One summer I was on a mission trip in rural Mexico. This was sometime between 2010 and 2014, I can’t remember which exact summer it was, but one of those. I’ve been a bigger guy my whole adult life and I certainly wasn’t in good shape then. Although I greatly enjoyed these trips in that time, it was definately a struggle.
We were staying at a pastor’s house, and I woke up a bit early and decided to go for a walk, as I genuinely love the area I was in. There was a small, rough road that ran beside his house I walked up. Not far past his house it turned into a dirt trail which led up to a cemetary. I remember I had my headphones in listening to, unironically (because it just happened to come up in a shuffle) “Mexican Radio” by Wall of Voodoo.
I walked up that road and a little bit of the dirt trail, already out of breath after about a minute or two of walking. I turned around and was just looking at the house, the fields the early morning sky, and the other stuff around. It was fairly quiet and peaceful with a slight breeze.
And somewhere out of the blue an image and a thought hit me. I saw myself standing on very extreme edge of a huge cliff. And I heard a voice in my head say “If you don’t do something soon, you are going to fall off that cliff and there is no turning back.” I knew this was in regards to my health.
But I also know that I didn’t make a change. I was stuck in the over-eating/poor eating habits I had been in my whole life…with an occasional and short lived attempt at “making a change” or “going on a diet.
But looking back I also think that WAS the beginning of falling off that cliff. It wasn’t a quick fall. It could have been. It could have been a heart attack, a stroke, some debilitating injury, a major medical issue, or death. It could have been a quick and permenant fall.
But it was a slow fall. Over the next decade the decent continued. Arthritis became much more of an issue. Weight continued to pile on. Eating habits didn’t change. A knee injury that still plagues me to this day. Constant pain and discomfort. And increasingly becoming less and less mobile. It was a slow and steady fall.
But it was still a fall. i was growing more and more miserable. Life was getting harder.
Then a change came in the fall of 2023.
With the beginning of the journey of weight loss surgery I caught a branch on my way (weigh?) down.
I still had a chance. I grabbed that branch and held on…then I started slowly climbing back up.
Recently I was going through a mundane day. I think I was backing out of my driveway going to work or somewhere. Suddenly right there in the middle of that road, I knew something as sure as I knew anything: I know if I hadn’t taken this path, if I hadn’t grabbed this branch, that within a years time, two tops, I would go through some life altering event. Something that there was no coming back from.
I don’t think it was spiritual or supernatural event or anything. I think my brain just clicked that the path I was on before just wasn’t sustainable. Something WOULD give.
There are no guarantees in this life. Our family has been party to a personal and painful tragedy that reminds me of that fact all too clearly. Even though I’m on this health journey and i’m starting to see hope, I could still keel over tomorrow. I could still have a heart attack or stroke. I’m only a few months into this process and I have a long, long way to go. I’m still morbidly obese, and still struggle with a lot of things.
But I’m glad I decided to catch that branch and to give myself a chance. I’m glad my wife pushd me toward it. I’m glad that although it’s still early days, I’m starting to make a climb toward better health. I hope I don’t slip.
For you, it may not be weight loss surgery. Or it may be. I don’t know. I just urge you to recognize and CATCH THAT BRANCH.