First off, let’s admit that’s a kinda creepy picture above. The idea of an arm with no body gives me the heebie jeebies. But after you get over that, there’s a pretty big idea behind the two hands connected to one arm.

One hand rests open, giving whatever it possesses, the other is clenched closed taking and keeping whatever it receives. Even the muscles in the forearm show the differences. The open handed side looks so relaxed, at rest, without tension; while the clenched side of the arm just looks tight, almost as if the muscles are angry and filled with frustration.

In life there’s a constant battle between give and take. Be it relationships, finances, time, the battle rages between the give and the take. Most often we try to achieve balance, for every take their is a give, as if life was on huge scale where we add weight to each side hoping for that perfect spot of balance. Too bad that’s not possible.

Then there’s the idea that if you’re all take, you must be selfish and if you’re all give then you’re a saint. I’d agree with the all take being selfish but I’d surmise that  the all give is equally unhealthy and wrong. Extremes, while more common than we’d like to assume, are usually never good. All give with no take, means you’re going to run out of what you have to give pretty quickly. All take with no give, means you’re squirreling away whatever it is you have (or worse letting it lay unused somewhere).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that each of us are in a constant state of having that freaky arm up there. We’re both giving and taking at the same time. Sure, there are seasons in life where our hand looks more like one than the other. There’s even truth that we need to take before we can give. But we also need to make sure we’re giving as we take.

Not sure I have a nice little thought to land this all on. Mostly it’s something my mind has been struggling with. The giving and taking in my own life, with my time, with my friendships, with my job, with my faith. When can I stop and say “Look I just need to take right now to make it through this” or maybe it’s me knowing that I’m in a position to give more than I have, or maybe even giving when I don’t feel like it.

Well, there you go. After months of perpetual silence on my blog, I’m back with a rambling post with no end. Oh well, so goes my mind. I’d love your thoughts if you’d care to comment.

So what has been going on in the life of Katie over the last two months? Change, change, and more change. I’ve started a new job at a new church. Well same job but new church. I’ve moved a bit closer to my home town of Denton, but still in the center of DFW. I’ve packed and unpacked about a million boxes (ok maybe just a hundred and there are still some left to be unpacked). I’ve met new kids and families and started to build relationships that make my job so worthwhile. I’ve laughed and cried and even questioned decisions and actions.

I think I’m still in the state of settling in and finding my new normal. Easy things to do in the midst of the holiday season (known as GAME DAY in the church world) of course. I know that normal will come eventually and without some grand fanfare.

So that’s me.

About a month ago I accepted a position as Director of Children’s Ministry at First Baptist Church of Coppell and I’m once again in the process of packing and moving to a new town where I know no one but my co-workers.

Ever feel like life is on a repeating loop? Ha, I do, but it’s a good loop that starts over frequently, but with different players and a new place to live.

I’m excited, a little bit scared (hey it’s something new and that always has a twinge of fear attached), sad to leave being at least geographically close to great friends here in Fort Worth, and generally overwhelmed that my life is changing again but in a good way.

So over the next few weeks I’ll pack all those empty boxes that are sitting in my apartment, say goodbye to kids and families that I’ve watched grow (literally!!!) over the last few years, say goodbye to the random people I see everyday at my gym and Starbucks (sad, I love my Starbucks, they know me, my car, and my drink!), and finish off at my current church home where I blazed my path in kids ministry as full-time paid work.

I’ll admit, I don’t like change. It freaks me out and yet secretly excites me at the same time. I think it’s because you’re dealing with two huge and battling feelings of excitement and sadness. You’re excited for the new, the uncharted, the unknown, but at the same time you mourn and miss the constant, the known, the what has been. And in those few weeks of the in between you’re feeling both sides fully and completely and that can be very overwhelming.

So changes are on the horizon again. It’s another chapter in the book of the life of Kpinion. Maybe this chapter will allow for a bit more blogging, thinking, reflecting, or general useless rambling (a jewel of a talent that I possess).

So that’s what’s up in my life right now. How about you?

I’m also clumsy, as anyone who knows me will attest. I’ve perfected the art of falling, tripping, running into things, all topped with an overall lack of balance.

With these great foundations, my journey of physical fitness has been comedic to say the least. Over the last four weeks I’ve discovered the following:

• I can’t stand on one leg without falling over.
• I have no core, or at least a very small core.
• If an exercise requires me to be coordinated it is very entertaining to watch me attempt it.
• I laugh at myself a lot.
• I don’t get sore but I do get tired.

(Note I started this a month ago and am picking it back up now – yikes, but oh well here are the rest of my thoughts)

But with 8 weeks of training sessions down, I find that I’m the bitter gym rat. I’m there 6 days a week, enough in fact that a few of the people at the front desk greet me by name as soon as I walk through the doors, many of the trainers recognize me and stop to say hello, and I’m beginning to notice the people that are “regulars” during my normal work out times. Also, I’m stronger and fitter than I have been in a long while. I found my core, though it’s still pretty small and only semi-functional. My balance has improved immensely although my clumsiness hasn’t. And best of all I surprise my trainer weekly with my progress. There’s something about the praise of a professional that makes you feel a bit better about yourself.

Now for more things I’ve  discovered about myself:

• I can run but I don’t like it, nor do I ever anticipate myself liking it.
• I don’t think I have endorphins (at least the ones that are supposed to fill you with joy after a tough workout).
• I make faces when I lift weights – as I found out when a complete stranger complimented me on them. AUGH!
• I competitive with myself when it comes to trying things I don’t think I can actually do. This was a nice discovery because I knew it applied to0 other areas of my life, but I’d pretty much given up on the athletic competitive area.
• And lastly, I think I’ve created a habit for working out. 

So that’s the update on my journey. I have about 3 or 4 weeks left with the trainer and then I’m on my own. Honestly, that freaks me out a bit, because without accountability I am really good at making excuses and justifying not working out. So I guess that’s the main test of whether this is a habit or a fad. Here’s to four more weeks of pain (or fun as my trainer calls it).

Well let’s just put it out there, I’ve been busy and preoccupied and probably a bit uninspired. And that seems to be a trend with my blogging for the last, oh year or so. BUT I hope to change that and wade back into the blogging pool slowly but with the intent to swim in the deep end again.

Yes, this is one of those posts that seems to hold promise but is really just a primer for the future “real” post, but that’s what you get today.

So come back soon, if you haven’t written me off for good, and I’ll have some updates on things going on in the world of Kpinion.

With my new membership came an orientation session with a trainer. I like to call this the “brutal truth session” because they not only weigh and measure you, but they also squeeze your fat with that handy dandy pincher thing and calculate how much of your body is made of Crisco. My mind always pictures Oprah pulling out her wagon of fat when I hear the words body fat calculation.

So there I go in my workout clothes with my bottle of water to hear what is every woman’s dream – your weight, the size of your hips, and the percentage of your body that allows you to remain boyant in water. After the joys of a obviously fit guy a few years younger than me pulling the tape measure around the parts of my body I like to refer to as curvy, he pulled out his trusty calculator to figure out my body fat percentage. Let’s just say that if I was ever tossed overboard at sea I could float until the coast guard came and found me, or a shark decided to make me lunch.

So with those great numbers now figured out I signed up for three sessions with the trainer in hopes that I would develop a great workout routine that lowers those numbers across the board.

On my first session, Andrew (my trainer who is a really nice guy and laughs at me when I laugh at myself so I think we’ll get along) sits me down and walks me through an online fitness program. It requires me to enter some basic bio info one of them being my newly discovered body fat percentage. He glances at me and asks if I remember it. YES ,I say emphatically shaking my head up and down, that number is now burned into my brain never to leave.

Then we hit the floor for some stretching and warm up. Good thing: I’m pretty flexible, bad thing: I’m miserably out of shape. Next was a run through the circuit trainer machine loop, where we tested my strength (weak) and my endurance (weak). This is where he laughed at me laughing at myself because I’d get halfway through the set and my face would begin to grimace as I fought through the last few reps. Finally he dropped my homework on me. I had to have two sessions of two trips through the circuit with twenty reps on each machine plus three cardio sessions before our next session. Oh boy!

So the first circuit session was . . . . . . . miserable. The first 10 reps are easy but the next 10 quickly become a nightmare. Oh and then I get to do it all over again. YAY! That was two days ago and my triceps, pecs, and shoulders are still burning. Thankfully I can lift my arms high enough to wash my hair (that was in doubt after that first day).

Tomorrow will mark session two of the circuit training. Hopefully I’ll survive. I’ll let you know.

We’ve laughed, cried, argued, pulled pranks on each other, and talked about the struggles of life together. They are sisters, friends, and wise women I look up to. This is an email exchange I had with E yesterday:

E: K and I have made some plans for us–hope you two can come!!  On Thursday, June 25, we are meeting at my house at 3:00 or 3:30 to go for manicure/pedicure in Snyder Plaza–”pick a color”!!!! then to dinner and end up barhopping and dancing up and down Greenville Ave. until the wee hours!!!  Can you come?

Me: I’m pretty sure I’m in, just have to double check one thing. Yay it’s been too long since I’ve been clubbing.

E: You know those three guys from SNL?  Well, get ready!!

How can you not love women like this?

These can take two forms:
1. Some sort of clumsy act in which I:

• fall down
• trip
• break something
• hurt myself
• hurt someone else by my falling
• or any combination of the above

2. Say something out loud that hasn’t been fully thought out

This story falls into category #2. So here we go . . .

A few weeks ago while hanging out with a group of friends, one of the guys (a co-worker) commented on our friend’s son and how he was eating his dinner in only his diaper. He said something along the lines of that he wished he could eat all his meals the same way. Another guy (who I don’t know so well) pipes in saying he likes that idea too.

And this is when the Classic Katie Moment hit. I ever so innocently looked at both these guys and said “See now my mind is picturing you two in your boxers . . .” A small moment of silenced followed and then I realized what I said, as did everyone else. Laughter ensued. Innocent? Yes. Funny for everyone else? Of course. Classic Katie Moment? Always.

Let’s admit that if your name is Mary, you get a pretty high profile spot in the lineup of women in the Bible. You have Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalen, Mary of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus fame, and then there’s the other Mary(s). These women were privy to the greatest story ever told and each held a front row seat for different parts of the life of Christ. And then on the final days of Christ’s life on earth, they gathered to witness the most unexpected ending to a story they were all part of.

In Christ, each of these women had found a friend, a teacher, a lord, a hope for a future that was almost forgotten, a purpose, an acceptance, a love greater than they had ever known, and a changing self that only comes in the presence of the Savior. But on that last day, they stood and watched as all hope seemed to fade away and the man they had known, had followed, and had learned from, the man in which they placed their hope, trust, and faith, was captured, tried, and sentenced to what would be an unimagined end in their minds. These women gathered at the cross anguished, broken hearted, and in pain to watch their lord suffer death.

I can only imagine the grief and questioning they experienced on that hill. I wonder if they even thought of the promises he had made, the claim to be the Christ, or where they so dispondent from the sight of the physical pain he was subjected to? Could they look past the absolute hurt at watching their friend, maybe the only one who had seen past the muck of their sin to the beauty of life in his love, succumb to the torture and death so wrongly thrust upon him? Were they even thinking of the claims he had made to be the Son of God, of his prediction of his death? Or was the grief so deep and penetrating that hope was lost?

These women, who had experienced life with Christ, were now witnessing his death and I wonder if they thought their own new life might die with him. There is a place where grief is so deep, so overwheming that hope is lost to the shadows and I think these Marys might have been in that place. There are days where the promise of a new dawn, a new day are lost to the darkness of the moment; where we are blinded by the pain to even be able to picture anything else. Sometimes these days come like the one these women experienced, filled with death or loss of hope and sometimes they are days where we just wonder if tomorrow will bring something better than today.

And then that day ended with such overwhelming grief as the women watched Jesus gasp his last breath; taken down from the cross broken, battered and lifeless; wrapped in cloth and rushed to a tomb that was not his own; then experienced the finality of the stone being rolled over the cave marking the end to a life they had joined in. I imagine that was the day that hope died for them too. And so when the Marys returned to the tomb, to show one last act of love and kindness for a man who had given them so much more, they were so filled with grief that the empty tomb held no hope for them but only sorrow.

But that day the great difference between eyes that are human and eyes that are eternal was shown. For they saw a tomb that was robbed and the angel saw a tomb that was conquered. A new day brought with it a long ago promised new reality, one that had banished the sting of death and brought with it a hope that was finally realized. Death had not won on this day, grief and sorrow would not be victorious. And the story these women had participated in had not ended with a man’s death on a cross but found its fulfillment with an empty tomb. A new dawn had come, a new day was here, and hope had survived its greatest test.

So how often are we the other Mary? Maybe it’s the story of our own lives, where grief and harship seem to triumph over hope, or maybe it’s the lives of those we call friends, who we share life with, that go through days where tomorrow doesn’t seem possible, where hope if questionable. How will we stand beside them as they struggle through their own trials? Will we believe that hope and promise will somehow overcome the darkness of today? And even if the ending of their story doesn’t come out the way we want it, will be rejoice that God has a plan, a wonderous, perfect plan that is always good and always bringing Him glory?

The Marys were part of a story that was overwhelming with its joy and grief. But maybe the point is that they were part of the story, they stayed until the end, whatever it might be.