Life Lessons from my Wii Fit

No reason...I just like this picture with my man. :)

But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20:24

I'm going to be up front and honest--I've been up since 2am, when a dream about ants in the closet woke me up with a start, so there's a real possibility that nothing I'm about to say will make any sense. And I don't know why I think my Wii Fit is funny, but I do. I exercise every morning, and there are some things about it that tickle me. And yesterday, while I was sweating away (before I get to my favorite, the snow ball fight, in which I knock oh-so-many of my beloveds right over with a perfectly aimed snowball), I got to thinking about some real life applications that can be made from my Wii Fit. So here you go, for your edification, and perhaps, entertainment.

1. You have to face reality. Once again, I am dealing with my weight. Let's face it, since I turned 20, I have always been dealing with my weight. But this time, for once, I'm trying to do it the right way. I am following Weight Watchers, which is very, very slow, but also steady. It is not quick. I would like it to be quick. But all the quick ways to lose weight and get fit don't work over the long haul. Because let's face it--I'm not going to give up bread forever and always. I love a potato more than I should. To completely cut those things out may take off the weight for the wedding (I do not want to be the fat grammy in 10 years in the wedding pics), but I'll put it right back on when I come back to Austria, land of the bread. (Seriously, I'm fairly certain the Alps are actually constructed out of delicious Semmel/rolls.) So, I can click the button to ignore the weighing in every week, or I can take the plunge and see how I've done. Then, I can face reality. I lost a couple of pounds. Or I gained a pound. I always know why. But I have to face reality and then deal with it.

2. On the other hand, you also have to ignore the little voice that says, "Oh!" when you step on. I hate that little cutesie voice. I really do. If you have a Wii Fit, you know the voice. It says, "Step on," and then sometimes, it says, "Great!" But then, there are those other times, when it says, "Ooooohhh..." You know, like ooooooohhhhh, how many scoops of ice cream did you eat? Or oooooohhhhh, do you need some help stepping up on the balance board with all that girth? I hate that voice. Because really, I have that voice in my head all the time. No matter how thin or heavy I am, that voice is at work. And you know what, I (and you!) need to kill that voice. Because that voice is not the voice of God. It's not. I know for sure. Any voice that criticizes everything about me, that tells me that how people feel about me is contingent on how I look or how much I weigh...nope, that's not my Maker. That's my enemy. Because that voice, when listened to, just makes me want to give up. And my God, friends, is not the God of giving up.

3. I get by with a little help from my friends. Some of you, unbeknownst to you, are characters on my Wii Fit. Yep. You're there with me every morning, cheering me on. Some of the folks doing step aerobics with me are the weird characters John created--my personal favorite is the guy who not only has a unibrow, but also has the misfortune of having a face that's upside down. (That isn't supposed to be any of you, just so you know.) But I find those little characters encouraging and funny. They make me smile. And I appreciate that they get up with me at weird times of the day/night and exercise. Because no actual person wants to do that at 3am.

4. It's all about my family. When I get on the Wii Fit every morning, my family shows up with me. There we are, all five of us. In fairness, the other four are often bent over snoozing, a little joke the Wii likes to make because it's sometimes really early. (And my character, left to her own devices, likes to turn around, look at her backside, and then put her hand over her mouth in distress. Not cool, Wii Fit. Not cool.) But they all wake up and help me along. They all show up for step aerobics, or they run on the course with me (sometimes, one of them is my guide who runs in front), or they toss me hula-hoops, or they do kung-fu with me. But all in all, they show up. Even my mom and dad show up and cheer me on (or take a snowball or two in the face--they're troopers). And in the end, isn't that the reason to lose weight and be healthier? Yes, I want to be the best me I can be, and I can hear somebody out there wanting to empower me to want things for myself, etc. But really, at the end of the day, for me it's all about them.

5. Life is a course we run. I'd like to run it well, just like He set it out for me. There's a lot about a Wii Fit running course that is very similar to life. There are hills and valleys, there are some weird characters along the way, and there are some really unexpected turns. But the finish line is always marked with arrows and this thing that hovers over it like a tornado. You always know where you're headed. I can't always see exactly where I'm going at any given moment, but the end of my race--whenever it comes--is clearly marked. He has a path set out for me, and He lets me know along the way which way to turn. My job is to do it. And when I don't--when I think there's a shortcut that'll get me some place faster--I very often end up flying over a cliff into the water. And that's never good, my friends. Never.

Well, my friends, time to turn the Wii Fit on, step on, ignore the voice, and do a little kung fu fighting and step aerobics. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are running your race well, and that you are about to see some folks you really, really love, too. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye

Love song for my firstborn

My oldest...I can't believe she's 21 today!

With her soon-to-be last initial

Love these two--could not have asked for a better guy for our girl.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

Here's what you need to know up front: I never saw myself as a wife and mother before I became one. I was not the little girl who dreamed about her wedding or about having a flock of children. (Okay, sometimes I pretended to be Maria von Trapp, but that was mostly about the twirling and the singing.) So when I found out I was expecting a baby, I wasn't quite sure about how I was going to be as a Mom. Of the two of us, Marc is the feeler. He's compassionate. He's much kinder and gentler than I am. I can be a bit intense and austere. (That's putting it nicely.) But then, as time went by, especially after I got over morning sickness (which lasted all day--poor Marc ate many, many meals on the porch), I got pretty excited about the mommy thing, mostly because I discovered--as I think most women can attest to--a fierceness and protectiveness I did not know I had in me. And when, seven months into the pregnancy, my OB took my blood pressure and uttered a curse word, when we discovered that, out of the blue, something was really, really wrong...that fierceness went into overdrive. It kept me together through two months in the hospital, two months lying on my left side, two months of poking and prodding and general humiliation--all in the name of getting our little girl into the world. And when she was born by emergency c-section, when they brought her in with her little jiffy-pop hat on from the NICU...Oh, my. As Han would say, all the feels...they were overwhelming. I discovered within myself a kind of deep, core love that I didn't even know I was capable of. There was this tiny, tiny human being who was solely dependent on us...God bless her...and who trusted us...for some reason I could not discern. Even when I didn't know to take the pins out of her little dress that we took her home in, even when I actually drew blood by poking her with said pins trying to get them out, even when I accidentally clipped part of her little tiny finger when attempting fingernail trimming...she still just looked at me with those beautiful eyes and smiled. (After the howling in pain, of course.) What love was this? How could I bear for anything bad to ever happen to her? EVER?!?!?! And so began a love affair of the heart that continues to this day.

Of my three children, Sarah Beth is the most like me. While John and Hannah are extroverts like Marc, Sarah Beth is an introvert like her Momma. She is the one who most understood why I needed to shut the kitchen door in our Moscow apartment every night in order to be away from everyone. She is passionate about those she loves, and will defend them against any who would do them harm. She is our tiniest girl--I'm pretty sure John will tower over her by the time we get to her wedding this summer--but she's a mighty mouse...seriously, don't mess with her. When someone does something bad to the other two, somebody always says, "If they don't watch out, I'm calling Sarah Beth." She is an incredible big sister, loving her siblings passionately, wanting what is best for them, calling them out when they are being silly about something, happy when something goes right. And, of course, she is deeply in love with her DJ, preparing for marriage, looking forward to the time that he will be in Arkansas with her. She, like her momma before her, is marrying her best friend, someone with whom she will have lots of fun, someone who makes her laugh--a very important quality in a husband. (Sometimes, Marc just dances around the apartment to pull me out of a blue mood...not much funnier than that!!) She has always been a person who sees beyond the artificial and superficial, who roots for the 'little guy,' who is able to see the good in people.  She is a justice-seeker, a person for whom 'fair' is important, someone who passionately loves things as diverse as comic books and figure skating...just a really unique, interesting person.

When we went to Russia, Sarah Beth was 15 years old. She gave up a 'normal' high school experience and headed off into the great unknown with us. When our candidate consultant met with her to determine if this was going to be something she could handle, I'll never ever forget the tears falling on her skirt as she said, "I don't want to go. But I know we're supposed to go." In Moscow, she was basically fearless. She would get on the metro and just go places in the city, and then come back with some snippet of Russian she had learned. She went to Uganda and worked in an orphanage for her spring break. She, along with the rest of us, learned a lot about suffering, about giving people the right to be who they are, about loving people even when they don't act the way they should. She graduated and went back to the States before us, because at 18, she had to learn to drive a car. She had to relearn how to be an American girl. And sometimes, that wasn't as easy as it sounds. She had to figure out how to deal with the American church (much different from our overseas fellowships), how to not be freaked out by Walmart (that's harder than you think), how to be in the States and thrive. And she basically did that on her own. We lived in Florida her first year of college, and then we left her on one continent and moved to another. (By the by--the hardest thing I've ever done, and I've done some hard stuff in my time.) And while she doesn't know much about our lives in Austria, which are incredibly different from our lives in Russia and Czech Republic, she is always supportive and encouraging as we try to navigate these waters. She has grown into a young woman who is talented (her design skills definitely come from Marc), whose future looks incredibly bright, a young woman of whom we are so proud.

So happy birthday to my firstborn, who taught me to take the pins out of clothes, to laugh harder than I thought possible, and to love people where they are. I'm so glad God chose me to be your Momma, Madre, Momma J in the morning, Ma...and any of the fifteen other names you call me. I love you more than my own life, more than words, more than cats, more than anything except Jesus and your Daddy and the two Chebums. You are, indeed, God's workmanship, and I cannot wait to see what good works He has designed especially for you.

Love you--Momma

I'm Loving the Lists

My tall, voice-changing, gentle-hearted John.

My sweet man and our sweet Tash. Yes, she does sit like that.

Darling, in love, soon-to-be bride--our beautiful Sarah Beth.

The Nan...amazing, beautiful, growing-up-way-too-fast Hannah.

O LORD, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; for You have worked wonders, plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness. Isaiah 25:1

I know, I know...it's been a while. Quite a while, in fact. Sorry about that. Life has been...not boring at all, lately, and that has left me with little time, and frankly, little desire to try to organize my thoughts in a way that even resembles logic. So I've taken a little break. But this morning, as I eat my breakfast in snowy Vienna (what?!?! where did spring go??), a breakfast which includes cauliflower I've tried to convince myself is like grits, I thought I'd take a little time to check in and share what's going on in our lives here. (The cauliflower isn't bad, by the way--but it's also not fooling my tastebuds into thinking they've had grits. Oh, well.) In a lot of ways, I don't have much to tell. We leave next week for a break with friends, and we're looking forward to that a great deal. We're wedding planning from 3,000 miles away, and that's interesting and also really fun. I have to say for Sarah Beth--we definitely do not have a Bridezilla. She has the dress, and she has the man. The rest of it could be at Taco Bell, and she'd be fine. (That's a quote, by the way. From her.) So the wedding hasn't been causing us a ton of stress. Sarah Beth has been quite ill, and that is stressful, as all my friends in this part of the world can attest--overseas living with small kids is hard, terribly hard--but overseas living when the family is split and one (or more) is back in the States...also very, very hard. So whether you're having and raising babies overseas or watching your babies have and raise babies a world away--nothing about any of that is easy. But that's life, right? What are the chances, if we lived in the States, that all of our children would stay in the same place and raise all their children ten minutes away? Pretty slim, I think. My parents have only lived near my kids for a long period of time, but have managed to be great grandparents in spite of distance. I see a lot of my friends doing an incredible job of grandparenting from this side of the ocean. So it can be done. It's just hard.

In fact, in general, isn't life hard? I don't know anybody who is breezing by in life. Honestly, even the people who really have it together find life difficult, sometimes. Sometimes, we get to be in a season that's easier, and sometimes we're in a season that's more difficult, but we're never in a season that is trouble-free, are we? (If you are, and you know how you made that happen, please email me the secret, because I would love some easy.) For us, this is a season of more difficult. We have not had tons of great stuff in the last two years, and we've had quite a bit of not great stuff. And a lot of our not great stuff has involved our kids, which makes it even more difficult to handle. Add onto that parents whose health has not been great seemingly since the moment we stepped on Viennese soil, and other issues that just come up, and it's a recipe for bitterness. Right? Because wouldn't it be easy to turn to God and say, "Hey! I gave up this and this and this for You. How about cutting me some slack?!?!" And that precise moment, that moment of real anger when we don't understand what He's doing, that is the moment He gives us lists.

Maybe lists don't speak to your soul the way they do to mine. I have three (yes, THREE) calendars that I keep daily in my flat. I have an index card for every day (I do use them front and back), and each day comes with the things that must get done that day, the things that need to get done that day, and the things I'd like to get done that day. I love lists. I have a deep, core need for organization, and lists definitely speak to that need. So, when I come upon a list in the Bible, as I did this morning in Joshua 12, I actually read the lists. I actually read the lists of names in the gospel accounts of Jesus' life. Deep in those lists, I find a lot about God that speaks to me in this season of not-so-great.

In Joshua 12, in the list of who Joshua and the Israelites defeated, there isn't any new news. In other words, if we read the account of their war with their neighbors and those who would keep them from the Promised Land in Joshua 6-12, we already know who they defeated. But it seems to me the purpose of that list is a little different from just a journalistic account of what happened. If you read Joshua, you know that the Israelites taking the Promised Land as their own, as God promised them, was nothing short of a miracle. It was a God-sized task. It was something only He could accomplish. And He did. In big, amazing ways. He made the sun stand still. Seriously. Read it. He did. In the Israelites' weakness and complete reliance on Him, He does what He always does when we are faithful--He showed Himself mighty. (They also have moments of real stupidity, so don't get to thinking this is about the Israelites being super-perfect followers.) The end of Joshua 12, the list of all those who have been defeated, is another reminder that He alone can rescue and save. He alone can defeat the enemies. He alone gives Jericho to His chosen. He alone is God.

And Matthew 1? The seventeen verses that begin the New Testament can easily seem the worst possible way to start Jesus' story on earth. Where is the hook for the reader? How can anyone be drawn in by a list of names and generations? But God is doing something important in those verses, isn't He? In that list of names, of generations, of who begat whom...is the ultimate Promise Keeper. When He said He would not leave nor forsake, when He said He would bring the Messiah, when He promised to rescue and be a strong tower...He wasn't just talking. He did exactly what He said He would do. And He did it through some pretty surprising choices. Rahab? Aka Rahab the Harlot? In the lineage of Jesus. Ruth? A foreigner? In the lineage of Jesus. Bathsheba? Adultress? In the lineage of Jesus. The list of people God chose to work through in order to work His will, His incredible plan for saving us were not perfect. In fact, they were far from it. Sinners one and all. Not a perfect one in the bunch. But He used them, anyway. He chose them, anyway. Just like He chooses the sinful and imperfect and messed up, broken jars of clay, to follow where He leads. Because in the broken and sinful and messed up, He is shown to be what He is: mighty, all-powerful, amazing, awesome.

So what does that have to do with a season of not-so-great? He's still at work. He's still doing things, things I cannot predict, things so far beyond me that I couldn't even think to ask for them. He's doing stuff that only He can do, that only He can dream up, that only He can understand. I don't know what He's doing, but I do know this for sure: He's doing. He's at work in the mundane, in the hard, in the wedding planning, in the hard stuff that touches our kids...He's doing something big. And because I have my own lists of things He's done, hard times He's brought us through, and blessings that He continues to shower on me and mine that we clearly don't deserve, I can trust Him. It might not be the easiest thing to do, but it's possible. Because He is who He is. He does not change. He never gives up on His own, no matter how broken we feel. He is faithful. And in a season of not-so-great...He is enough.

Well, time to exercise. Aerobic boxing is the choice for this morning, since I'm not wild about walking in the snow. Plus, of course, I have a notecard with a list of stuff to get done today, so I'd better get going on that. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you have lists of the many ways the Father has been faithful to you, too, and that it's not snowing where you live. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye