Max Lucado: OutLive Your Life

I recently read Out Live Your Life by Max Lucado and I highly recommend it. It's about helping people less fortunate and I first heard of this book when my Sunday School class studied it. I didn't read it then but I've read it now. I decided to put this Cliff's Notes version in a blog because there was so much wisdom in the book that I really wanted to share it. I also want to remember it.

I listed some key thoughts and ideas from the book below. They're not mine; I'm just too lazy to type all of the quotation marks. :) By the way, who is Cliff anyway and where is he now?

When your grandchildren discover you lived during a day in which 1.75 billion people were poor and 1 billion were hungry, how will they judge your response?

May you live in such a way that your death is just the beginning of your life.

God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

Save one life. Save the world . . . use an ordinary life to bring extraordinary blessing into the world.

None of us can do what all of us can do . . . no one can do everything but everyone can do something.

Faith in Christ leads to a clean slate with God.

Change begins with a genuine look and continues with a helping hand.

In the game of life, many of us who cross home plate do so because we were born on third base.

Poverty is not the lack of charity but the lack of justice.

May I be a bridge and not a wall.

God never sends you where he hasn't already been. O Lord, nobody lies beyond the grasp of your grace.

Passionate prayers move the heart of God . . . prayer does impact the flow of history.

Pray first. Pray most.

The sign of the saved is their concern for those in need. Salvation is the work of Christ. Compassion is the consequence of salvation.

Bert Show drama

There was SO much controversy surrounding the Bert Show this week regarding the “Cowardly Editorial” aimed at our society and how we respond to ‘fat’ people. I have been so completely irate about the whole thing that I am finally getting it all out in this blog. So, here’s your disclaimer. It’s my blog which means it’s my opinion and they are my thoughts, and I’m not asking you to like them or agree with them. What I do ask though, is that you not judge me until you get to the very end.

If you don’t listen to the Bert Show and are not up to speed, you can read the initial editorial here

 http://thebertshow.com/the-cowardly-editorial-one-anonymous-bert-show-member-is-sick-of-the-political-correctness-surrounding-overweight-people/#editorial

While I do think that the anonymous editorial could have been written more delicately, I do agree with the sentiment behind it. Yes it was harsh and obviously full of negative emotions but it also had a lot of valid points.  Yes, there are people that cannot exercise for health reasons. But, they are a very small percentage of the population and this editorial isn’t talking about them. It’s talking about obese people who are overweight because of the choices they have made. I don’t believe that the vast majority of overweight people gained weight due to a medical condition. I do however think they will develop them due to poor nutrition and lack of physical activity.

What angered me about this whole situation are the posts that followed and the people behind them. To the listener that was so offended by the editorial but according to your Facebook page, your favorite activities are sleeping and eating . . . I say to you that ‘eating’ is not an activity. We are intended to eat for survival and for nourishment. Our society puts a lot of celebration around food . . . birthday parties, Thanksgiving dinner, brunch with girlfriends (which I am having tomorrow). But listing two out of 3 activities as sleeping and eating paints you in an unmotivated, lazy light.

To the listeners (and there are several) calling specific members of the Bert Show shallow and superficial, cowards and 'pieces of shit,' I have a few things to say. A) You don’t even really know them so B) you are being just as judgmental as the editorial and C) use freaking spellcheck because when you look like an idiot, you lose all credibility.

To the listeners that posted sentiments around skinny people being born with a silver spoon in their mouth and not knowing any kind of emotional distress, I say that you are just as ignorant and judgmental as the author of the editorial. Have you heard of anorexia? It’s an eating disorder born out of mental distress! I am not overweight and I know people look at me and assume my life is and always has been rosy. But let me assure you that those people don’t know me anymore than the author of the editorial knows the overweight folks he or she is judging.  Don’t sit on your judgmental throne and say that skinny people have it easy.

To the listener that says she doesn’t have time, you will have to forgive me for my lack of sympathy. I work full time, I have a family, but I also run and play tennis. My day starts at 4:30am most days of the week. If I was a betting girl, I’d bet that those who say they don’t ‘have time’ piss away at least an hour or two a day on something else. You can start small; take the stairs instead of the elevator. Get up and walk to your colleague’s office instead of calling them on the phone or sending them an email.

To the listener that says they ‘can’t afford it’, no one says you have to buy a gym membership or hire a personal trainer. You can go outside and play with your kids, you can walk your dog, you can look up free workouts on YouTube.  And yes, there are more coupons for Toaster Strudel than there are for a BOGO banana. But I would bet my next paycheck that the majority of people who say they ‘can’t afford to eat healthy’ are spending their money on some other unnecessary item. There are ways to save at the grocery store. I, too, live on a limited budget and I can tell you that it is cheaper to eat at home than it is to swing through a drive through every day. Buy what is on sale; not only does this help your wallet, but it introduces you to new fruits and vegetables and increases the variety of nutrients your body actually receives.

To the listener crying about needing a solution, it’s called diet and exercise. Someone actually wrote that it was easier to buy a bag of burgers than to buy a bag of apples. When are people going to make the connection between what they eat and how they feel? They eat two meals a day, one of them being fast food cheeseburgers, and then they complain about how sick and exhausted they are.

The truth of the matter is that we are a lazy, unmotivated, finger-pointing society that cannot take responsibility for our actions, let alone our own health. We are always ‘looking for the easy way out.’ That’s why most people would just as soon take a pill than take a walk. We’d rather save money on chemical-laden, over-processed crap than spend time and money teaching our children and grandchildren how to be healthy. And nothing infuriates me more than seeing obese children. Those parents are just setting them up for a lifetime of diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue, etc. Rather than letting their children be involved in the meal planning and preparation, they’d rather sit them in front of a video game & warm up a chicken nugget.  It doesn’t have to be about fat versus skinny. It’s about how excess sugar suppresses your immune system and regular exercise helps you sleep better at night. It's about how excess weight makes your heart work harder and places extra stress on your joints. As you age, you lose muscle mass and bone density, which can be slowed with physical activity.

It’s time that we stop coddling people in general & put an end to the pity party.  

Anyone need a soap box? I think I’m done with mine . . .

Journey of a hundred miles

Back in December, I decided I wanted to run a half-marathon. Since then, several people have asked why in the world I would want to run that far. I don't really have a good answer for them either, other than it's on my list of things to do before I die. By the way, so is winning the lottery . . . :)


When you set out to train for a half-marathon, which is 13.1 miles for those of you asking, you don't really know what you're getting into. In the beginning you're all excited and pumped up for this huge accomplishment. I had never run more than 3 miles before so what on earth made me think I could actually run 13 is beyond me. I had some serious training to do.

Part of that training was a 5K that I ran with my friend Crystal Pistol in February (that's not her real last name but it's so fun to say that I can't resist). You would have thought that Mother Nature would have smiled down on us and at least warmed up a bit. But no, on race day, it was cold (35 degrees cold) and wet . . . not rainy per se, but it drizzled . . . non-stop. It. sucked but our outfits were cute, so at least we had that going for us.

Next up was a 10K in March. Now around here in March, the weather is a crap-shoot. It could snow, it could be hot, there could be a tornado even. Thankfully it was sunny and relatively warm. But I had never run 6 miles before and Crystal Pistol has this thing about a big finish; you have to SPRINT to the finish line, AFTER you've already dragged your fluffy butt through 6 miles. I literally thought I might toss my cookies, which the winner of the race actually did. There is a saying that when you run these races, you 'leave it all on the road.' Well he definitely left it all on the road . . . and on the curb . . . and in the bushes.

Now, I have to say that I've learned a lot by training for this half-marathon. There are definitely 'good run days' and 'bad run days.' There were days that I felt like a Rock Star (cue the Rocky music) and could run from here to California. Then, there were other days in which I wanted to sit down and cry after only a mile. Seriously. We choose the Country Music Marathon & Half-Marathon in Nashville, TN. It's part of the Rock N Roll Marathon Series so race day, however, turned out to be a BLAST. It's hard to have a bad time when you're surrounded by 40,000 people. There was music and food and vendors. It was like a really big party except you're really exhausted at the end. But we loved it! There are all kinds of people at these races . . . big ones, small ones, pregnant ladies, people in costume, even a blind guy. When you see a blind guy cross a finish line after running 26 miles, can you really cry about how much you miss your couch and your twinkies?

Since I started training I've run approximately 175 miles and burned approximately 20,000 calories.You'd think I'd be smaller than when I started but no . . . baby still got back.