Today, I am thankful for the fact that I passed my Karate-do grading test, graduating from novice white to yellow belt. Yes!

As an overweight mom in her early forties, I found every reason under the blue sky to discourage myself from taking Karate classes – I used my age, my weight, time and every excusable excuse – but the desire in me was stronger than my excuses.

I felt that I would be out of place and yes I’m still out of place – the only mama in the crowd of young children and men.

I told myself that my painful knees wouldn’t take it and would probably break.

Somedays, I felt too lazy to go for the night class and each day I had a class, I literally had to ask for the grace to survive it and I bought knee braces.

I knew within me that sticking to it was not going to be easy, but it would be far more empowering as against standing by the sidelines and watching others.

My children encouraged me and became my private coach at home even as I bungled all my moves 🙂

Yes, I burst into tears when I did my test and passed my katas to the cheer of everyone around – I can get emotional.

No, I didn’t tear my dojo pants as I feared I would and made sure I wore nice unmentionables just in case 😉

My heart felt full last night when I received my grading certificate.

I don’t care that I might be the elephant in the house entertaining others with my trundling moves, but you know what, I said I would do it, I had to ask for grace each day to do it and I did it 🙂

I’m sharing this post to encourage those who have things they want to do, but for some excuses are not able to.

Each day grace and gratitude take me higher; get your thankful suit on.

There are several gratitude/thankful platforms in the blogosphere that you can tune into and get your ithankful going on. I can’t express in words the enormity of Joy and fulfillment that comes from having a heart of gratitude. Please check out Maria’s blog, Colline’s blog and Bernadette’s for thankful/gratitude challenges.

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

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