Through this process of pondering my life, I have come to realize that my body is such a special gift.  I guess for some reason, we tend to take some things for granted until we start having trouble with it.  Then we finally realize how important it really is.  I definitely fell into that category.  One of my biggest observations for myself is that I did not realize how strongly the abuse of my physical body affected my spirit.  They are directly related.  The heavier and sicker my physical body got during that period of darkness, the more my spirit was affected.  I stopped doing some important spiritual things like ready my scriptures, and kneeling to pray.  Kneeling became more challenging, so I didn’t want to do it.  I would just lie in my bed on my back.  Something just didn’t feel right about that though.  I knew I had the ability to kneel.  It was just harder for me, so laying on my back just didn’t seem right.

One of the things that I came to realize is how blessed I have truly been over the years.  Despite my increasing weight, my body continued to sustain me.  It did everything that it could to keep me going.  For years, many doctors and nurses were really surprised that I did not have the typical medical problems that a person my size had.  I did not have high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc.  Every time I would go to the doctor, they would check my blood pressure.  They would pump the cuff all the way up because they assumed that my blood pressure was extremely high because of my weight.  It felt like my arm was about to explode.  So, I would tell the nurse:  “It’s not that high!”  So then she would release the pressure slowly and it would keep going down, and down, and down, and then she finally realize that it was better than most small people.  Then the look of shock would come upon her face.   I didn’t realize then how awesome that really was until I recently started getting my blood pressure checked, and it was bordering on high, and sometimes on the high side.

I realize now how precious a gift our bodies are.  My body has tried to help me for so long, but it has been abused for so long that it cannot do it any more.  There is only so much that it can take before it starts to break down.  Even in the midst of all of my craziness, by body was trying so hard to rid itself of all of the toxins that I was pumping into it.  I could see that process of expulsion in the form of rashes on my skin, acne on my face, blisters in my mouth, odor from my body, dark yellow urine, diarrhea, and extremely stinky bowel movements.  These symptoms have been going on for quite some time, but I was completely ignoring them.  Now that I have changed my diet, these symptoms are slowly going away.  I am making a conscious effort to treat my body with respect because I need it to sustain me so that I can accomplish the things that I want in my life.  I finally have some direction in my life, and there is a lot that I want to do, but I cannot do it with out this precious gift that has been given to me. 

I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for helping me to find my way.  I am grateful for His love for me.

Rechel