Mature enough to run again

This morning i decided to run again.
I was reflecting back on my first ever JESUS FREAK blog where I decided that my year long journey to 40 would not include something like weight loss because my spiritual exercising felt more desperate for me at that time. I know this may sound crazy but i feel like this journey has brought me full circle to the point where my spiritual muscles seem to be working again and now I feel like i CAN exercise my body in a healthy and responsible way.
                  There has been many moments in my life where i have irresponsibly exercised. I have exercised to have a smaller body leaving out a pair of jeans that are too small on the bed and trying them on after every run, maintain a certain number on the scale or just because it became my latest obsession or "addiction" of choice. ALL things for me that lend nothing to being healthy if the goal is all about obtaining something or some size the world says I should be, or abusing it to stop dealing with the real hard issues in  my life that i just cant face. I feel like although I am almost 40 I am finally mature enough to exercise again. I feel like this JESUS FREAK journey has been a difficult, sobering and often chaotic one but so needed in my life to draw out of ME what was holding on to the stuff that was drowning my spirit. A Lot of those things were thoughts I had about myself, my value to others and mostly to this God who loves me. For the majority of my life INCLUDING after my delicious encounter with Jesus I fought against the physical hatred I had of myself. I thought that having Jesus in my life and learning how much he loves me I would never have to worry about weight gain or inactivity due to depression because I no longer had the right to feel that way if I understood the truth of the Gospel. I spent lots of time building up woman at the mission and telling them to look at themselves in the mirror and remember that God sees them as beautiful always..........you would think I would hang on to that for myself but I usually didn't.  Oh I dont binge like I have in the past and purge anymore, I choose not to drink alcohol out of fear that it will become what I choose to do every weekend like I have but i feel like the one addiction I could always maintain in secret was my quiet anger with my body by just stopping the obsession of counting and weighing and running and running and running....... it doesnt go away it just perpetuates the cycle of watching your body become so far away from the worlds "ideal" and you began to think about which foods to stop eating and ways to deprive or punish yourself that no one will see.
               I love how on this FREAK journey God always steps in with something you need but disguises it as something you are doing for someone else. I am certified in  mental Health first aid now. A two day course I was taking to better understand my "mentally Ill" friends at the mission- you know those people who have problems......I have been so blessed by the knowledge I now have about mental illness and how much the course taught me about my own personal obsessions and mental blocks. Realizing that although i am not diagnosed with a mental illness but that we all fight against something every day that is trying to take us away from the intention God has for our lives. The course was not a Christ centered course but I spent each chapter reflecting on where I find God in it. I was embarrassed to realize that many of the words i have spoken to many woman over the years about who they are as they look in the mirror were coming back at me as a lie about who I am -crazy, perhaps but I felt like i needed to be really honest about this in the hopes that someone else doesnt feel like they are struggling alone. I felt i needed to say sorry to God for the way i thought about myself, his child and for the abuse i put on myself over the many years since my body started to develop in the name of "health" which was a total lie.....an outward shell but dead inside.......God isnt interested in a tight butt or certain size but in a child whose love for themselves means all things for His glory in His timing. there was nothing glorifying God about my obsession about size, stuffing myself so I don't feel anything, running and running and running so that maybe I would find the woman I was supposed to be. God sees the woman I am and he smiles at me, inspite of my "imperfect physical self". I forgot how imperfect all those wonderful people God used in scripture were not just in their sin but I don't remember hearing about how Esther stood in front of a mirror before she wen out in the morning to make sure she didn't look too big.
                  I ran again today because I learned it is good for my mental health and they were right. it cleared my mind to think about how much He loves me and that all obsessions are not healthy for me -even if the world says so. I think I might be mature enough to run now....run because it is good for my mental health and physically good for me.....not because when I am done I will try to squeeze into something that will make me feel more valuable. Today i was mature enough to run ..no goal but to seek clarity to try and love Him more the only way to truly be in love with His child.