Working on my Writing, Weight Loss, and Witness. Part Seven.

Writing

This was the hardest chapter for me to start writing. When I was working on the outline for this book, I couldn’t even finish the portion for this chapter without calling a few friends to talk through the pain I felt. This chapter covers my senior year of college, and it describes one of the most difficult times in my life. I was scared to start writing it because I didn’t want to experience those emotions again. At the beginning of my senior year, the two biggest things I had worked for with my faith went completely off the rails. When that happened, I became so angry at God for allowing it to happen that I went into a three-year tailspin in every aspect of my life.

Surprisingly, once I actually started writing, this was the easiest chapter to write by far. The words just poured out of me, and I didn’t have to struggle to think about what I wanted to say. I guess because this part of my life is so fresh on my mind, I knew exactly how I wanted to express it. It felt really good to write it out and process those emotions. My best friend said this would be like free therapy writing all this out, and she was definitely correct!

I was also glad to get this chapter done because it filled in a lot of the gaps for my family and closest friends to understand what really happened that caused me to fall so far. When everything went down the way it did, I internalized all of it and tried to deal with it alone. By doing so, I kept the truth about what I was really going through away from all the people who cared about me. I put on a big smile and lied about being okay, so everyone was very confused by my actions later since they didn’t understand the context. One of the best things about writing this out as a memoir-style first, is that I can tell my full story to the people I love the most, so they will finally know the truth.

Reading over these chapters has really helped me to see major themes and ideas about my experiences that I can put into the version of the book I want to publish. I’m still going to keep the concept of understanding Chronicles and the different steps in the Christian journey, but I’m going to express it in a way that’s clearly directed to people who are struggling in their faith. I’m going to use the major themes of my story for topics, and I’m going to use much smaller versions of my life experiences to elaborate on those points.

Weight Loss

I am the king of the snow-ball effect for bad things in my life. I allow something like not being able to get to sleep fast enough the night before to lead to me being too tired to workout the next morning. Not working out that morning then leads to me deciding since the day is already wasted, I might as well eat terrible that afternoon, and so on. This week I allowed the fear of writing this chapter to cause me to put a lot of other things on pause as well, like working out. I still did a decent job of eating healthy this week, but it wasn’t perfect. I ended up staying the same weight at least, instead of gaining weight, but it still feels like a huge missed opportunity.

I’ve decided that I’m going to set the goal of losing the last eight pounds to get to fifty total for one month from now. In exactly four weeks, so two blog posts from now, I will hopefully be able to post a progress picture here of the halfway point in my goal. Having to give a bi-weekly update about this weight loss journey has really helped me to stay motivated. In the past, I could easily fall off the wagon for months at a time, so being able to limit my neglectfulness of this goal to two weeks at most is a great benefit!

My calf has felt a lot better, but I’m still going to wait to try running on it until I can have one to two-day recovery time frames from my leg lifting workouts. The last time I felt my calf really hurting was when I had been running fine on it for two weeks, but then I tried running on it two days after a leg workout, and I think the massive soreness I had played a big part in causing the reinjury. I’ve been back to sixty minutes cycling for my cardio during the week, and it’s felt good. I’m also excited that the gym has extended back to their normal hours, so even on my work weeks for my part-time job I will be able to workout for the full sixty minutes each day.

Witness

“When the enemy cannot destroy you, his job is to DISTRACT you.”

- Dr. Wayne Dyer

What’s holding you back? What’s the thing that’s keeping you from accomplishing your goals? Is it not enough time? Not enough money? Or, is the real thing that’s holding you back simply your fear? I put off writing the chapter this week because I was so afraid to have to relive those experiences, yet when I wrote the chapter, I felt such a sense of relief and peace. It was very cathartic to process and deal with those emotions for the first time on such a deep level, and I think it was necessary for my growth as well.

So many times in our lives we feel God calling us to do something for Him, and we just keep making excuses for why we can’t help Him out. Often, we just ignore Him, and we try our best to distract ourselves with other things, so we don’t have to think about what He’s asking us to do. It’s human nature to want to take the easy way out. It’s also human nature to justify our actions or inaction on things. We love to tell the lie that we’re trying our best, when in reality, we haven’t tried at all. The worst part is the person we tell this lie to the most is ourselves. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably guilty of this more than anyone. Just look over my “Workout” sections of this series of blog posts, and you can quickly see how many excuses I make to not accomplish my weight loss goals and how often I defend those reasons.

The crazy thing about obedience to God is that it always leads to a sense of fulfillment more than anything else ever could. Every time we put aside our fears or distractions and simply follow through with what God wants us to do, we end up feeling so satisfied and happy with ourselves because we know that we pursued God’s will. God provided a conscious that makes us feel bad about our sins, but it also makes us feel great about our obedience. Serving God is the only thing that gives you lasting joy and a true sense of self-worth. The challenge I put to you and myself this week is to spend time in prayer asking God to tell you what He wants you to work on. Ask Him for clarity on what work you need to be doing for His kingdom at this time of your life, and I know He’ll give you that direction. Then, I want you to try your best to put aside your fear and excuses and to begin pursuing His plan for your life. I’ll be putting the work in right along with you, and together, we will accomplish our goals!

I will be writing a new post every two weeks on Wednesdays, so please keep a lookout for the next one. I really appreciate any comments, questions, or concerns you may have, and look forward to responding to any messages when I have time. I hope this blesses you and encourages you, and thank you for reading!

Sincerely,

Matt Casperite

Photo credit: http://www.yogaspace.com.au/whats-holding-you-back/