swimming

i have always enjoyed swimming. i'm no champion, and i'd never win a race, but i love it. which is good, because it's about to change my life.

being chubby is a vicious cycle. the less you exercise the more weight you gain. the more weight you gain the more humiliating it is to haul your fifth wheel onto the treadmill or stairmaster and exercise, so you don't exercise. then you gain more weight. you see where this is going.

as almost anyone reading this knows, i've been "curvy" most of my life. i'm so curvy that my curves have curves. which brings us back to the being humiliated when i work out thing. i have made some pretty significant lifestyle changes (like selling my car and walking everywhere i go) to force myself into a more active and healthy lifestyle. i have been eating better overall, though i still have my moments, but since i've made all those changes i haven't seen any change in my physique. and it's been six months now. so i decided to join a health club.

ever noticed that when you do a difficult thing that is the right thing, that God meets you in the middle? He does. as my friend rachael says, "the hard thing is usually the right thing, but if you do the hard thing God will bless it". words to live by. really.

so i made the sacrifice, and though i'm saving up for my trip in september i joined the gym that's a block from my apartment. i tried to get the membership sales guy to cut me a deal since i can say with confidence that i will probably never use any of the machines. but he said he couldn't do a pool-only membership, but he'd cut the joining fee to the same fee the one-year membership people pay, since i said i would've done a year but i'm moving to scotland in december. that saved me around $60.

i'm really dragging this story out, aren't i?

anyhoo, i went in on monday night for my first swim. talk about spectacular! i forgot how very much i love swimming. just being in the water was making me grin. i thought about my developmentally disabled cousin that would shriek and flail with ecstatic glee when we put him in the pool. i didn't quite go that far...on the outside. i assure you i was shrieking with glee in my heart. laugh if you will, but you must admit that it's the small things in life that bring the greatest pleasure.

so i told you this story to tell you that God is good. He knew that i would swim an hour a day, five to six days a week, if i joined that club, so He motivated me to do just that. He knew i would only really do it if it was convenient, so He made it so. He gave me ridiculous pleasure in something that gave me about the most complete workout of any form of exercise, and made it so fun for me that i will even wear a swimsuit in public. now that is a miracle. doesn't this have, "sheena, God loves you and wants to help you be the best and healthiest sheena you can be" written all over it?

what a good God.