Nutrition for My Heart and Soul

I am taking a free nutrition class at the kids school once a week. Mainly, I liked that it was FREE (one of my favorite words) and because I soak up nutrition information like a sponge. I love to read and learn about new ways to eat healthy and improve, so I thought I would just join the class and see if I could learn anything new. The teacher is very sweet and kind and I have been able to get several very delicious recipes from the class, so it has been worth it for sure.

Last Thursday, she hit the exercise portion of the class. We exercise here in our house all of the time. Some days, my husband works out three times a day at the gym. Our kids have exercise class three times a week, outside of what they may be doing in gym class at school. And I make it a point to work out a minimum of twice a week, but usually I can get three or four good workouts in there. But the nutrition instructor wants us to wear pedometers all week long to see how many steps we walk each day.

For the year that my husband was in Iraq, and I was in FL where I could walk every single day, I DID wear a pedometer each day to make sure I walked a minimum of 16,000 steps per day. Once he came home and we moved here, I sort of fell out of the habit of it. Now, due to this project the nutrition teacher has us doing, I am back to wearing one again. I realized that, on average, my steps have dropped to 6,000 per day! That is about four miles per day less than I was walking while I was in FL. My goal was to have the best heart health possible. A side benefit was how peaceful and calm all that walking was for my soul.

I got to thinking about how that pedometer on my hip not only makes me constantly aware of how much I walk, but makes me want to walk even more, simply because I know it is there. That made me think of how much more I should be reading and studying Gods word. (Stick with me here, I will tie it all together :) Seriously though, if I became a better student of Gods word than I am now, and it was always in my heart, wouldn't I be more aware of it and more apt to use it on a regular basis? In turn, I would have an even healthier spiritual life than I do now, and what a wonderful thing that would be!

So, this morning, I clipped my walking pedometer to my hip and can't wait to watch how high that number goes today. Today will be the day I hit 16,000 again. But today I will also clip on my spiritual pedometer and spend a good amount of time in Gods word so that those words can be used as nutrition for my heart and soul as well!

The Gift of Super Heroes

The latest writing project I have is titled "Little Superhero" and it is supposed to be a story about how my little boy thinks he is a super hero. The funny thing is, I just found out about this project late last week, around the same time we found out that his health condition could be a little worse than just "Something he will grow out of.", as the doctor had originally told us.

So I got to thinking about so many angles for this story, and have yet to come up with one. Is he a super hero? Oh my! Have you ever met him? He is like the Super Hero of sweetness, kindness, intelligence and comedy rolled into one! When I say that everyone that meets him FALLS IN LOVE with him, that is not said from a mothers prideful standpoint, but is merely a fact that can be backed up by just about anyone!

As I thought about my story, I thought about how I must have just assumed that, having a boy and a girl, like my parents did, they would both naturally always be as healthy as my brother and I were. There didn't seem to be any genetic diseases in our family. There aren't any that we know of in my husbands family. He is one of nine children, and though two did pass away either as an infant, or as a young child, neither of those causes were disease related.

I look at my little super hero, and he is always smiling, always laughing. Yesterday, when he put his money in the plate at church, he was so proud of himself! He just looked at me with that big goofy grin that involves his eyebrows getting raised all up just like his Daddy's do. He understands everything, even things you think would be too young for his six year old little mind. Last night, we watched National Treasure as a family and he was able to follow the whole story.

But I say all of that to say, how I pray he isn't really sick. How I pray that Alport Syndrome is just something that HAPPENS to match what he has going on, but in reality, he will grow out of his symptoms. I know that my little super hero is a gift from God and that he is really God's child to begin with. I pray that God knows exactly how grateful I am for the joy that my little super hero brings us every minute we are with him!