Hit the Wall

Your body stores carbohydrates in muscle and liver in a form that is referred to as glycogen. During exercise, your working muscles can tap these glycogen stores for energy. The working muscles can also use circulation blood sugar, which essentially comes from liver, glycogen, and circulation fat, which comes from our body fat stores. (This is the reason we always hope that exercise causes us to lose weight) This gives your working muscles three fuel depots to draw from during exercise. When you run out of stored muscle glycogen, you 'hit the wall'! The reason that you 'hit the wall' is that the only sources of fuel remaining are stored fat and blood sugar. The stored fat is burned too slowly to process the necessary energy to continue running and circulation blood sugar is inadequate in terms of total amount of delivery rate to sustain a high work rate. We have all encountered this, and it is often referred to as our 'second wind'. As a result, you must revert to a lower work rate (walk) in order to continue.

Our 37 year old, cancer survivor, Lance Armstrong, who is making a gallant attempt to win his 8th Tour de France this year, having won 7 times previously, as with most athletes, knows all about 'hitting the wall'. The 2100 mile Tour de France route, pushing bicycle pedals against steep hills and rough winds, should shame those young people who spend their lives sitting on their behinds playing computer games. Then we wonder why 50% of our population is diabetic and obese. And 80% of the population are occupying hospital beds for mental patients. When will we learn, that limited food intake, healthy exercise, eradication from your life such poisons as synthetic sweeteners (Equal, Sweet and Low, Aspartame, little more than a rat poison, which according to all scientific research will completely destroy brain tissue) Remember, rat poison is 95% harmless corn meal, it is the 5% arsenic that kills the rats. Remember, it is not the colored, flavored water in diet drinks that kills you, rather the aspartame. Gatorade is probably the best known and most suggested drink in 'hitting the wall'. Its contents have been changed many times, now mostly a vitamin and sugar mixture; but to the best of my knowledge, contains none of the harmful artificial sweeteners.

“Hitting the wall” is not just a matter of physiology. From birth, we constantly face the challenges of seemingly impossible walls. Just yesterday, I learned of the death of a friend, who was left, after birth, on the doorstep of a couple who took her in and raised her as their own. She said, “The greatest blessing of my life was being left on the right doorstep.” “Hitting the wall”, the challenge of living, often brings insight.

It was when I 'hit the wall', so many times in my life, that I realized the importance of role models. For instance, Dr. Cecil Johnson, Dean UNC-CH, who walked with two canes because of being crippled early in life; Edwin Lanier, head of the student aid office at UNC-CH, who always had words of encouragement, as well as financial help for a student at a time of desperation. In later years, when he represented his county in the legislature, as much a conservative then, as when I knew him in his old car and old clothes. In uniform, with my decorations, I walked up to him and reminded him of his inspiration to me. After thanking me profusely, he said, “Do you realize how few have ever thanked me for my help?” I did not realize his words at the time, but the significance of a thank you has become very important to me when I consider how few scholarship and award winners in churches and colleges have ever taken the time to thank me for my generosity.

Each year, for many years, I have given financial awards, cash checks, of several thousand dollars to Sunday School teachers, Sunday School Superintendents, 2 Pastors each year; selected by the denomination which my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, etc all were affiliated. Like the money I give many churches, and colleges, I do not do this with any sense of desire for recognition. IT IS ALWAYS DONE FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND FOR THE BENEFIT OF HIS WORK. But how little time would it take, for anyone, to pick up the phone and give me a quick call, since, as a blind person, it is impossible for ME to read any notes, and give me a chance to express my appreciation for their 'laboring in the vineyard', my appreciation for the fact that there are still people in this world committed to God's church, who have not 'hit the wall' of discouragement. The greatest weapon Satan has is discouragement. I try to encourage anyone who is called for such needed, spiritual vocations. It is essential that those called of God, to do his work, (and he has no hands but our hands) be totally inspired, not just someone who will volunteer. The faithless will 'hit the wall' very quickly. Recently, the winner of the $1500 Sunday School Superintendent award called me and said, “I have been a Sunday School Superintendent for 35 years, and this is the first time anyone has ever said 'Thank You'.”

People do what they do because they believe what they believe. Faith is not a matter of belief, but a matter of cellular installation. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

150 years ago, all churches were fundamental. (primary, basic) They believed in the Virgin Birth and inspired word “sin's ruin and Christ's redemption”. Today, amid the babblings of the 'self-promoters', deceitful healers, political analysts from the pulpit, WE NEED TO HEAR THE FOLLOWING SCRIPTURES:

O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. (1 Timothy 6:20) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:10-12)

Pastors, like politicians, are more interested in packages of benefits than the living bread. (John 6:51) The fact is, the miracle of the spiritual is not greater than that of the physical in the life stream of most 'Christians'. Perhaps this is the reason that 75% of children reared in 'church going' homes leave the church. Perhaps this is the reason that 55% of all children are reared in fatherless homes. Perhaps this is the reason that over 50% of all marriages end in divorce. (Even those of church members) Perhaps this is the reason that 50% of all Americans now think Godless Socialism is the superior form of government of this Democratic Republic. Do you really believe we have not 'hit the wall'?

Church membership does not prove WHAT you are, any more than a birth certificate proves WHO you are. Like my friend, left on the doorstep, it was the mother who sat beside her bed all night when she was sick who did all the 'motherly' things of food and habits, clothing and discipline, while growing up that PROVED who her mother really was. When you go to the Lord's table, it is the elements, the bread and the wine, that instills the person of faith, an action of belief, creating our very being.