Time Weights for No Man

Some sixteen months or so ago, I stood 6 feet tall, weighed 255 pounds and wore size 40 pants. One morning, an event occurred that prompted me to lose some weight. As I was getting dressed, I attempted to put my socks on and they didn’t fit. That’s right, my SOCKS didn’t fit. Oh sure, I hadn’t been able to button the top button on my shirts, and walking to the car would send me into heart palpitations and begin a display of sweating that could submerge a small town. But none of those things precipitated a thought that said, “Hey Buddha-Boy, keep this up and you’re gonna die.”

Nope, it wasn’t until my socks didn’t fit, that I said to myself, “Um, Matt, your SOCKS don’t accommodate your fat ass feet for God sakes, lose some weight you Dennis Hastert looking mo fo.”

So, I decided to do it. I quit eating carbs five to six days a week. You might call it “Atkins-Lite”. Hey, I gotta have some pasta or a good piece of buttered bread once in awhile. I also began drinking 2 to 3 quarts of water a day. If you count the Wild Irish Rose, I drink 4 to 6 quarts of liquid a day.

After sixteen months of this, I still stand 6 feet tall, but now weigh 206 lbs. and wear a size 36 or 38 pant, depending on which young Guatemalan child stitched them. I figure that if I lose another fifteen pounds, I’ll be where I want to be.

There’s still one problem. I am getting old. Not emotionally, socially, or mentally, just bodily. Even though I’ve lost weight, and some day will quit smoking, I just can’t stop time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like this is an epiphany that I’ve just had. I comb my hair with a towel for Chrissakes, so I am well aware of of Father Time.

My peeve is with the little day to day deteriorations. Monday morning I woke up and by simply getting up, I pulled a muscle in my back. I am still in pain as I type. It’s not bad enough that my eyesight is 20/700, now I find myself 8-12 months away from needing bi-focals. And constantly having to move a book further and closer in order to focus, leaves my arms weary and weak.

I can simply be walking across the floor and hear my ankles crack and knees snap, but the biggest downer came a couple of weeks ago. Whilst finishing my morning constitutional, as I reached back to wipe my ass, I heard my shoulder pop with great clarity. The pain and humiliation were excruciating. The once pleasant practice of dropping a load while perusing Jon Stewart’s “America” or a compilation of “The Onion”, has now become something I approach with dread and apprehension.

I know that losing weight and hopefully a smoke-less future will buy me a couple of years, years that I can spend with my son who I adore. The funny thing is, sometimes, when playing basketball with my son, I get jealous of his energy and agility. It is at those very moments when I want to muster up every arthritic bone, every atrophied muscle, and push his ass out of the way and go in for a reverse lay-up.

I just hope that when I eventually do that, that he finds it in his heart to call the emergency squad for me.

And Now…Our Moment of Hinn

“You know that the Lord appeared in Romania recently and there's a video of it, where the Lord appeared in there back of a church and you see Him on video walking down the aisle, Yea. Paul do you remember when I came on TBN years ago I showed you a clip of the Lord appearing in our church in Orlando on the balcony on the wall?”

--Benny Hinn