Farewell, oh well, goodbye, don't cry..."
I, for one, am glad to have seen something of a musical resurgence from a band called MercyMe. They have broken their own mold a little bit and gotten into some musical styles that they've not explored before. It's made them a richer, more interesting listen, and the lyrics above are from a song that spoke to me in a new way this weekend.
It's got all of those famous break-up cliches in it, but spun in a whole new way: breaking up with yourself. It occurs to me that my struggles are made less heavy when I don't spend all the time in the world focusing on myself in all of my pain and strife. Rather, I figure out how to reach out to someone, make someone else's day. That takes the focus off of my own heart, and puts it on someone else's heart.
Granted, it doesn't make pain in our lives simply go away, but we can take comfort in being pleasantly "distracted" from ourselves so that we can tend to the others the Lord has put in our path today.
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Monday weigh-in: 202 lbs. (+1)
It was a really rough week, but without a big weight gain. I'll count myself fortunate on that circumstance. I normally try not to weigh myself on off-days, but I do like to step on the scale sometimes after a long run, to see what I weigh right after I've sweated off some water weight. Gives me a little mental boost. In that vein: after my 4-miler yesterday, I stepped onto a scale that read 198 lbs. It was my first dip below 200 in this whole wild ride. So, even though my regular weight is still a little ways up there above 200, I am confident that I'll eventually see sub-200 numbers at times other than after a long run.
Great post, Jason. What a great analogy. It's funny how sometimes we need to "break up" with ourselves - our bad habits, our tendencies to be self-destructive, to focus on "me" instead of others, and instead refocus to a new and better self.
Keep up the great work with running. I'm sure you'll see the sub-200s soon!