The stuff God’s been challenging me with these past weeks all have to do with authenticity.  That’s a big word for me.  I grew up in a situation where the most important thing was what people thought of you.  There were “expectations” that you needed to live up to.  As a girl, I was expected to have curly hair, wear dresses, play with dolls, drink out of china teacups, enjoy playing house.  I was expected to behave properly at all times, not be rambunctious, and probably grow up to be a nurse.

Now, I have two sisters that followed this path quite nicely.  They had beautiful hair that curled – one has naturally curly hair – loved to play with dolls, they behaved themselves properly, and mostly did what was expected of them.  They always looked like little princesses – and I don’t mean that in any kind of derogatory fashion.  I have great sisters.  They are both fairly domestic, however, and love things like cooking, sewing, handwork, and dolls – even now they have amazing collections of “build-a-bear” dolls with all the clothes.

Now I, on the other hand, was not born with enough hair to do anything with.  If you did manage to get a curler in it, it would fall out.  If the curler managed to stay in long enough to do something (with the help a enormous amounts of pins, gel, and hairspray) it would leave my hair kinked, not curled.  My poor mother.  I wore dresses (there were few other options for little girls in my era) but peeking out below the hem were always two battered knees and I also always sported pokey battered elbows.  I didn’t much like dolls and playing house.  I collected bugs and climbed trees.  My pets included snakes, toads, and gerbils (among others) and my mother just stopped checking my pockets before washing my clothes because there was usually something alive in there.

I lived on my bike.  I would ride for hours, hide out in the local forests we had in our area (it was a safer world then) and build forts, live adventures and get really, really dirty.

Understandably, I had a hard time fitting in.

When I was very young people discovered I could sing, and from the age of three I sang everywhere – churches, old folk’s homes, weddings, funerals, and managed to do it full-time for 5 years before I got married (my husband was actually my sound engineer).  That gift put me firmly in the spotlight, and gave me a place where I WAS doing things right, and where I COULD shine as easily as I could breathe.

The problem is once the kids came along and we were living in the middle of nowhere in the stunning French Alps, the opportunities to sing were vastly reduced.  My daughter wasn’t even all that fussed on lullabies and children’s songs, so there weren’t even many opportunities to sing at home behind closed doors.

It took almost 15 years for me to realize that my music so defined my personal value, that I had no idea who I was without it.  The last couple of years have been all about finding another place of  ”authority” as there’s no longer any real place for me to share my music in my current lifestyle.

This blog has been a part of that.  I wanted to come across as the fitness and health guru – the amazing “woman from nowhere who has the ultimate key to success”.  I envision myself trim, strong, muscled, high-energy, beautiful, glowing, and the vision of health and energy (Try not to fall about the place laughing!  :D)

The truth is, I’m 20lbs overweight – and those pounds are stuck to me like glue – I’m often scattered and unfocused, overwhelmed, I wear funny shoes, training pants that are just a little too short, and my hair sticks out in the morning, necessitating a hat.  In short, I’m cheap, and I have the fashion sense of a duck.

I do love to walk though, and I love working on my health and fitness.  I’m not a guru.  Not by a long shot.  You all know that, and now I know it too.  It’s not about being amazing and having all the answers.  It’s about being real.

So there you have it.  That’s me, warts and all.  I’m firmly on this journey of health, strength and wellness.  I have no intention of languishing in a home for the last 10 years of my life disconnected and disinterested.  I want to die laughing in the middle of a great adventure.  That part is true.

I want to live fully, authentically, and with a great sense of grace and humour towards myself and others.  That’s the direction this blog is going to take, and I’d love to invite you along for the ride.

What do you think?

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Who is Darlene Hull? Click here: www.darlenehull.com to find out!

One of the main purposes of “PraiseWalking” is to bring your spirit, soul, and body together in a place of growing. One way to do this is to practice spiritual exercises while walking, and one of the easiest exercises to do is a “Gratitude Walk”.  If you think of the 4 definitions of a noun “Person, Place, Thing or Idea” and use them as your guide, you can spend your whole walk thinking of things you’re thankful for. First you think of all the people, but instead of just listing names, be specific. For example, I might pray: I’m thankful for my husband who is, to me, an incarnation of Christ; He loves me unconditionally and shows me through that, the heart of God.

I am thankful for my son who has a serving, compassionate heart and a dry wit that makes me laugh out loud.

I am thankful for my daughter, the muse, who always brings a deep question to a light conversation, and makes us think. Then you move on to places, and in those places, experiences. Then things you’re thankful for, and why. Finally, think of things like love, joy, beauty, sorrow, pain, and anything else that is a part of your life. You might want to write yours down and share them below.  Or put them on your own blog, and link to it here. I’d love to create a HUGE collection of these, and start a gratitude revolution.  Wanna join me?

Darlene

Don’t forget to pick up your FREE COPY of the PraiseWalker Primer! And also, please check out my Christmas challenge here!

Well, how did you do this week? Did you manage any or all of the training steps? Post your reaction below, and share with us your trials and triumphs. Let’s spur each other on to greater things!

Week one is behind us, so let’s look ahead to week 2. Remember these assignments all start on Monday so you have the weekend to get yourself “kitted out” and “psyched up”:

1. Equipment Needs: See last week for basic equipment, and this week add a timer, either a watch that beeps on the hour, or some other kind of timer.

2. The Spiritual Challenge: The big key with spiritual growth is making sure you’re on the right track in the first place. I love this quote by John Eldredge:

Life, for most of us, feels like a movie we’ve arrived to forty minutes late.

Sure, good things happen, sometimes beautiful things. But tragic things happen, too. What does
it mean? We find ourselves in the middle of a story that is sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, usually a confusing mixture of both, and we haven’t a clue how to make sense of it all.
No wonder we keep losing heart.

We need to know the rest of the story.

For when we were born, we were born into the midst of a great story begun before the dawn of time. A story of adventure, of risk and loss, heroism, …and betrayal. A story where good is warring against evil, danger lurks around every corner, and glorious deeds wait to be done. Think of all those stories you’ve ever loved – there’s a reason they stirred your heart. They’ve been trying to tell you about the true Epic ever since you were young.

There is a Larger Story. And you have a crucial role to play.

That’s what our Spiritual walk is all about. Understanding the Larger Story and what our role is, in it. John’s book “The Epic” is the best book I’ve ever read on that story. Your Spiritual homework this week is to read it, listen to it, or watch it. It’s a pretty small book, but it will be hard to put down, I promise, and it will probably change the way you see everything.

3. Nutritional Focus: Water

• Now fill your water bottle up full. In the morning drink half before you get out of bed, and drink the other half before you leave your bedroom, to get ready for the day.

4. The Exercise Program: We’re going to continue to increase our daily steps, but this week we’re going to put our focus on our posture, as well.

And there you have it – very manageable tasks for each day of next week. Get your equipment together over the weekend, and off you go!

Post your results, struggles, triumphs and questions below!

Happy Walking!

Darlene

I am so excited about this project! You see, on October 12, 2008 I’m going to walk my very first Marathon in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Who’da thunk it? As I’ve been training for this event I have been struck by how God is speaking to me about my walk with Him and how it compares to Marathon training. As a blogging junkie I thought (hoped?) it might be fun to share some of those insights with others, and inspire some conversation both about walking/fitness/achieving audacious goals, and about what it really means to walk with God. I’d love to have your input and insight along my journey, and I hope we can encourage each other.

You need to know that I am NOT an athlete. I hate sports – except for the occasional World Cup Soccer Championship game on TV – and was always the one no one wanted on their team in school. In fact, I clearly remember a fist fight breaking out between two captains who were adamantly refusing to have me on their team. Sigh. I don’t like sore muscles, heavy breathing or sweat, and for the past five years I’ve been perfecting the art of being a “computer potato” (as opposed to a couch potato).

In September of 2007 my husband started inspiring me to go to the gym 3x a week, and I was sporadically faithful with that, but it wasn’t great. I didn’t really enjoy it. I have been getting more and more frustrated by the extra poundage two large babies and an undisciplined lifestyle have brought me, and I was determined to get it off. I set up a challenge with a friend to get the weight off, and began some intense research about weight loss and fitness.

The first thing I did was get back to my “prayer walking”, a meditation habit where I walked about 5 km while reciting prayers using an Anglican Rosary. I then worked to increase that to 10km a day, and then the purchase of the Nike+iPod system to track my steps – only it doesn’t – then inspired me to push myself ever further, until one day (July 1, 2008) I decided I was going to walk a Marathon.

So, here I am.

What I envision this blog to be is a source of information and encouragement to help others (as well as myself) push themselves to greater health, both physically and spiritually. As it says in the New Testament book of 1 Timothy, Chapter 4, verse 8: For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. That would be my goal!

I thought that Mondays might be a good day to set up some challenges for us to follow together. My goal would be for all of us to grow in a kind of community. Then on Wednesdays I’d talk about what I’m learning physically in a broader sense, and on Fridays I’d share what’s going on with me spiritually, and through those posts invite some good discussion.

I follow the path of Christian Spirituality. It’s quite possible that you don’t and aren’t interested in learning about it. Hey, that’s cool. One thing I have discovered though, is that the more I interest myself in what others believe, the more I understand people who make different choices, and the clearer my own beliefs become. Let me challenge you to do the same. You may find that as I give out challenges for Spiritual fitness on my blog, that they’re able to be adapted to your own beliefs, and will help you grow in your own chosen faith. I hope so.

So I plan to kick this off on Monday with the first challenges. I hope you’ll be there, invite some friends to join us, and that you’ll leave a comment, question, word of encouragement, share a frustration, or celebrate your triumphs with us.

Oh, and don’t worry! I hope to keep the posts MUCH, MUCH shorter than this!