Success of Approximation

Dear Friends,

God bless you, your loved ones and your ministries this week!

Have you ever almost reached a goal that you had set?  How did it feel?

I have spent the last three years actively working to lose 40 lbs..  In the first year I lost 20 lbs. and in the 2nd year I maintained my weight.  Then a friend invited me to join Weight Watchers with her.  During this last year I lost 14 lbs. and then I hit another plateau, where it seemed impossible to move further.

At the beginning of Lent I decided to complete my quest for health by reaching my lifetime goal approved by Weight Watchers by Easter.  I thought that the self discipline of Lent would help me as it has in the past when I needed to improve my health through changes in lifestyle.

There was a pamphlet published by W. W. called "Managing Your Thoughts" which I read and used.  It suggested 3 steps toward success: the first was to be a friend to yourself by treating yourself as you would treat your best friend, with kindness and encouragement rather than criticism.  The 2nd step was to make 2 columns side by side on a piece of paper, write your negative thoughts about yourself on the left and the opposite positive thought in the column on the right.  This activity set me free from some very negative beliefs about myself!  The 3rd step was to seek out and spend time with kind people.

Then I wrote notes to myself of encouragement and posted them all over the house.  I believed those notes and was able to start losing weight in the very first week, which spurred me on to work even harder.  The next few weeks did not produce results for me though and I started to doubt if I could succeed, which led me to regret my decision to set the goal in the first place.  The last few weeks were successful however and when I weighed in at my meeting prior to Easter I was within eight tenths of a pound of my goal.

I chose to accept this as complete success rather than punish myself  with perfectionism, so I gave away my big clothes and went shopping at Goodwill where I hit the jackpot with incredible bargains! I also visited the hairdresser who turned my odometer back 10,000 miles!  On Easter morning I went to church glowing with joy from my recovered health and youth.

When I was a child our mother sewed matching Easter dresses for herself and the 3 of us girls.  We all wore hats including Mom who wore a pink pill boxed shaped hat which sprouted with a garden of pink silk flowers!  Of course we little ones wore our new white gloves and our slightly worn black patent leather shoes.  Those were happy times and it felt good to revisit them by dressing up for this Easter as well.

Love, Sue