Week 7 Ups and Downs – When Your Soul Needs Rest

I’m on a journey. It’s my own and no one else’s. I have my cheerleaders and my fellow travelers, but I’m the one who has to make the choices and find the positive.

I write down my thoughts, victories, and struggles and send them out into the internet universe in hopes that someone may find encouragement. Maybe someone will learn from my ups and downs. Who know? Maybe my words will just float around out there and the only good they will do is keep me motivated and on track.

I’m a busy mama and wife. I spend my days teaching my children, running a household, and attempting to make healthy choices. Sometimes those choices are hard. I don’t always get enough sleep. I don’t exercise when I need to. I sit way too much in hopes that my feet will heal and I can take my children on a walk someday soon. I cry in frustration and get excited about my small victories.

I endeavor to learn new things and cheer on others who are working hard, too, but sometimes I feel drained. I just want to shut myself off from the world and climb the mountain without outside distractions.

My family is my world. When life gets really crazy, like it is now, I just want to wrap us all in a cocoon, away from the world, and refresh.

What the world wants or thinks doesn’t matter. Everyone has an opinion. We all have to make decisions about what’s good for us and our families.

Sometimes we do crazy things for our health. Sometimes our soul needs rest; to soak up peace, to breathe it in.

This week has been full of wonderful things, health wise. My liver numbers were fabulous for the first time in years, my A1c is stable (unfortunately, still pre-diabetic), and I lost several pounds.

I learned that donating blood while fasting is a bad idea (a 5 day headache was the result). I recharged by taking two absolutely gorgeous drives in the Columbia River Gorge. I’m purging excess stuff from my house, and life isn’t horrible.

The need to wrap my family in a cocoon away from the world is very real at the moment. It’s kind of weird. Life can be going well, yet the feeling is a very persistent one.

If you’re reading this, I hope you know that all your hard work and dedication is important. It doesn’t matter if the world validates you. What do you need to do to be a healthier person?

You aren’t the same as everyone else. God made you an individual, not a clone. You won’t necessarily have the same strengths and weaknesses as the people around you, and that’s okay. With God’s help you can keep moving forward.

Pray and ask God to give you wisdom and peace.

I’m going to be in my little corner of the world, changing my lifestyle one day at a time; closing out the world as much as I can until my soul finds some rest.

God speed – Amber