made differences in many lives. But all of those things mean nothing when you're not fully fulfilled. As Beth Moore (another amazing author whose book I'm currently reading) would say, I've been living in a "pit."

I've noticed how my weight loss has effected so many people. In a previous blog I wondered how long it would take for people to notice.... well, the magic number, I'll have you know, is 50 pounds. Not that they weren't noticing before, but dude, they really know somethings up now! Most people ask, what gives?? And they are intensely intrigued when I explain that I had Lap-Band surgery. It gives me no greater joy than to answer their numerous questions or to guide them in the direction of Dr. Fernandez, e-mailing them website information, insurance information, anything I can get my hands on that they may need. I've done this for a handfull of people and each time it makes me feel so hopeful for them and it brings me such happiness to have been able to help. Whether they pursue the surgery or not, they know that there's hope for them and that they're not alone. They can always come back to me for support and advice and just a shoulder to cry on if nothing else.

If I can make this kind of impact on people with my physical changes, I can only imagine what this spiritual journey will bring. I look forward to the day when I am so contently happy that they ask me what gives? I'll tell them I found my purpose in life and I found my place in this universe. I'll tell them it all started when I reaffirmed my faith in God. I won't force it on them, just as I would never recommend to someone that they should have Lap-Band surgery.. it's just not my place to say that!

What I will do is give them all the resources I can get my hands on. The books I've read, the words that have opened my heart again to a life that I abandoned many moons ago. If they ask what promted it, I'll tell them I got to a point where I realized I needed help. I couldn't go on like this. That I cried by myself before I realized that the one person who I could turn to besides my parents or my sister, who would never turn their back on me, was God. That I cried on His shoulder that night in September as I read a simple book and He embraced me like a best friend, like a parent, like a sibling. I'll tell them it was eerily similar to the night I broke down to my Mom and relinquished my rights to a life full of dieting.

With that said, I'm not saying I'm going to change. Sure, mentally and spiritually I will. But that's just within me. These things have nothing to do with my personality and just like my uplifted confidence, I'm certain these changes in my soul will continually bring a genuine smile to my face and help me to maintain the happy go lucky attitude that I try to maintain... although sometimes I find myself in the "pit." I hope to find that I will eventually be able to come off of my anxiety medicine - which, mind you, would be the very last prescription I am currently taking! I hope that I can let go of things enough not to stress out about them. I hope that I can trust that I can hand them over and have faith that everything will work out just the way it should.

My sister reminded me last night that one of her favorite quotes is: "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." ~ Max Ehrmann's "Desiderata"
And, being the little sister copycat that I am, I, of course, lovee this quote as well! My Mom shared "Desiderata" with us, and has for years. It was a poster in her college dorm room which is absolutely fitting! If you haven't read it I encourage you to do so: http://www.lordtonymackenzie.com/desiderata.html

If there's anything this weight loss journey has taught me it's that sometimes things are beyond our control. Sometimes we have to let the Doctors do their jobs, we have to let our friends give us advice, we have to turn to our parents when we're scared, we have to surround ourselves with laughing babies who give us "monkey hugs," we have to remember that we have an amazing God. Whether or not we're willing to take that into consideration is, however, in our control. I hate cliches but the one thing that has been running on a continuous loop in my brain, with good reason, is one that speaks volumes to me and has really opened my eyes:

"Let go and let God."

Okay so now that I feel like I just gave my entire testimonial, I hope that y'all don't think I've gone off the deep end ;) Quite a change of pace for me huh? But honestly, this is the point of my blog. This is my diary that I've opened up to the entire world. Which is clear to me as everyday I'm astonished to see the different countries from which people have read this blog! Ecuador is the only random country that makes any sense, b/c my best friend was there on a trip a couple of months ago. But the cool thing is that now you can see "stats" including how many times your blog has been read, what country they were in, and what the source was that brought them to your blog. Nothing as big brother as knowing exactly who was reading it, but veryy cool to think that someone in Denmark of all places has come upon my posts just today! I think that's just awesome!!!

Speaking of different countries, part of what has helped me to get to this peaceful place was a simple chat that left a lasting impact on my heart. I was chatting with my sweet cousin Frances who is my age but lives in Bermuda, therefore we haven't seen in other in yearsss since I've been there and haven't been able to grow up together as much as we would've liked! Although we've tried to meet up while she's been in the states, something always got in my way. Well, thanks to this blog, she's been keeping up with all of my progress, all of my ups and downs, and has cheered me along the way. To me, my cousin was always some figment (a mere product of mental invention; a fantastic notion) not of my imagiation, because I knew full and well she was real :) But as some character living in a fairytale land on a tropical island where everything is grand and everything is magnificent.

Thanks to Facebook, we were able to have a wonderful "heart to heart" as I love to call them. Come to find out, our lives are very similar. Although physically we are polar opposites, she being tall, skinny, exotic and gorgeous, me being short, plump, ordinary and gorgeous ;) we are so similar in our mindsets and how we deal with things. We've both been hurt more than we'd like to remember by guys we'd like to forget. We've both experienced the loss of loved ones and we've both turned to God in our darkest days. I didn't feel the least bit like I should hold anything back from her, as if we'd been best friends for years. That one chat will be one of many to come, I'm sure of it!

I am so incredibly blessed to have family around the world and even more blessed to have so many people not only in my everyday life but who I may not even know from Adam who are rooting for me and cheering me on. It's an incredible feeling to know that people care so much, and if I could thank each one of you personally, I would, and I hope that I do as often as possible. It would sound like more of an award speech and I've still got a ways to go before I hit the finish line... but I may have a trophy made for myself when I do reach my goal. Justtt jokingggg!

I've been super busy today doing 3 different jobs.. ask and you shall receive :) But having written most of this on my lunch break, and coming back to it periodically, I'm not sure how well this flows... oh well! :) I must apologize for the long-winded entries the past couple of days... I've just got a lot on my mind!

NMW,
<3