Is it possible to fall behind on a self-imposed writing
project? Well if it is then I have
fallen a bit behind on this blog.
However, I am behind for good reason.
Real life has been extremely busy over the last week. For the past few years I’ve been involved in
St Stephen’s Parish Players, a community theater group on Grand Island. My mom saw an ad in the town’s paper for
auditions about 5 years ago and sent me to go try out. My audition was absolutely terrible that year;
however I was cast in the chorus of Annie Get Your Gun and have been involved
with the group ever since both on and off stage.
Last week I ended up doing behind the scenes work for the
younger kids show, Peter Pan. I tend to
get sucked into projects without really intending to. I stopped over at one of the kid’s rehearsals
to drop off some piratey things (Who doesn’t have swords, bandanas, and eye
patches in their closets?!?!) and stayed
to move set pieces, and then stayed to paint, and then stayed to . . .
Well you get the idea. It was time I
hadn’t planned on investing, but it was incredible to be able to come alongside
and help a group of kids who have worked so hard to put on a tremendous show.
Everything this week went very well, but it wasn’t a perfect
week. It wasn’t perfect in part because I’m
not always good at knowing what my own limits are. Quite often I don’t want to admit that the
limits exist. However they do. As much as I sometimes want to set aside
things like sleep and meals and all of those basic needs in order to do big
things I was reminded this week that when some of those “little things” are
ignored everything else suffers. My
generally cheerful and mostly easy going personality becomes sharper and much more
easily frustrated. Plus without those
basics my body just isn’t willing to do the things I ask of it, headaches come
in full force and knees refuse to bend in quite the same way as they normally
do.
This week was a reminder that sometimes, even when it’s hard
because I can see work that needs to be done, I need to stop working and
rest. It was a reminder that during
times when I am working hard I need to plan for the basics to bring along meals
and that sort of thing. It was also a wakeup
call in some ways. I desperately want to
expand my current limits physically and mentally.
I have already been doing that to a certain extent in diet
with the whole High Fat, High Protein, Low Carb thing. That way of eating seems to be a good fit for
me so far. Beyond that though if I
expect to be able to do work that is
past my current limits I’m going to have to be intentional about pushing my
physical limits with . . . wait for it. .
. Exercise. I have never, ever
been a good exerciser!! I am strong, I
am sporty but I have never liked exercising for the point of exercising. I have a sweatshirt that has a picture of a
person being chased by a T Rex with the caption “Exercise: Some motivation
required” I guess I need to find that
motivation. . . Anyone have a T Rex I can borrow? No?
Hopefully the vision I have for my future is enough
motivation to start working at pushing my physical limits. There’s things I want to be able to do, as
soon as this summer, that mean I need to be able to walk for longer periods of
time, I need to be able to run a bit, I
need to be able to lift and move with greater ease. Thankfully I’m not overwhelmed by those thoughts;
there have been times in my life when I would have been utterly and completely overwhelmed
by all of these changes that I need to make.
However they aren’t things I need to do overnight, they aren’t things I
need to do perfectly, and they aren’t impossible goals. Besides that I have the promise that God’s
grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in weakness. I also have a greater willingness in my own
heart to obey the command “Whether you eat or drink whatever you do, do it
heartily as unto the Lord”
So even though I slacked off on my blogging assignments this
week, I learned a lot. I learned more
about my weaknesses and also about my strengths. I also got to spend time getting to know as
awesome group of kids better. One of my
favorite parts of this week was sneaking out into the audience at the end of
each show, and cheering with all my might for the talented and smiling cast of
Peter Pan.
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