A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick

One of my favorite authors of Historical Fiction is Elizabeth Chadwick.  Her early novels are basically medieval romances, but then she started writing about real historical figures and those books are just superb.  I'm only a little over halfway through this one, but I couldn't wait until I finished to talk about it!

Chadwick is a master at character development and this book is no exception.  She shows you all sides of the important figures, not just the parts that fit their role as the "good guy" or "bad guy".  The details are deep and surprising, with frequent "point-of-view" changes that roll seamlessly together.

A Place Beyond Courage tells the story of John FitzGilbert Marshal who served as Marshal to King Henry I, King Stephen and the Empress Matilda.  John Marshal was the father of William Marshal, the famous court favorite of Eleanor of Aquitaine and subject of Chadwick's more well-known book, The Greatest Knight.

The book opens before the death of King Henry I, when John was a handsome, single courtier with the world at his fingertips.  He later settles down and marries Aline, a pious, nervous young woman.  It is Aline's story that has fascinated me, and shows how deftly Chadwick can plumb the depths of her characters.  Just when I was ready to write Aline off as a weak, simpering fool who wasted the opportunities afforded her through her relationship to John, there is a paragraph from her view point that changes completely how I feel about her and makes her far more sympathetic....for the time being!

Chadwick also excels at creating the scene. I recently described her writing as a "sensory feast".  I think it must be difficult to paint the picture of a lifestyle that is so foreign to the modern reader. It's hard for me to relate to the common occurances of bloodshed, abuse and filth inhabited by the medieval people. But in describing those circumstances, Chadwick will often add in a small thing that is universal and still resonates today to draw me in and cause me to sit a while in the scene....the leak of cold snow into a boot, the smell of over-ripe fish, the feeling that you are coming down with a cold.   All common senses that will tie me to the scene.

At the spot where I am in the book, John has just been injured in battle and is recovering from his wounds.  The wounds are severe and will surely change how he views himself and how he is viewed by others.  The John Marshal that I have been reading about so far is quite different than the way he is portrayed in The Greatest Knight, so I can't wait to see how he gets from one place to the other!

Coins of Obedience

Having been inspired by the three resources I mentioned yesterday, gently nudged towards losing weight by my parents and facing my daughter's wedding (oh!  all those pictures!), I'm off on this new weight-loss journey.  I knew that the way I've done it before wouldn't work. If it did, I wouldn't need to be doing it again!  I was determined to try something different.  This is going to be an exciting year for our family.  My son is going to Spain with his high school, my daughter is planning her wedding, three of us are going on a mission trip to Puerto Rico....I don't want to spend this exciting year obsessing with losing weight.  And since in my heart I feel like my real milestone is a lifestyle of obedience, I decided to count "obediences" instead of ounces, calories and pounds.  For some reason, I started viewing obedience as coins. And each time I make a right choice, I visualize throwing another coin on the pile.  In my mind's eye, that pile is getting bigger every day and it is exciting for me!

There are four main ideas supporting my pile of coins.  Let me preface this by saying that I have no medical or nutritional background, other than what I've learned over a lifetime of weight struggles.  But this is the plan that I'm trying for me.

• Eat Sensibly - I've dieted all my life and probably can quote the calories, fat grams and carbs right out of the book for most things I eat.  Being armed with that information is really important.  While I don't write everything down and add it up, I do try to mentally stay around 1200 calories a day. I focus on portion-control and eating a broad range of foods.  I will never be a totally "clean" eater, so I am not doing anything extreme like banning all sugar and bread.  I recognize that I might have to tighten up as I get closer to my goal weight, but I'll ease into that if I need to.
• Exercise Moderately - I love to exercise.  I love the feeling of that little bit of muscle soreness throughout the day.  Not the agonizing, "I can hardly move" soreness...just the vague feeling that my muscles have been worked.  I've done all kinds of exercise in the past...running 3 miles five days a week, The Firm and TaeBo home exercise videos, walking.  But I do tend to get pain in my knees and my hips, so I have to be careful, especially here in the beginning when I am carrying so much extra weight.  As a busy working wife and mother, I'm also short on time.  So most of my exercise has to be done early in the morning. To start out with, I'm focusing just on cardio....burning calories.  I have a recumbant exercise bike that I use each morning.  That's all I'm doing for the first ten weeks.  After that, I will add some work with weights and hopefully, eventually, I can add a little bit of running.
• Weigh Once a Month - As I mentioned earlier, I refuse to be obsessed with the numbers.  But I do need to stay on top of how I'm doing if I'm going to reach my goal by next Thanksgiving.  I've set a target for each month and as long as I stay below the target, I won't have to count calories or weigh more often.  But if I miss my target, I may have to become more rigorous.  I weigh only on the first of every month.
• Hold on to God - This is as much or more of a spiritual journey as a physical one.  It will be impossible for me to make lasting healthy changes if I am not relying on God's strength.  I'm being faithful in my daily quiet time with Him, currently doing the 21-day devotional that goes with Made to Crave. And I'm in a Bible Study with a community of ladies who are supporting, encouraging and holding me accountable. 

So we'll talk about each of these in more depth as I go along, but those are the basics....Eat Sensibly, Exercise Moderately, Weigh Once, Hold On!

My Approach to my Weight Loss Journey

Like many many people, I have struggled with my weight for my entire life.  I'm sure I have gained and lost an entire kindergarten class over my lifetime.  I am an engineer by education and have a very literal, analytical mindset, and I love to count, figure, graph and organize.  Every time that I have been able to lose weight, I have rigorously counted calories, exercised like a fiend and been totally consumed by the process. I could only maintain that for a few months before I got stuck, or got injured, or generally lost motivation. And then gained back whatever I had lost and more. 

There have been three books/Bible Studies that have been instrumental in changing my approach to this journey.  They are Breaking Free and Get Out of That Pit by Beth Moore, and Made to Crave by Lysa TerKuerst.

Last Fall, I went through the Breaking Free study with some ladies at my church.  During that study, I began to focus on my weight as an area of captivity and a spiritual stronghold in my life. As I prayed and worked through the study, God impressed on me that the issue is really one of obedience.  Just will power for the sake of itself will never make the lasting changes that need to happen in my life.  The milestone in my life is not a specific weight or a certain dress size.  The milestone is a lifestyle that is so in tune with God that I can be consistently obedient in the choices that I make.

But during that study, I was also frustrated by the idea of just "getting through the moment" as the path to my milestone.  If I take a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream out of the freezer and eat the whole thing in one sitting, then I feel like I've gained ten pounds.  I immediately know that I've messed up and there is nothing I can do to change it. But if I "get through the moment" and step away from the freezer, that doesn't mean I feel any thinner. Even if I get through the moment with much prayer and spiritual strength, it doesn't feel like I've really accomplished anything. And what comes after that "moment"?  Another moment that I have to "get through"!  I'm caught in an endless cycle of "moments" and it's all tied up into fleeting "feelings".  Just getting through the moment was not going to be the way for me to get to my milestone of obedience.

In Get Out of That Pit, Beth talks about overcoming behaviors that keep you mired in a pit.  She says that after some number of times of repeatedly making the right choice, Satan will eventually give up on that area of your life and move on to something else.  This idea really resonated with me.  I don't know if the number of times is 5, 50, 500 or 5,000.  But I know eventually I will hit the number where these hard choices every day have become an obedient lifestyle that I don't even have to think about. 

I've only just recently started to read Made to Crave but this book is very much in tune with where God has been leading me.  One sentence basically sums up the concept. "God made us capable of craving so we'd have an unquenchable desire for more of Him, and Him alone."  That's where I want to be!  Recognizing the craving as a desire to be closer to God, not closer to Ben and Jerry!

I'm so excited about the way that God has brought these three resources into my life to help me start this journey.  Over the next few days, I'll share a little bit about the practical ways that I am using what I am learning.

Well....here I go!!

Hmmm....my very first blog post!  I want to use this blog to document three big things in my life:

-Love:  I love my husband, my son, my daughter, my family and friends.  I want to learn how to love them more and better. 

-Obey:  I'm on a weight-loss journey. What else is new, huh?  What's new this time is that instead of obsessing about calories consumed and calories burned and weighing every day, I'm focusing on obedience. I'm trying to listen to God more about everything that I do, including what I eat.  Instead of counting calories, I am counting "obediences" and adding them to my pile each and every time I choose to obey.

-Read:   Now that my kids are older, I'm finding a little more free time, so I spend it reading.  I read mostly Christian Fiction and historicial fiction, with a little mystery and romance thrown in there from time to time.

So we'll see how this goes!  It should be fun!