COVID-19

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I’m Trying To Lose My COVID 19

Somehow COVID has caught up with me and I’m trying to lose it now. … I guess saying it that way is better than saying that I have COVID 19.

I'm trying to lose my COVID 10

Let me clarify. 

The other day when I was playing hockey, I came back to the bench exhausted and frustrated with my play. As I settled into my spot on the bench, I said “I have COVID 19”, to which another guy on the bench responded, “I’m doing better than you; I only have COVID 15.”

We were talking about how many pounds we’ve gained since the whole COVID thing started.

I remember when I was in college, there was a running joke called “the Freshman 15”. It referred to how the freshmen girls gained about that many pounds on a steady diet of cafeteria food.

Some of the guys thought it was funny; not so much the freshman girls.

For me and my 19 pounds – which is pretty close to accurate – it’s been a steady incline. 

At the beginning, there was the loss of sports available to play, coupled with a nagging knee problem that kept me from working out in my home gym.

But as time when on, and the underlying pressure to isolate continued, I really lost my motivation to stay fit. 

It was too easy to have that extra Dr. Pepper during the week – well, maybe two extra. 

And I remembered just how good a Big Turk chocolate bar tasted. 

And those Twizzler commercials looked so fun, I had to have some liquorice.

After a while I lost my motivation all together to work out at home. I found that I was more tired than normal.

And all the time my COVID went from 7 to 10 pounds. 

There were days that I was determined to get back to exercising. But when I would get home from work, I would just look at the equipment, shake my head and grab a Twizzler while I watched TV.

The more time went by, my COVID started rising to 13, then 17 pounds. 

There were a couple of T-shirts that I didn’t wear this summer because, well, they were just too tight and I didn’t want to look like a “person of Walmart”.

But now I think I’ve turned a corner and I’m trying to lose my COVID 19.

I’ve exercised every day this week and I’ve refrained (for the most part) from stuffing my face with chocolate, chips and ice cream.

As hard as it was to turn the lights on in my home gym and to sit down on my rowing machine, I did it. I did it once and that made it easier to do it again. It got easier each day.

I’m not sure what it was that got me motivated. It might have been how sluggish I’ve felt playing hockey. 

It might be a fear of my body getting out of control. And I know there was some concern for my health.

I don’t want another heart attack. 

It’s probably all these things that came together to spur me on to lose my COVID once and for all. 

Here’s the thing: Many people are confronted with the claims of Christ. Some are convinced. Yet they still fail to follow through and commit to Christ. If that is you, ask yourself, “What will it take to motivate me to place my faith in Christ and follow Him?”

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need motivation for right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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A New Study On COVID-19 Would Prove Interesting

I’m wondering if a new study could correlate the level of anxiety people have about the coronavirus with how much mainline media they watch.

a new study on COVID-19 would prove interesting

A study might prove that we are way more likely to believe what we hear, see or read in the news than we were years ago … I mean from when I was growing up.

If something is said on the news today, we accept it and grapple with it from the standpoint that it is 100% correct. 

Here’s why I think that. 

I don’t remember ever having a snow day when I was in school. Surely we don’t receive more snow, heavier snow, deeper snow and freezing rain now with global warming than we did when I was growing up.

I remember days that the snow would be over our boots with a layer of ice on top. We didn’t get to stay home. Our walk to school was just more of an adventure.

I remember skating up and down my street because it was so icy, but I don’t remember my dad staying home from work.

When I grew up, the weatherman was the comedy section of the newscast. He was wrong more than he was right.

Today we believe the weatherman. Granted he is more right now than years ago but, along with believing him, I bet a study would show we have become more anxious about going out in what we might have years ago called, “weather”.

When we hear something on the news, facts are used to create an emotional response in us. That means facts are presented in such a way as to get us to feel something. Some facts may not be presented, and sometimes facts may be skewed a little to steer us in the way the news station wants us to think. 

I believe more and more people don’t think for themselves but rather form their opinions, ideas and arguments based on what they are given by mainstream news.  

For instance, our prime minister has been holed up in his home for over three months. He has suspended the government from meeting, and given daily press conferences, urging us to social distance, stay home, stay safe. 

But then he showed up at a protest, having his picture taken surrounded by people pressing in on him, none of whom were practicing any kind of social distancing. 

So what is right? Should we stay home? Should we social distance? 

Should the prime minister be torched by the media for disregarding his own mantra and that of the medical community? Should he be crucified in the news for setting a horrible example and a double standard for all of Canada? Should he be held to a higher standard? 

Well, he is not. In fact, that wasn’t even the subject of the news. They focused on how aligned he was with the protest. 

Why could he not show his support and comment from his little tent outside his home? 

There is no logic, no consistency, no integrity in what he says about COVID.  

The news wants you to be moved by the topic, regardless of how ludicrous it was for him to do what he did. 

… And we buy into it.  

Here’s the thing: Friends, truth matters and where you go to find truth matters. We must check our sources and apply good logic and wisdom to what we believe. God has given us His Word. I encourage you to check it out, investigate it and study it. I know if you do you will find it to be true – the Truth. 

That’s Life!

Paul 

Question: What do you believe right now that you have not checked out? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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My Tinnitus Just Got Diagnosed Today

It’s been so quiet around here that I discovered I have tinnitus.

My Tinnitus Just God Diagnosed

I shouldn’t be surprised … and it makes perfect sense that I would have it. I’ve certainly been exposed to my share of loud noises. 

But, until this Covid isolation, I really hadn’t noticed it at all. That might say something about how infrequently I am in silence. 

If anyone should have tinnitus, it should be my daughter, Karlie. When she was weeks old, she was in a gym, filled with high school students kicking basketballs and volleyballs and yelling at the top of their lungs. Somehow she slept right through all the noise, but you’d think that maybe it would have brought on some tinnitus effects. 

So far nothing for her.   

But then there is my wife. She spent much of her youth listening to quartet music … mostly because her dad sang in a quartet. It’s hardly the kind of music that you would think could produce tinnitus, but she has developed a rather pronounced case.

… Which leads me to think that my parents were upset at the wrong music when I was listening to my rock music at levels that were known to fry speakers.

I also went to concerts – a lot of them – in my late teens and early twenties.

It was not uncommon at those concerts to have difficulty hearing the person right beside you tell you he thought the band was great. You just guessed what he was saying by the huge smile on his face.

There was one concert I went to, however, that beat all other concerts for causing my potential hearing damage. 

It was an Emerson Lake and Palmer (ELP) concert – and it was outdoors, no less. I was more that halfway back from the stage in the football stadium, but when the dust settled after the concert, I had ringing in my ears for three days!

I had never experienced that before.

My ears should have been ruined, but they weren’t. I still had great hearing and I think my hearing now is still pretty good for someone my age. 

I don’t have any trouble hearing most people, as opposed to my quartet-listening wife. 

In the midst of all this isolation, I find that I am alone more in my office. There is nothing happening outside my office either. All there is is silence. In that silence that surrounds me, I am starting to pick up some white noise in my ears.

Some people pay money to buy white noise recordings so they can calm down or get to sleep at night. I get my white noise for free.

I understand that what I have is nothing – it’s minor, not really even a bother. But I am wondering what else I will discover about myself as our isolation continues. 

… Well, I better turn up the iTunes on my computer so I don’t fall asleep with all this white noise in my ears. 

Here’s the thing: When our world is full of sound, sometimes it’s hard to hear what God might be saying to us. Our attention is on other things, turned to other sources. Right now, while we are experiencing more time to be quiet and think, while we encounter a season where we can actually hear what’s going on between our ears, take the time to try to hear God. He is saying things to you in nature, through other people, in your thoughts and, ultimately, through His Word the Bible. Let’s not miss this opportunity to tune Him in. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you been using silence to your advantage lately? Leave your comments and questions below.

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A Tale Of Contradictions

We are all supposed to practice social distancing right now, but there are lots of contradictions.

A Tale of Contradictions

The other day I needed something from a store … well, maybe “need” is too strong a word.

I’d ordered a part to help me livestream online, but when it was delivered I discovered that it didn’t come with a power source.

Do you remember commercials for kids’ toys years ago? At the end of the commercials the announcer would say, “batteries not included”. Well, it turns out I ordered a product like that. It ran on DC current or rechargeable batteries but came with neither.

I headed straight for a store that sold both.

The store was practicing social distancing – which I completely understood – but there were obvious contradictions. 

I was first asked to stand in a line outside the store, marked with tape every six feet. 

I happened to be the only one in the line and, judging by the number of cars in the lot, there were probably only about ten customers in the store. 

In front of me was a store employee, standing a good six feet from me. He informed me how my shopping experience was going to go.

First there would be no cash, no paper receipts and, when I did enter the store, I would have an advisor who would assist me with my shopping. 

Okay, that was fine. 

The employee asked me what I was looking for and when I told him, I got the impression that what I wanted wasn’t really worth his effort. 

He said the two employees in the store that could help me were both busy with customers, so I would have to wait. 

In the mean time, he asked me for details about what I wanted. When I told him I needed a battery, he looked it up on his phone and promptly exclaimed they did not have that battery in the store.  

Unfazed, I replied, “Then I need a power adapter.”  

He wanted to know more about the adaptor so I pulled out the user guide and read the specifications to him. 

He apparently didn’t believe me, so he entered my six-foot bubble and asked if he could have the guide. He gave it back after he’d touched it with both his hands.

Armed with information, he went inside the store and several minutes later emerged with a box and another employee.

This other employee also got inside the six-foot perimeter to ask me more questions. He also touched my guide and had his hands all over the product they brought out to me. 

Once I decided to purchase the adaptor – and the possible accompanying coronavirus all over it – we went inside the store to complete the purchase. 

I decided to pay with my watch since I wouldn’t have to touch anything. It worked perfectly. 

I was told they were going to email me the receipt – perfect! But I had to agree to that by selecting “yes” on the key pad – crazy! I couldn’t do that without touching the screen with my finger or picking up the attached pen to select “yes”. 

Are you kidding me? How many others had touched those things? 

Their measures were strict but not consistent. Their contradictions made me want to wash my hands immediately … but there was no sanitizer anywhere!

Here’s the thing: We can find contradictions everywhere in life. We contradict ourselves when we say people need to be tolerant, but then we are intolerant of those who don’t agree with us. We can’t get away from contradictions. But God never contradicts Himself. When you align your life with Him, you can be sure you won’t be disappointed. 

That’s Life! 

Paul

Question: What’s a contradiction that has bugged you lately? Leave your comments and questions below.