Personal Best

We've been dealing with a lot of hard things--so I've been swimming some, but not posting at all. Today, I just have to take a moment to say that I'm grateful for being able to get into the pool today, and for hitting a new personal best--47 laps in this work out! That's a two more laps than a mile and a quarter--and I'm pinching myself. A mile and a half in our pool is 54 laps--and for the first time, I'm thinking that I might actually get strong enough to do that--some day if I keep on swimming.

So what does that have to do with this duck in the parking lot? Not much except he's not in his element--far from it. He was just walking around, looking confused and I snapped this photo of him looking bewildered.

Note to self: When you are walking in circles, and bewildered, perhaps you've made the mistake of leaving the place where you really belong...

Fresh fish, and good swimming!

Here you have a big fish in a big fix! A few weeks ago, my sweetie and I drove down to the water to our friend Mr. Morgan who regularly comes in with beautiful, fresh fish straight from his boat. We wanted a repeat performance of our beautiful fresh fish dinner from a few months back, and when the email came we were excited to take our walk on the pier and check out what the fresh catch was. This is a big, beautiful black cod whose moments were certainly numbered. Another family picked this big boy out of the tank, and our fisherman friend Ben hoisted him up as neatly as you please onto the scale. He gave him to his little boy to hold (he must have been about 5 or six) and he nearly staggered with the sheer weight of it. The fish was surprisingly docile. Perhaps he was resigned to his fate, who really knows how a fish thinks anyway? Mr. Fish was weighed, and then taken off to a table where we heard "thud! THUD!" After "the deed was done," the fish was packaged in ice, money was exchanged and the folks went off to the store where they would get their very fresh fish cleaned for a few bucks.

I was amazed. One moment swimming away in the water--the next...
I had never seen a fish with gills so beautifully bright and pink--they were a beautiful fuschia color and nothing short of remarkable. The color was something you expect from a flower and not from a fish at all. In some ways it was sad to see such a vibrantly alive creature dead in a moment, but after all, God created these things for us to enjoy. I just don't like to think about how they get to that state where we can enjoy them--at least not very much!

We bought two lovely Dover Sole to have cleaned and filleted for us and he generously threw in a sand dab (which looks like an itty bitty baby sole) for us to try. When we got home, I actually tried my hand (thank you, Julia Child) at making fish stock from the head and bones which we took with us from the folks who filleted our fish...I'm saving the stock in the freezer, hopefully to use as a base to make us a nice chowder when it gets colder.) The sand dab was delicious, but to be honest, my hubby would rather have fish that is perfectly filleted with no bones, so I enjoyed the buttery little sand dab mostly myself.

I'm thankful that this has been such a good month for swimming--12 times in the pool and three of those times I have swum a mile and a quarter! Now, I never thought I'd be doing that. OK, all you athletes out there--don't you be laughing now. I thought I was pretty hot stuff, till I found out that my friend Lynn does two miles regularly, without batting an eye. But she's a swim coach, and if she isn't able to be doing some serious miles, there's a problem there!

I'm determined to just keep swimming. Now, if I could only "just keep writing" I'd be doing a much better job of becoming the writer I want to be. I'm becoming a better swimmer because I'm practicing that, and I love it. There's hardly any resistance anymore when I decide to go for a swim. I just get my gear and go, and I'm pretty happy about it, because I love it so much. I hope that I can begin to tackle my writing with the same kind of passion and enthusiasm, and that I will be able to write for the glory of God. I guess that this last month has been all about dealing with my motivation. Why do I want to write anyway? Do I really have anything to say worth reading? What is going on in my heart? All these thoughts run round in my head, but I guess the important thing is to deal with my motivation to make sure it is right.

These last several years have all been about God pruning me.
I've discovered that His subtraction is better than the addition of any other.
There were heavy weights around me, and I couldn't swim at all!
I was having trouble breathing.

And now, because of my Messiah,
I'm learning to swim in the love of God.
I'm learning to trust.
I'm learning to rest.
I'm thankful.
End of story for today, but I plan to go swimming later...

Swimming again, but hardly posting...

I haven't posted much for quite a while--I've barely been on the computer, because of a lot of pressing things, but I have been swimming again. A few days ago, I actually swam 45 laps--that's a mile and a quarter! I surprised myself, to tell you the truth. I wish that I had the time to swim every day but that's not reality. Three times a week--if I plan it right, that is do-able.

The big question for me is how to achieve balance with all of this--how to make sure that I fit in exercising, with all the other things that God has given me responsibility over. I know that if I don't take care of my body, I will eventually be in a state where I cannot do what I would wish to do. Age, wrinkles and gravity eventually catch up with us all. Exercise helps to keep us moving. Before you hit the 50 mark, you tend to take it for granted that you can move, but afterwards, when the aches and pains begin to set in, you realize that your physics teacher was right! A body at rest does tend to stay at rest, and a body in motion...well, you get the drift, I'm sure.

For the wealthy and the famous, there's liposuction, personal trainers, plastic surgeons, and an army of makeup artists to stay off the inevitable as long as possible, or at least give the appearance of doing so. But if your ugly goes deep to the bone because you've concentrated on your outside appearance and not your heart, that's really a sad thing. There is a remedy for that, but it takes humility and courage to embrace Him. The remedy is in a person, God's gift to us, Y'shua, and His atoning sacrifice. Accept no substitutes, for nothing you would substitute will be acceptable in the sight of a Holy God. That's the bad news. The good news, if you embrace it, is downright glorious! God accepts ruined sinners if they put their trust in the Messiah that He sent.

So suppose you aren't wealthy and don't have an army of personal stylists at your disposal. For the rest of us, we just have to do the best we can with what we've got, and be thankful that we don't have the paparazzi up in our faces 24/7. That's God's grace to us, I am sure! If you know Y'shua, the glorious truth is that one day, you will have a new body, that will be glorious, and perfect, like His. How we are dressed won't matter--all of His people will be dressed in robes of His righteousness, and we will look amazing because we will be dressed in His splendor--but no one will notice anything or anyone but Him. HIS beauty will totally captivate us and bowl us over with delight, awe and wonder. He will be the centerpiece of our affections and sin will be thoroughly abolished in our hearts never to cloud His beauty again. Being in His presence then will give us more complete joy and satisfaction than anything we ever experienced here on earth.

If I wasn't convinced of this, I would say, "Yeah, go ahead, eat, drink, be merry, whatever--live your best life now, because in the immortal words of Peggy Lee, that is all that there is!" Anyone who tells you to focus on living your best life now, is selling you snake oil, people. Run for the hills. Jesus warned us to be careful how we build...

²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

That's from Matthew 7, by the way. All that is to say that what we do now will matter then, and matter greatly. Even why we exercise, eat healthy (or not!) matters. God is always after our hearts, looking to rescue our hearts in the midst of our mundane, daily life. That's why our Messiah came in the first place--He loved us from before the foundation of the world and before Adam sinned, He had planned to rescue a people for Himself! This is the whole message of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

Now, quite honestly, I know that this is a fairly random post. I'm not going swimming today--there are other things on the agenda that need to be done, but I do want this day to be a day where I'm continuing to build on the foundation that He has laid--by His grace, through faith in what He's plainly declared in the Scriptures. And I wanted to get back and post. He's great and glorious. Let's live for Him vigorously now. There may not be a tomorrow...so let's live it to the full while He's graciously given it to us!

Keep swimming in His love, everyone. And if you don't know what that means, I'm available for coffee or conversation.

Little Grass Shack!

So, what would you buy for this gorgeous little house on Maui, not to far from a marine preserve? This is one of those amazing places--and there was a for sale sign on it and everything when we were there. Oh, I have to tell you, that in my wildest dreams, I'd end up in a house like that. Which I suppose shows just how wild my dreams can get.

The truth of the matter is, all of us in the US are more wealthy, more comfortable than many other people in the world--and our current state of affairs, even though they be poor ones, show us to be wealthier than many on the planet.

I went to the vegetable market today and filled our fridge with good things. Many people don't have a fridge, and consider themselves blessed to have one meal a day. And we don't stop to say "Thank You" to the One who is "the giver of every good and perfect gift."

Sometimes, His gifts come in funny wrapping paper and it is hard to recognize them as gifts at all. The loss of a job. The loss of a relationship. The loss of a loved one, who fought valiantly against the ravages of cancer. Those crisis points--a sudden surgery, a sudden accident seem like rotten intruders. BUT--and this is big--when God brings something into our lives, it is for our ultimate good and His glory. If we love a job more than Him, we need a reality check, because He's the King of the Universe. If we love any human person more than Him, they have become for us an idol. But when we give Him first place in our lives, when He gets the surrender of our hearts, and our wills to His--wow. Because everyone has trouble--hey, we live in a sin filled world. But if you know the Messiah, He turns those troubles to gold in your life. He refines you in the process and makes you more able to see His goodness and His plan. And when you don't crumble like a cracker people under the stress, because you are abiding in Him, people wonder what you're doing that's so different. And then you can tell them that you have a faithful, loving, Great God most High who has lavished His love on you in Messiah and He makes no mistakes. I don't need this little grass shack. What He's preparing for me because He's poured His grace on my heart and opened my eyes to my sin and need for forgiveness is HUGE. Heaven is way better than Hawaii. One day, because of a righteousness that has been gifted to me, that I don't deserve, I will be there. And the flowers will be more fragrant than any I've ever smelled here. There won't be a sun, the Lord will be the Light. No tears, no crying, no sorrow, no illness, no pain. In the meantime, I want to help as many people as I can go there too! There's an invitation with your name on it...now is the time to RSVP.....
Click on the link below to discover your invitation to joy in Him:

http://viewthestory.com/1475

Some days are a bit of a challenge

I love this photo of a hibiscus blossom that we found on one of our walks on Maui. It was here today, and two days later it was withered and gone. The grass withers, and so does the flowers, but the Word of our God will stand forever, last forever. Today was an unexpected kind of a day for me. My plans had fallen through--and what happened instead was something not quite so high stress, high demand on me. I guess I needed a quieter day than I had originally planned.

It is hard to be "home alone" much harder than I thought it would be. I swam on Monday, and again today. Monday, I did two "victory laps" for my husband who was winging his way on the way to Israel. I was praying as I counted strokes, repeating just how many laps I had done (because I forget so easily as I'm swimming). So instead of my usual 36, I did 38. Today, I bumped it up to 40. Another five laps, and I'll be doing a mile and a quarter. It has been a long time since I tried to add laps, and it's about time. I'm hovering very, very close to a "new number" that I want to be in, and in order for it to happen, I have to move more.

Speaking of moving, last night, I was sitting in my chair with my feet up, reading my Bible and I felt movement. I wasn't sure what it was. Was it an earthquake? You've got to understand that I'm from New England, generally a very sensible place where the earth doesn't move so much. Not so California, where all of this lovely mountainous beauty comes with a price--mountains, volcanoes, tectonic plates deciding to move...it happened more than once. But I stayed blissfully ignorant, merely because I have decided pretty much to keep the TV off while Steve my beloved is away on this adventure. We had peace about me not coming along--and no peace about me going, so the best thing to do under those circumstances is to obey what you believe is God informing you of what you should be doing.

Now, I may change my mind about TV viewing as we get to the end of this trip because it is the longest time we've had away since we decided that whenever possible, I would go with him. Sometimes it is nice to know what's going on in the world--but mostly it has been bad news left and right. So while he's gone, I want to especially concentrate on the Good News that Y'shua loves me and is changing me--even though sometimes change seems slow and hard as adding a lap or two to your swim.

Today I swam...and did some errands. One dear lady at the pool was singing in the shower--"I did my swim, now I'm going to do a little lunch, and then to top it all off, I'm going to take a little nap!"

That little song kept playing in my head while I did my errands. When I got home I took her advice...had a little lunch and took a little nap.
That turned out to be very good advice!

A Bit of Honey for the heart....

I haven't posted anything for a while--not because I haven't been swimming, but because life has been so busy. I didn't quite hit my swimming goal for 2010, but that's ok...this is a new year, with new possibilities as well as new challenges. So far this year, I've done a mile in the pool five times--and considering how busy things have been, I'm ok with that. I remember when I could only go 10 laps before I felt "done in." I remember when the idea of lap swimming seemed ridiculous to me. So I'm grateful for where I am at with this, because I know it is because of God's graciousness that I'm able to do these laps at all...

We all need a bit of honey for the heart. And thinking about victories won, progress made, even though it is very small and incremental is good---thinking about the goodness of God and His faithfulness is a real help. Right now, we are dealing with a number of situations that are hard and heartbreaking, but the Lord's Word continues to be sweet, and is providing honey for our hearts in a time that could make our spirits sour if we allowed it. But by the grace of God, we are continuing to swim through these waters together with peace from Him, which is not of our doing, but our Messiah's.