I have started swimming again.  Well, not swimming really, but water aerobics.  I decided to do something to give me some strength back.  I quit five years ago when I had chemo.  And then Ken's decline kept me at home.  But going back to a good habit I once had was difficult.  At least for me it was.  I thought about it; I considered it;  etc. etc. etc…for weeks.

But the day I dug around, found a bathing suit and put it on was the decisive day.  "Am I actually going to do this?" I asked myself.  At every step, I wanted to back out.  I do hate to exercise.  I would rather read a book.  Or anything else.  But I went.

And then, there was the next day.  And the next.   I've been going for two weeks and am finally to the place that I put a suit on, get a towel, trudge out the door, get in the car and drive five miles.  Why is it so hard to do the things we know are good for us and so easy to do the things that are bad for us?

I baked cookies last week. I don't know what came over me, I usually don't eat sweets.  It turned out to be seven dozen (after I had eaten a lot of the dough).  And then I ate way too many cookies.  It was not a good thing.  Sugar.  Shortening.  Flour. etc. etc.  It was like I couldn't stop eating cookies even though I knew that one cookie was okay,  but ten cookies and a ton of cookie dough wasn't.

I packaged them all up in packages of a dozen and gave them away.  Not because I am a good person, but because I knew I would eat  all of them if I didn't get them out of the house.  At least I did the right thing, even if it was for the wrong reason.  Everyone enjoyed them.

Swimming I did for the right reason.  Giving cookies away, I guess I did for the wrong reason.  Either way, I did a good thing.  It's the outcome that counts.  Remember the story Jesus told about the man that said he would help and then he didn't.  And the man who said he wouldn't help, but then he did?

Colossians 3: 17 "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."  It's the doing that counts.  Doing the right thing changes you.  Even if you don't want to do the right thing.  Do it anyway.