It’s been a week since this year’s Global Leadership Summit from Willow Creek Association and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on three fronts: career, health, spirit. My unexpected hospital stay couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Spending a birthday in the hospital because of an emergency allowed me to rethink my life.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to wax poetic over my “wake-up call.” I will confess though that turning forty-two with a disease that’s common for people in their sixties did prove sobering. And it didn’t help that when I let myself wander over to Facebook, photos of my high school classmates looking better than they did when we were fourteen to sixteen year olds, added to my lucid, harsh realization that neglecting my body has taken its toll.
By neglect I mean, unhealthy food choices, working twelve to fourteen hour days juggling three jobs, sitting on my butt day in and day out. Every excess came crashing down in one micro-perforation in my large intestine.
I lay flat on my back—literally—for twelve hours on a twelve-inch wide cot in the ER and I let myself fall into God’s arms. I had no more excuses. “I have updates to post!”; “I have three audiobook summaries to record!”; “Emails need to be answered!” I was done, fully spent, and just grateful I didn’t need surgery.
William Zinsser writes in the Introduction in his book, On Writing Well, that “Bloggers are saturating the globe”. His book is celebrating 30 years of being in print – revised, expanded and having sold more than a million copies.
