Healthy Living

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Spring is a glorious time of the year. In my opinion, besides being one-fourth of God's promise that we will always have four seasons, it's the most beautiful of the four. Spring radiates new life, from trees rousing from their winter slumber to hibernating animals doing the same. Also included, is the birth of new life that occurs during spring calving season, which is common to us who live in cattle-country USA.

Spring, too, is the time of year when I awake from a personal winter-long semi-hibernation, and when I glance into the mirror I see a pudgy growth circling its way around my mid-section. "Where'd that come from,” I ask? “I'd swear it wasn't there yesterday; maybe it's a fast growing tumor."

Fortunately, it's not a tumor, but it's definitely a "something" that has to go, and I have just the ticket to get rid of it; it's known as walking.

Walking, I'm told, is one of the best overall exercises humans have at their disposal. The thing I like most about it is it's free, and I don't have to show a membership card, or use my debit card, whenever I want to do it. I can walk whenever I want about anywhere I want; I can walk by myself or with somebody, and go as far and for as long as I want.

If I encounter writers block, or while I'm online look at my bank account and panic; I simply minimize my computer screen, and head outside and walk around the block, until I've worked whatever is bugging me out of my system.

In less than two weeks I turn 66, and if I may be braggadocio for a moment one of my greatest spring and summer enjoyments is walking the Monument. I live about 25 miles from a National Monument that towers 800 plus feet into the clean, fresh, pollution-free air of western Nebraska. Years ago, a winding path to the top of the Monument was hewn into its steep slope, and the path is a mile-and-a half long to the top, or a three mile round trip.

Once nice weather is here, my youngest daughter, who is in her mid-twenties, and I walk that path two or three times a week. This, of course, depends on ours and her babysitter's schedule coinciding. If she can't make it, though, I often walk the path myself.

What an experience, step-by-step I walk over 800 feet into the sky; surrounded by the majesty of God and His creation. After years of walking the Monument, I understand why God made walking a beneficial exercise. Walking slows me down, even when I walk fast my mind works slower, filled with less clutter, which makes it possible for me to grasp more of Him.

No wonder the beauty of spring, and walking, goes hand-in-hand to the Glory of God. To Him goes the glory, for all He has done.

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