Last week I shared a post about spending time celebrating with family, and gaining weight (you can read it here). Along with that I posted some pics from my birthday celebration with family while referring to myself as fat.
Some of you graciously told me I wasn’t fat…
but the truth is I was!
A better term would probably be “out of shape” since missions is a physically demanding ministry since you walk everywhere. So after arriving in SVG on Saturday, I started a strict diet on Sunday. Along with this diet a “training program” of sorts was begun.
Yesterday I wrote about using plastic chairs with children’s ministry. The biggest difference would be walking from place to place instead of driving there. This wasn’t too difficult because the chairs are light. But I knew the combination of walking and carrying those chairs in one hand would become difficult after a while.
The first day doing this started well as you can imagine. But soon my legs and arms started to burn, and by the time I got home, my whole body was exhausted!
I was tempted to start using the car again….
But knew I’d become stronger over time.
Nobody likes to be weak or feel pain! So it’s natural after that first day to entertain the idea of not walking anymore. But I continued knowing each day made me stronger. No strength wouldn’t come right away, but it would come.
And the strength did come!
Though it didn’t happen overnight
Two weeks after getting back to Saint Vincent I’d lost weight, and could carry the chairs from one area to another without becoming exhausted. I could feel my body becoming stronger, but wanted to test the limits of that strength.
That Tuesday we had a “heroes walk” on a holiday in SVG. It involved walking from the Saint Vincent airport to our Bible College which would take about two-hours. I walked with a seven-year-old most of the way making sure he was safe. Towards the end he got tired and a church van took him the rest of the way.
Knowing there wasn’t much left to the walk I decided to push myself.
Surprisingly I did very well. Even ran to the finish! A lady later told me “your fast! I think that little boy was holding you back.” The truth is I chose to stay with him till the end to see if my body after walking for about two hours could finish strong.
Results in life will come to those who commit themselves to doing the hard work (even though they don’t want to). It won’t feel good when your exhausted that first day (trust me I know) but you’ll have a huge smile on your face running across the finish line later.
Johnhwilburn.org 