Monday, January 7, 2013

Small Beginnings

     I have felt physically ill for the past three weeks. It started with a bad cold but then the lingering effects were felt for many more days. I still am not 100 percent.
     When I feel like this physically for an extended period of time, my mind starts to play tricks on me. Do I have a stomach bug? Is it something worse? Am I having a nervous breakdown?
      As you can tell, I come to all types of ridiculous conclusions. (Pray for my wife on this, by the way, as she manages life with a hopeless hypochondriac.)
     My ill feelings have coincided with the holiday season and day-after-day of eating nothing but rich foods. Thanksgiving through New Year's Day was a marathon of banquet-style eating and lounging around on the couch.
     Today it finally hit me why I feel so crummy. My body needs exercise!
     This morning, I finally made it to the fitness center for a brief workout. I swam only 500 yards in the pool, but man it felt great! I can hear my body saying, "Thanks, man! I needed that!"
     Our bodies are wonderful gifts from God, and they are meant to be exercised regularly! I cannot stand in the pulpit and preach to anybody about this or pretend that I have already achieved a regular discipline of physical exercise, but I have at least identified the problem.
     I refuse to get overly excited or make any impressive New Year's resolutions that I will not keep. Instead, I will simply own the simple truth that it feels good to exercise my body, and the more I do it in 2013, the better I will feel.
     It's a small beginning, but I have to start somewhere.

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