1 mile victory :)

Hebrews 12:11 says "No discipline, at the moment, seems pleasent but painful. However it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those that have been trained by it."

I know that this verse, in its context is talking about God's loving spiritual discipline in our lives. I do think though that as God changes our hearts and molds us to be more like Jesus this verse can apply to multilple areas of our lives. Hebrews 12:11 has been my "life" verse for about 2yrs now. I was first shown the verse when I was going through some PPD after the birth of my daughter and I clung to this verse when there were days that doing my counseling homework and even just loving on my beautiful baby girl were hard.  When I started this weightloss journey back in January, I again, tucked this verse close into my heart because there are days, as it would seem sometimes, where eating right and exercising are some of the hardest things to do.

Today I had a 1mile victory.

I have been power walking for weeks now, and in the last month I have been doing some jogging with a very close friend of mine. I'm not exactly sure I would have been as motivated and encouraged if it wasn't for my friend Heather. She has had her own issues with weight and to learn about how God changed her heart is such a blessing in my life. Anyways, Heather is an avid runner and could easily run a mile in 10min (I think) but on days when she jogs with me she slows her pace down just to run along side me and encourage me to keep going (also probably to make sure I don't go into cardiac arrest...lol that's a joke people :) )  Heather and I have been working at me jogging for weeks now...not every week but when we can. And the last couple of times we've jogged I would go farther than I did before the last so this time I decided that I could do the whole mile. I knew that God would give me the determination not to give up and to keep pressing forward and everytime I would make it to one point I would say "okay now just to the next." And before I knew it I was crossing the "finish line."
I have never in my life jogged 1mile...that is no lie either. Not when I was a kid, not when I was a teenager, not when I was in college. I have walked plenty of miles but this is the first one i've jogged.

Some things that kept me going even when the group i was jogging with was ahead of me.

1. My friends were ahead of me so I wanted to not be too far behind them (lol)
2. Biggest Loser Powerwalk (DVD) coaches words stuck in my head "Run baby, Run. Almost there, just a little farther. You Can Do it! Keep Going, Keep Going. You Can make it"

and the third which is certainly not the least but actually the greastest

Prayer!

I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed "Dear Lord, Oh Jesus, Heavenly Father, God, help, help, help, help me!.

I officially have less than a pound to lose to make my 5% weight loss goal :) I have in total since january lost 23 pounds. 10 "on my own" and 13 with WeightWatchers.

God is good! He is so Good!