Quote for October

A Prayer for the Ephesians Eph. 3:14-21

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!


Saturday, February 21, 2009

Taking My Body Back from Cancer

I'm looking back at the inches I have lost since I started going to Curves on July 7, 2004. I weighed 152 pounds then. I have a graph that shows a consistent decrease in inches from my beginning date until Nov. 2005. Then I struggled with going up and down for awhile. I remember my weight would keep going back to 138. My lowest weight and lowest number of inches on my body was the summer of 2007. So I have been thinner in the past than I am now.

I’ve been doing well at losing weight and exercising on the diet I began at the first of February 2009. In three weeks I’ve lost 5 ¾ pounds, taken two inches off my hips and 2 ¾ inches from my abdomen. I’ve lost an inch from my chest and an inch from each thigh. And I've lost a whole 1/2 an inch from my waist! Will wonders never cease? (sarcasm) To lose over 5 pounds in 3 weeks is unusual for me. Usually I lose 5 pounds in 5-6 weeks if I stay motivated. That’s IF I stay motivated.

I don’t feel deprived this time because I’m approaching this from a position of power. I’m claiming my body back from cancer. I was strong and fit before I developed the tumors, and I’m going to be strong and as fit as I can be with cancer. I realize I’m going to have to repeat this each time I have surgery or have an increase in tumors. However, right now I feel well enough to take on a challenge.

In the summer of 2007 I was finishing up three years of going to Curves. Five years earlier my weight had climbed to 166 and I didn’t want to see how heavy I had gotten, so I quit weighing myself. A few months later a group of women at church began a class to lose weight together. My goal was to lose 40 pounds, and in five years, I had done that; I weighed 127. My muscles were strong; I even had muscle definition in my arms and legs! In August 2007 I thought I just had to lose 3 more pounds of belly fat to be just right. I had worked out 300 times at Curves and had the T-shirt to prove it. So for the first time in my life I was slim and strong at the same time. And I didn't start excercising regularly until I was 51 years old.

By November 2007, I could hardly excercise at all. I would go to Curves, but be too tired to complete a circuit. In December I remember being in pain when I would work on the machines. In December I also began to have chest pains at times when I was excercising. This is when I acquired a cardiologist and a rheumatologist. My internist, Dr. B, was very thorough in trying to figure out where the problem was.

Now I have cancer. It began when I was at that strong place in 2007. My body was as good as it was going be. All I know now is the song about God that says,

"Let not the rich man boast in his riches. Let not the strong man boast in his strength... I will boast in the Lord most High; I will boast in the One who's worthy!"