All The Things We Do to Be Healthy...

All the things we do to be healthy...and then find out we're not so healthy. For example, the time I went to the doctor with super low blood pressure. "Take salt tablets," she said.

What? Salt tablets? I'd been trying to reduce sodium in my diet in order to lessen fluid retention, help my hand, and be healthy overall. And now I had to do the opposite: over salt everything in hopes of raising my blood pressure without those dreaded salt tablets, which supposedly could burn my stomach.

Other things "they" tell me to do to be healthy that might not actually be healthy?

1) Stop eating when no longer hungry. I was super fatigued earlier this year and I think it's because I was eating to assuage my hunger, but not to true fullness. So now I'm eating more, not less.

2) Drink all the water. Apparently there is such thing as too much water. And too much water can also lower blood pressure.

3) Ditch the salad dressing. Actually, fat makes vegetable vitamins more accessible and digestible. Pile on the olive oil for me!

4) Exercise all the time, as much as you can. Nope! Overtraining is a thing. I took April off running to see if that might be happening for me.

5) Skip the caffeine. As with the salt, I might need some to manage blood pressure. Caffeine can help stay awake at key times, and relieve headaches. It has uses, in moderation.

In many ways, health is unique to the person. And all that the media tells us is not science-based. It's advertising designed to make us buy products that will supposedly heal all our diseases. Nothing and no one can do that, no one on earth that is. These are earthly bodies, and yes we should be good stewards, but we also need to realize that we're perishing, and sometimes the best we can do is stress a little less about health and live a little more.

Hiking is Healing.

I went hiking for the first time in a long time on Saturday. The hike turned out way longer than I intended, but when I got home, I felt such peace and calm. I texted my mom, "Nature is healing. I think God meant it that way."

Here are five reasons I believe hiking in nature is healing.

1) It causes us to stand in awe of God. Paul David Tripp writes that God created nature to amaze us and point us to God. Romans 1:20 says, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

2) It reunites us with humanity. There is something equalizing about hiking. Old, young, even the handi-capable can do it (given the right trails). People smile. People help one another. People check in on one another. Common care and concern and compassion emerge.

*With thanks to the nice cyclist who turned me away from walking 16 more miles and checked to make sure I had water to make it back to my car.

3) It reconnects us with our bodies. We live in a society that pushes gym workouts and diets and man-made practices that are generally unsustainable. Hiking gets us out in the fresh air. It helps us feel our bodies. It causes us to recognize true hunger and thirst. It frees us from fast fixes and causes us to check in with what we really need (and hopefully have in our well-stocked packs).

4) It reminds us that we can do hard things. I was tired when I finally turned around on my trail. I didn't want to hike over three miles back to my car. But I did. I reminded myself that if I could run a half marathon, I could do this, and I did. I felt a little sore by the end, but not bad.

5) It gives us perspective. The Spirit speaks to me in the wilderness. I process. I gain new insight. I find renewed hope, fresh vigor, and creative insights. While I cannot always be in nature, I can carry these, it's gifts, back with me.

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Is hiking for everybody? No, maybe not. Is it a substitute for actual therapy? No. But it sure is beneficial, at least for me. Maybe you should try it!

Good Enough

Coming home has been healing in a lot of ways. And the Spirit, by His grace, has revealed a lot of areas that I didn't even recognize needed healing. My mom the other day pointed out that it seems like the "real me" is coming out again, and I would have to agree.

It's been a long road for me to get here, one that I haven't ever shared all at once, and one I don't even know if I ever could. But I'll share that part of that road has been an obsessive focus on pleasing others. I never felt like I was good enough, and therefore I was always striving to perform, to achieve, to perfect. And it was exhausting. I didn't always even want to be better than others, I just wanted to be better. And specifically, I wanted to please my parents and prove to them that I was worthy of their love. Because I thought I wasn't.

I didn't realize the cost of my perfection until I graduated with my bachelor's degree, in three years, Summa Cum Laude (a GPA related honor). And my Dad said, "You sacrificed all that for this?" I thought my parents knew my GPA. I guess I assumed they'd been tracking it. I thought they cared. And guess what? My dad didn't know or care. My dad was more concerned with my physical and mental health, which was tenuous at best.

That moment was a wake up call. I'd thought all my life that I needed to impress my parents. And now that I had, I found out that what I'd done didn't really matter. And the longer I've been back at home, the more I've realized that the stringent expectations I had for myself growing up weren't my parent's expectations. They were mine. I was the one always trying to prove things. I was the one believing I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't loved. Guess what? I was loved all along.

So I'm starting to relax the expectations I have for myself. I'm starting to accept and acknowledge the love my parents have for me. I've stopped trying to be good enough and just started trying, by the Spirit's power, to do good, to see that life is good. It's been freeing.

Friends, do you believe that you are good enough? That God loves you just the way you are? Because He does. And Jesus gave His life to set you free. May you run towards that freedom today.