Heart Health
Recently I got a very cute little pink heart rate monitoring sports watch. The first few days I had it I would obsessively check my heart rate every few minutes and was quite alarmed at the various beats per minute readings. Why would my heart be so low one minute and then be so high after simply turning in my chair to the left? And was it really supposed to beat that fast when all I was doing was moving laundry from the washer to the dryer? And why was it that I could not keep it within the recommended range when walking boringly slow?
After being convinced I was very old and out of shape and like my heart was going to beat itself into a non-recoverable frenzy at any moment, I did some research. And then I performed various heart rate tests and functions to determine my heart healthiness based on my research. Was it too much to want to make sure I was working out at the proper heart rate level for the desired fitness goals and to want to know that my heart is healthy - or if it isn't, how to get it healthy?
Oddly, after doing research and then performing appropriate tests with the appropriate equipment and information, I felt better even though my heart rates remained the same. I felt better because of the truth I learned! Based on my very scientific methods and my very cute little pink heart rate monitoring sports watch I have determined that my heart functions at the level of average fitness for a much younger woman. My heart acts like it is decades younger than it really is. Until doing some research and calculations - even with the very cute little pink heart rate monitoring watch - I feared that there was something wrong with me because my beats per minute weren't matching up to the general theoretical recommended percentages. But now I feel more like… hmmmmm… perhaps Wonder Woman?
Its amazing how learning truth and gathering correct information can transform the attitude. Many times I find that I have the right equipment and I know the general theoretical recommendations, but those things alone don't give me the real and complete truth and so I don't feel confident. Living based on truth and correct information is extremely liberating, not to mention encouraging, as well as empowering although nothing has really changed! My heart is the same heart today as it was last week - but today I feel like Wonder Woman and last week I felt old and tired and defeated. What would have happened if my fears and feelings had been the last of my quest for heart health truth? I probably would not have continued to walk and bike and eat healthy or to think I've got another several good decades ahead of me. And my heart would have eventually succumbed to hardness - literally - and decay would have set in due to inactivity and poor behavior. Then I would have felt bad in both my mind and my body. My feelings would have won and the truth would never have been discovered, believed, or given a chance to liberate, encourage and empower me. And eventually my feelings would have lead to my death.
In my spiritual heart there are times when I know the truth and don't feel free, courageous or powerful. It is those times that I have to remember that my feelings don't change my circumstance, situation, or position - except to make them worse by my own inactive faith and poor choices. It is those times that my mind has to act without regard to my feelings. I have to make a conscious choice to discover and believe the truth. And I have to choose to continue believing even when I don't feel like it. And if I continue to choose to believe, eventually my feelings will follow and I will not only believe it, and feel better because of it, but I will live in the truth and share in the amazingly abundant life of Christ that has already overcome death! If I wallow in my feelings, my spiritual heart hardens against the truth of God's promises, the truth of who he is, and the truth of who I am in Him. And the desire to move toward what He has planned for me dies. Life? Or death? Seems like an easy choice, doesn't it?
Hebrews 3:12-14: See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
John 8:32 - and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Swinging my Lasso of Truth,
amy (a/k/a Diana Prince)
Swinging my Lasso of Truth,
amy (a/k/a Diana Prince)
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