Make it matter

I am TIRED. I stayed up until 1am reading Harry Potter...probably later since I then kept looking at my laptop which prevented me from falling asleep. Le sigh. I did fall asleep on my own though which was exciting :) Tonight I need to pick up my apartment. It's mostly cosmetic, but I need to get it done so I don't have to wake up super early tomorrow as well.

Today that book talked about making weight loss and your fitness level matter. It asks if you've ever sat on the fence about it, and usually when you sit on the fence, you fall on the side of not caring. "Ambivalence is one of the biggest enemies of change. If you aren't sure you really want to take action on something such as your weight, ambivalence will usually win." It says when something becomes important, jumping to the task and getting things done become super easy. Like now that I'm hosting small group, cleaning up and hanging up my clothes seems so much more important than it has for the past three weeks :D

The book then talks about making your outcomes more important. It says to list ways weight affects your life and then rate on on importance from 1-10. It says then to push your numbers higher to a 7 or 8 (if they're low) to convince yourself that they're more important. I don't know if I'm going to do all that, but I do think that I'm going to at least list out how weight affects my life.

--My weight has made me be afraid to attempt WAAAAY too many things:
being more athletic, being more social, taking different classes, trying new hobbies, etc.
--My weight prevents me from looking the way I want to look in clothes
--My weight has prevented me from doing fun things like waterparks b/c I didn't want to wear a swimwuit
--My weight makes me feel unhealthy
--My weight has at times made me feel unlovable.
Basically, my weight has been a source of fear and excuses for all my life. And I hate that now that I realize it. And I'm not going to let it happen anymore.

I started reading in Hebrews today, which is a fairly...complicated(not sure that's the right word) book because it references the Old Testament alot. And I'm not really in a mood to jump into systematic theology at 7am in the morning :) I did find a verse though:

"Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." Hebrews 2:14-15

I just am loving references that I see about Jesus freeing people from fear. He purposely shared in our humanity and faced all the things that we face, so that he could destroy the things that bring us despair and hopelessness. So that he could free us. He destroyed him who holds the power of death and has freed us from fear of death. How powerful and wonderful is that? God is good, and he is faithful, and he cares deeply. He lived and died so that we can be free from fear, despair, anxiety, and most of all, death. That is an amazing and hard to swallow fact :)