Getting Things Done, and other importantnesses

So, in the interest of bragging, I'd like to direct your attention here, so that you might ooh-aah over How Much I Have Gotten Done since the recent posting of my to-do list.

Yes, I am tooting my own horn, and I am liking it, thank you very much.

*toot*

*toot*

*grin*

I am a geek.

On a more serious note, there is something on that to-do list that I would like to report is now going better. Two somethings, actually. The first is that I have gone running twice a week for the last three weeks. It hasn't been easy--actually, it has been mostly frustrating and demoralizing as I see how much stamina I lost by not running for two months. Six running sessions, and I still can't go as far or as fast as what I was doing when I quit in November.

That's the first time I've called it what it was: quitting. I quit for two months. I hadn't been able to admit that to myself until now.

I soooooooooooooo badly want to get back to what I was doing before I quit. I had been so encouraged by the progress I'd made; it's not easy for a former heart patient to build up the kind of stamina that comes naturally to most people. And by quitting, I sabotaged myself. I tend to do that with a lot of things--too many to go into right now. But I often wonder if I subconsciously believe that I don't deserve for good to come my way, and so I sabotage myself so as to avoid the good I believe I don't deserve?

Possibly. But that is another story and shall be told another time. ;o)

Anyway, the point is that I WANT to work hard and build back up my to pre-November stamina...and then I want to go further. I am competing against no one but myself, which might make my challenge more difficult.

On the other hand, I ***looooooooooooove*** challenge. Bring it on!

The second "to-do" is that I've been listening to God a lot more lately. Things finally came to a head several weekends ago, when I found myself in so much pain--mental and emotional--that I simply had to drop everything and go to God. I'm sorry I let myself go so far that hitting rock-bottom like that was necessary. But hit the bottom I did, and from there, I had nowhere to go but up.

I don't want to go into details, because really, they're not important. What matters is that for about seventeen hours, I couldn't see or talk to anyone (except Ed, since (a) he lives with me and (b) he got to experience the full force of my emotional-fallen-apart-ness). I talked to God a lot, but I couldn't bring myself to go out and see anyone else. It feels a little weird to say, but my need to spend time with God was so great, I couldn't bring myself to attend a Sunday morning worship service. I was so desperate for God, I wanted no other humans with me, not even other Christians. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but that's how it was.

By Sunday evening, I had regained enough peace to worship with the house church and immerse myself gladly in that fellowship. Since then, I feel as though I've started being a little more aware of God's presence in my life. My relationship with God still isn't anywhere near where it should be--but I think there is healing going on, like a medicine deep inside, working where nobody but God can see. This isn't the first time in my life that I've experienced this healing; one would think I would have remembered that there's a reason he is called the Great Physician.

Hey, remember the song we used to sing when we were kids?

"He's still workin' on me
to make me what I ought to be...
How loving and patient he must be..."

Why do we ever stop singing that song? It's a lot more relevant for adults than it is for children.