what a day

Wow...what a day this has been. Good in so many ways, but I'm whooped now! I really am needing some sleep. I was up til about 3 am yesterday trying to make sure I was ready for my children's message, sermon, and confirmation class this morning at church. It all seemed to come together well, which I am so grateful for. I had really prayed for the Lord's insight into the passage (Acts 12) I was preaching about, and as I was preparing yesterday, there were lots of things that just came to mind that I hadn't thought of before. One of those things where you KNOW it's the Lord and not you....I love stuff like that! Anyhow, I received a lot of wonderful encouragement and positive feedback, which really is more than a blessing than I can say. I enjoy so much getting to help with the preaching....and it makes it that much more fun to feel like what you've said actually resonates with a few people. Thank You Lord, for the opportunity and for giving me what I hope were Your words and not my own.

After the 2 services and teaching confirmation, I came home and took the boys to the grocery store with me because we were out of some stuff, and then we came home, ate some lunch and we ALL had naps. I slept for a solid 2 hours this afternoon, and it was dang hard to get my big butt up off the couch when it was time to go to meet up with my youth group tonight! We went bowling tonight, which was fun--and of course, now I smell like the bowling alley--aka, a big ashtray! So, I really need to get these clothes in to wash and wash my hair and all that sort of stuff so I'm not so smelly! I also managed to go to praise team practice and caught the tail end of it, and that was fun too.

When I came home, Craig had the video from service today that he wanted us to look at before we took it to the TV place for broadcast. He has to make sure all the sound is working right and stuff like that--and I saw myself preach. Now, the hearing isn't so bad. I've gotten to be mostly okay with that. But....the visual is just....AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!! Okay, so I've lost a few pounds...but I am still probably the fattest person I've ever seen in my life. I can't tell I've lost a thing. I am enormous...which really stinks! That's the kind of thing that makes you never want to eat again. It's pretty darn depressing. I'm thinking the only thing worse than seeing how disgusting you look on a video like that is knowing that that video will be on TV in a week or so, seen all over town. Yeech!
There are a couple of posiives I can pull out though.....
---I am more determined now to NOT look this way for long!
---Hoping nobody could see me...but that maybe, just maybe it can be the Christ in me that shows, rather than me.
I must hang on to those things, or I'd just go crawl under a rock somewhere, for fear that someone might have to look at me.

Anyhow, tomorrow is back at em....I'll have to work out as soon as the kids wake up from their naps, hopefully around 5ish somewhere. I go into the office in the morning and we've got youth team meeting tomrrow night at 7, so I'll need to take that opportunity after naptime while its there. I also need to get the eating cleaned back up. I haven't been really bad, but we did go eat Mexican food yesterday since I had a lot to get ready for and really didn't want to cook. Tonight there were no good choices to eat while out bowling, so I didn't eat until I got home. I had some soup, which wasn't so bad....but at 11 pm, nothing is really going to be too good.

Anyhow....I am ready and determined and want to be whole hog (pardon the pun...get it, hog...me!) on this weightlosing thing. It'll be the beginning of week 3 of a M-F workout schedule, so we are close to having formed a habit, which is really cool. With His help, I'll get there!!!! Right now, I'm ready for this head to hit the pillow...as soon as I get the bowling alley smell out of my hair, that is!!