Accountability…
Does anyone experience a surge of joy when reading that word? We are all aware that the word accountability represents a healthy reality in each of our lives, but does anyone get excited about being accountable? I’m accountable to Amy and we have had some intense conservation at times over the years about areas of my life which don’t easily align with the expectation of God. I’m also grateful that God has placed a handful of men around me that have the ability to approach me about anything in my life. I, myself, have been permitted into the lives of a few men to serve as an accountability partner for their own benefit. It is a helpful thing to become vulnerable with someone and let them know that there are areas of life where you need their help, their guidance and, occasionally, their intervention and correction. Accountability…
I know that I need this aspect of Christian fellowship. I’m just not able to ever get enthusiastic about it.
I did something regrettable last Sunday during the second morning worship service at Meadow. I somehow let it slip that I was beginning a diet this week. So stupid! How easy it would have been to commit to a process of intestinal torture and deprivation and not let anyone know about it. It should have just stayed between me and Amy and then, if the bottom dropped out on my discipline and I continued to aggravate the bathroom scale each time I perched upon it, only the woman who has vowed to God to stay beside me would have known. Yet in some unbridled moment of pulpit enthusiasm I crammed in a 15 second illustration into an otherwise delightful sermon a statement regarding my need to lose forty pounds. Stupid, so stupid! Dumb little round man with untamed tongue! I let the cat out of the bag and now I’m on the hook. I went public with my decision to shed some tonnage.
Accountability. Not my favorite.
Since I went ahead and mentioned it to the church I thought I would really turn up the spirituality dial and blog a little about it. Yep, now I’m accountable to you. I need to lose forty pounds and I’m planning on doing it without invasive surgery. Growing up, I was always athletic (I’m now resisting the urge to post pictures into the blog of a well-toned, six-pack abs, cut biceps/protruding triceps and sculpted chest from 25 years ago). I worked out five days a week, two hours a day. I ate whatever I wanted and continued to be in shape until I got married at age 27. The good life now had me eating nine or ten square meals a day and each one gloriously came with its own desert. Coinciding with my new found ability to intake copious amounts of starch and sugar was the element of entering the senior pastorate at age 32. Rising early, staying in my study for hours of prayer and meditation, counseling and planning…my six-pack abs morphed into a well insulated cooler. I woke up at age 34 and declared to Amy, “Honey, help, there’s a short fat man looking bewildered at me in the bathroom mirror.” Amy, being the sweet, non-confrontational wife she is simply hugged the round man in the mirror and told him that she loved him.
Yesterday was the first day of the diet. I cried most of the morning and made an appointment with our church counselor during lunch to discuss the cruelty of life. I had a small piece of chicken and green beans for lunch. In more glorious days I would have enjoyed a pop-tart or a gas station pastry around mid afternoon. Now it’s grapefruit- that mockery of all that yearns for sweetness and lard! I knew I hit rock bottom when I saw on the diet plan that I was to enjoy two sticks of something called Melba Toast. Only two things wrong with that: the words ‘stick’ and ‘Melba’. I knew my life would never been the same.
It’s probably obvious why I’m not excited about my need for accountability. It cuts me off from the wonderful gift of God called FLAVOR. I’m done with it now and finding myself rather cranky. Don’t send me emails or diet plans or your own sob story about going through life as Fatty Fatterson; this is my blog and I’m the only one allowed to feel sorry for myself. If you want to talk about your battle with the bulge then get your own website. Wow, the more I write about this the more raging I’m becoming! I need a fix, man! I’m hurting, somebody help me…please.
Check back here in three months and if I haven’t lost 40 pounds you will know it. How will I know, you ask? Because I will have deleted this blog post and you won’t be able to find it with a ten foot stick of Melba Toast.
Dear J&J I will try and keep an eye on you both! D
Oh brother Jeff, dear, dear brother… I am due to preach in June at a church where I announced last april I was going on a diet. Not going well with that. I could have lost 100 lbs in the time that’s elapsed. Bad, bad times.
my first reaction is… “do you want some whine with that cheese?” but we ARE Baptist and CHEESE is probably not on the menu! 🙂 we all know that change can be painful but you have a huge (no pun intended) support group!!!!