Try Harder

Sometimes it's hard for me to believe it was over three years ago that I began my nightly walks with my little hound J.R. There are times when that seems like an eternity ago, and then there are other times when it seems like it was just yesterday. I weighed a lot more back then, and J.R. was a pretty chunky fellow himself. Walking was hard for both of us in the beginning ... really hard. In the book I wrote about our journey together, God Even Loves Wiener Dogs, I mentioned that I often wondered who waddled most as we walked together, me or my little fat buddy. I was so out of shape when J.R. and I first started walking on the trail across the street from my house that I would often have to stop and rest for a while before I could go on ... walking for more than 15 or 20 minutes seemed almost like an impossible feat for me to accomplish. Those walks began as an attempt to help J.R.'s injured back, but after I was diagnosed with diabetes, our walks together became a critical component in helping me manage my blood sugar levels.

I have a ton of memories from my time on the trail with J.R., but there's one in particular that's been pounding in my brain since I left the life-saving head doctor's office last night after my appointment. There were many evenings when I didn't think I could walk as far or as long as I needed to ... when I was so tired or my feet hurt or I struggled to breathe ... so many evenings when I would say to J.R., "I just can't do it, J.R. ... I can't do it. I'm never going to be able to lose the weight, buddy ... it's too hard ... I just can't do it." And quite often on those particular nights, I would gather J.R. into my arms and sit down in the grass by the creek for a while, feeling very much like I was failing my little dog, like I was letting him down because I wanted to stop trying. But there always came a point as we sat by the creek when a different feeling would begin to take root within me, a point when I would stand up and say, "I need to try harder, J.R. ... I need to try harder."

If you've been reading with me for even a short amount of time, you know that God has been trying to teach me a whole lot of lessons over the last few years. And if you know that, then you know that it often takes a while for those lessons to work their way into my stubborn brain, and that God usually has to use more than a few different means to get me to pay attention to what He's saying. So when the doctor said several times last night that I needed to try harder in regard to a certain "getting OK" exercise, her words struck a chord deep within me ... a chord that resonated back to a time when I felt as though I couldn't take one more step or walk one more mile. And when she spoke about how others are pushing me and challenging me because I'm not pushing myself, I thought about all those nights that I kept walking because J.R. was depending on me to do the right thing by him. The truth, though, the real truth is that the times when those walks were the hardest and most difficult for me were the times when they did me the most good ... physically, mentally and emotionally.

Three years ago, I could barely walk to the end of my street and back with J.R. Tonight, Oliver and I walked six miles together. The doctor's words are crashing through my mind ... "Try harder, Terrie ... you've got to try harder." Maybe she's right ... maybe she's right.