I am amazed at the goodness of the Lord.  My journey is back on track and moving forward.  I am so grateful for that, and my heart is full of joy.  I remember the day when I was driving home to Florida from Las Vegas.  I took a southern route for my trip back and I started to see signs for the Grand Canyon.  I had never seen it up close.  I had only seen it on tv and from an airplane.  It was amazing from the air, but I told myself that I couldn’t allow myself to be this close to the Grand Canyon and not stop to see it, so I took a detour.  It was about 50 miles from where I was, but I was so excited to see it that it didn’t even matter.  When I got there, I walked over to where I saw lots of people standing.  I couldn’t see anything at first, but then, as I got closer, my heart started pounding.  I couldn’t believe it.  Words cannot adequately describe what I was seeing.  My first thought was:  “The wonders that the Lord has created.”

I walked closer, and I got right up to the rim of that massive canyon and I could feel my mortality.  I felt so small compared to its massiveness.  I knew that if I took one step beyond that protective barrier I would die.  I tell this story because I feel like I just experienced that with my weight.  I reached the 400 pound mark, and I felt as if I was standing there at the edge of the Grand Canyon realizing that if I took another step in the direction that I was going, I was going to fall over the edge.

I came to the realization that I was actually leaning over the edge of my personal canyon so far that I could not get back up on my own.  I needed help!  I needed someone to help me that was strong enough to pull me back from dangling over the edge.    The beauty in this whole thing is that the Lord threw me a safety line and I grabbed it and I hung on for dear life.  He literally pulled me back from the edge and I am so grateful for that.  I realized that all of these years of my life, I had been trying to throw my own self a life preserver, and it just wasn’t enough.  Surrendering has shown me a portion of the love of God that I never allowed to come into my life before.  I feel  much calmer, and I feel much more at peace.

I haven’t watched tv for about three weeks, and I decided not to buy cable or dish and I do not have a digital converter, so our tv is basically obsolete.  You know……I really do not miss it.  Without the tv to wind down with after work, I have had more time to work on me, and rebuilding my spiritual foundation.  I have learned a lot and I am getting stronger everyday.  I have lost some weight.  I do not know how much, but I have gotten back into some pants that I could not even zip up a couple of months ago.  My scale reads “E” again, so I know I am still way up there, but when it starts to read numbers again, I know that I would have lost about 40 pounds, so that is my first goal.  I want to get back to numbers on my scale, but even though I don’t have numbers right now, I feel so much better.  I am walking better.  I am sleeping better, and there is hardly any pain anymore.  That is a huge step for me because I was in a lot of pain.  I was miserable.  The biggest change is that I can breathe again.  I was really having a hard time breathing especially when I was walking and trying to get around.  Another area that was affected by that weight gain was my singing.  I was losing my voice.  I could not hold my breath long enough to hold my notes out, and I couldn’t hold the pitches like I used to be able to.  I think that is what started to push me over the edge, but with God’s infinite love for me, he pulled me back from the brink and has given me another chance to get this right.  I am climbing my mountain again, but I am going to focus on that climb one step at a time.

Kyeni