The Rest of My Life, One Day at a Time

This past Sunday, our preacher started his sermon with this story: A little girl was learning to tie her shoes. She worked diligently every day for weeks, her little face scrunched up as she concentrated on getting it right. Finally, one day it happened! Her parents were so proud and excited for her – she did it! Then she started crying. When they asked what was wrong, she said through her tears, “Now I have to tie my shoes for the rest of my life!”

There is a quote, which says, “How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on.” (I tried, but the only source I can find says this is Zall’s second law. I do not know who Zall is, or why he has laws.) But the saying is true, nonetheless. If you are the person WAITING – that minute seems like forever.

This could also apply to a lifetime. A lifetime is not nearly long enough to love somebody – parents, children, spouse, or friends. But a lifetime seems far too long when you are dealing with a chronic illness, or the pain of losing someone you love, or for some, guilt about something.

There are a number of things I wish that I could do just one time and forget about it: tying shoes, cleaning the bathroom, doing dishes, dusting (do you see a pattern here?), and of course, the biggest thing on this list for me is losing weight. I have lost a lot of weight in my lifetime – much more than the 191.4 pounds in the past year and a half. Yet somehow, I always seemed to find it again.

This time, I am truly committed to a LIFETIME of keeping this weight off. That means that I have to make choices for the rest of my life. While it might be true that eating one donut won’t make me gain all of this weight back – nor will eating two donuts – I know if I go back to eating the way I ate before my surgery, I will eventually become what I was before my surgery. It will be so much easier not to eat the first donut, than to go through the heartache of being morbidly obese again. Much better to refrain at the beginning, than to face the chronic and debilitating physical problems that come from being overweight. Sometimes, when I think about it, I feel like that little girl. I don’t know if I can do this for the rest of my life – I don’t even know if I WANT to do this for the rest of my life! But if I look at today, and only today, I’m sure I can do it! “One day at a time, sweet Jesus, that’s all I’m asking from you.”