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.