Miracles for Elephants

I’m a big believer in MIRACLES.

When seemingly impossible things happen to normal people.

I know, because I’m a walking miracle. If I look at my life, and chronicle everything that has ever happened to me, I can see that I have been the recipient of miracles more than once. More than 10 times. I’ve probably experienced more miracles than I’ll ever know this side of heaven.

So when it comes to me ASKING for miracles, I’m pretty bold about it. I ask God for crazy things- some that He gives me, and some I will never see. (for my own good, cause God has MET ME)

But when I decided to lose the weight, I knew it would take a miracle. Fat chicks like me never actually lose the weight, we just keep putting it on. That was the cycle I knew so personally. In desperation, I asked God again for one of my “Crazy Charlie Specials.” The impossible type of miracle.

Not every miracle happens in a miraculous way. Some miracles take a lot of tough decision making. A lot of sweat. Hard work. Some miracles have to be grown in the very core of our being.

I knew that I wouldn’t wake up one morning and be thinny. (Although you can bet your buttons I begged for that option.) Instead, I decided that the best way for me to tackle this one was to eat the elephant (aka: the diet) the only way I could- one bite at a time.

There are some interesting things that happen when you attempt to eat an elephant like me. Once you find your elephant, it would be a whole lot easier to walk away from it than attempt to eat it. It would be easy to say “I can’t handle an elephant of this size!” and give up. I know cause I spent the majority of my adult life thinking that I would never be ready to sit down with my elephant and dig in.

But once I finally saw the right elephant for me, something clicked. I knew this was MY elephant. It was the right time. And the elephant had my name written all over it. All the other elephants out there had been all wrong. They had someone else’s name written on it. But I had tried to eat them anyway. And I could never finish them. There are lots of half eaten elephants out there in the world that bear my dental records. Some of them only have a bite or two taken out.

But eating Charlie’s elephant has been a whole new experience. Even though not every bite has been pleasant, they have all been productive morsels. I’ve had to walk away for a week or two sometimes because I needed to get the taste of pachyderm out of my mouth, but I always came back to finish what I had started! It wasn’t the fact I was dieting that was the miracle. It was the fact that I kept coming back every day to work on my miracle. And it’s almost the slowest miracle I have experienced to date.

So what is it gonna take for you to find your elephant? Is it going to take a class reunion where you want to look your best? A doctor visit that ends with a handful of prescriptions because your body can’t tolerate the weight? Is it going to take falling into a deep depression about how you feel about yourself? (I don’t recommend that route, but it does work, although it’s pretty painful…)

And once you find your elephant, are you going to commit to working at it a little bit every day? With every single bite counting toward your goal? How long are you willing to work for your miracle? Are you willing to give it a week? A month? A year? Maybe even 3?

I’m on year 3 of eating the same dang elephant day after day after day. But I’m almost to the end. And the closer I get, the more I feel the miraculous-ness of what I’ve accomplished. I am now am thinner than I have ever been in my entire adult life. The last time I was close to this weight was exactly 11 ½ years ago. And it was only for a couple of days. But now, I’m maintaining this weight. Going down further. And my elephant doesn’t look anything like it used too. I’m almost down to the tail. And after 3 years of nothing but elephant, my tail looks pretty darn good.

Sometimes the miracle isn’t that you ate an elephant. The miracle is learning that YOU CAN eat one. Learning to believe in yourself. Finding an inner strength you never knew you had. Realizing that if you set your mind to it, eating an elephant isn’t so bad after all.

There ARE miracles for elephants, even for us.

We just have to chews to believe it.