Running My First 1/2 Marathon

I’ve thought for years that I could never run a half or full marathon due to my “bum” knee that I had surgery on back when I was 19 years old. It gives me trouble from time to time, especially when I start running a lot. But, in the past 6 months or so I kind’ve felt as if God were leading me to run the half. So, I started training but always with the intent that if my knee started hurting I would quit.

The first 8 weeks of my training was going along surprisingly great...I was up to 15-18 miles per week and not having any knee pain. I was so proud of myself for increasing my long runs each week...5 to 6 to 7 to 8....However, week 9 came along and my knee started having the worst stabbing pain in it for a relatively easy 4 mile run. I stubbornly stuck to my training schedule and ran 9 miles the next day with quite a bit of pain. The phrase “pride goeth before a fall” comes to mind here.... Needless to say, I couldn’t run at all after that day for a couple of weeks. I would try and the pain would be so bad I’d have to stop. So, here was a turning point: I could just quit, blame my knee and move on with my life...never completing something I believed God had put in front of me. Or....I could try my best to rehab my knee with ice and ibuprofen and....REST. Or, at least rest from running. I chose the second option. I did as much cardio as I could that wouldn’t hurt my knee for a couple of weeks and then gradually eased back into my running program. Unfortunately I must’ve put a lot of pressure on my “good” leg because I subsequently made my whole body (neck, back, hips) feel “out of alignment”. It was very uncomfortable to run. So, I took muscle relaxers at night and did some physical therapy that my friend Shawna had taught my other friend, Heather, for her back! I continued to run and all of that got better. I kept telling God that obviously my body was not cut out for this so He was going to have to make it happen. During this time, I really would have strong feelings to throw in the towel. I mean, really, what was I doing to myself? Was ruining my body worth running a ½ marathon? But, the truth is that I kept hearing God tell me He was in control and He would sustain me (just to clarify: not a big, booming “God” voice...just a voice inside my head). So, I knew that I would run this race not in my own strength, but in God’s strength. One of my favorite verses is 1 Sam. 22:33 “It is God who arms me with Strength and keeps my way secure...” And to be clear here, just because I realized I was running in God’s strength....it didn’t mean I wouldn’t have any obstacles...I went on to have a foot problem and a BLACK toe which resulted in my husband, Chris, having to poke a hole with a burning needle through my big toenail to relieve the blood and pressure built up underneath it...very painful and you wouldn’t even want to see it! But, through it all, I knew that God was with me...and sustaining me. I think this is a good analogy to our Christian lives. Just because we have God on our sides doesn’t mean we won’t have any struggles. In fact, in John 16:33 Jesus says, “..in this world you will have trouble, but, take heart, I have overcome the world.”

Another interesting thing happened to me about this point. I would run and be feeling quite uncomfortable (back aches, knee pain, foot pain, etc.) wishing I wasn’t running and two girls, Kennedy and Jessica, would come into my mind. Kennedy and Jessica, are two of the bravest people I know....Kennedy, age 10, was diagnosed with leukemia over 2 years ago and has been going through treatment ever since. She is currently down to her last two months of treatment. Jessica, age 18, was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancerous tumor behind her eye, two years ago and had actually beat it after 42 weeks of treatment...however, just a few months later she had a recurrence in her lungs and is currently undergoing treatment for a second time. I would run miles thinking to myself that if they could go through all of the stuff they’ve had to go through for the past 2 years that I surely could run a ½ marathon! I would think of those precious girls having to go through the initial phase of being diagnosed and feeling scared and sick...and I would run a little faster. Then I would think of the chemotherapy they’ve had to endure and the sickness and side effects that come along with it....and I would run a little longer. Then I would think of those precious girls losing their hair and all of the subsequent stares and questions they had to endure...and I would run a little more purposefully. I know I could go on and on here: finger pricks, never-ending pokes, ports, steroids and the moodiness those would cause, missing school, time in the hospital....and the list goes on and on. All of these things I would think of while I was running. I believe that God was bringing all of this to me while I pursued this goal.

Kennedy and Jessica are two of the strongest people that I know. And they are only 10 and 18!! They have endured all that they have gone through with such grace and SPUNKINESS (Jessica’s “Cancer Sucks” bumper sticker comes to mind). I know that God has been with them both every step of the way of their journeys just as I have felt Him beside me through my journey the last 18 weeks. I know that because of the struggles they have endured, those girls are much stronger people than they would’ve been without going through these trials. I know there are days where they dread going to the “clinic” or having a “treatment” but they do what they need to do. That is definitely “real life”. I know that we cannot control our circumstances...only our attitudes.

So, tomorrow, May 1, 2011, I will run 13.1 miles in Kennedy and Jessica’s honor. I will do so knowing that my God is with me and has sustained me through this long training program. I will be inspired step by step, yard by yard, mile by mile, by Kennedy and Jessica and the courageous battles they have been fighting for two years. If I get tired and want to slow down, I will simply look down at the pink “Jessica” bracelet and the green “Kennedy” bracelet on my wrist just as I have done for the past 10 weeks of my training and be inspired. For 2 hours and 10 minutes (or less hopefully), I will think of how God is with me and has sustained me through this training process just like He has been with and sustaining these special girls through their battles.

Little Andrew

Yesterday I received a call from my next door neighbor (and good friend). She was in tears and I could barely understand her. She finally got out that her son, Andrew (age 3), had taken a turn for the worse....Let me back up here and tell you the story of our special little Andrew, or "Baby Andrew" as we have all called him for 3 years now.

Baby Andrew was born in November 2006. His mom knew that something was not quite right while he was still in her womb but the doctors would hook her up and monitor his heart and say she was just being "paranoid"..."he was doing great". There's that mother's instinct for you. Anyways, when he was born it was apparent that there was something very wrong. They finally diagnosed SMA which stands for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a pretty rare condition and one that most of us have never heard of. To put it simply, Andrew cannot move any muscles in his body. He is the most severe, type 0. Since birth he has been on a respirator to breathe and has a feeding tube into his stomach for nutrition. However, his brain is perfect. He thinks/feels just like the rest of us. They actually say kids with SMA are usually of above-average intelligence. Due to the extreme needs of his care, he lives at the Children's Center in Bethany, Oklahoma. An incredible place if you've never been there, I might add. I am always impressed by the amount of love/care given to the children by the staff.

So obviously this really changed my neighbors' lives. They now had a third child whom couldn't even live at home with them. Can you imagine? Here I complain about my kiddos driving me crazy and my neighbor would give just about anything for her son to BE HOME driving her crazy.

So, after the initial shock of Andrew's condition, things fell into a "comfortable" routine. Catherine would go spend every morning in Bethany at the Children's Center and her husband would go by every day after work. Also there were relatives and friends that would visit time to time. Personally the visits I've had with Andrew at TCC (the Children' Center) have been some of the most cherished moments of my life thus far. There is something about when I visit him....I feel God's presence with him when I am there. Perhaps I feel God's presence in the whole center. It is a special place. Anyways, there have been bumps in the road for sure. He has had pneumonia, horrible skin ulcers, and other issues. However, there have been some huge victories. He gets to go to class where they put a visor-type thing on him that responds to his eye movement while he is watching things on a big screen. He has physical therapy, occupational therapy, gets to go in a big gym, and they recently have been letting him play this really neat game (all with eye movement).

However, in the past month Andrew has been hospitalized twice for pneumonia. Obviously pneumonia can be deadly for anyone, but especially for Andrew. This has happened to coincide with my friend's husband having to be out of town for work....first for 2 weeks (the whole first time Andrew was in the hospital)...then he was home a weekend and back out of town for another week (in which time Andrew had gone back to TCC but then had to be re-hospitalized again for pneumonia)....then this past weekend he was home for 1 night and had to go back out of town which he still is. So, I say all of that to show that my dear friend has been under a HUGE amount of stress. Trying to be at the hospital with her very sick son...trying to be home with her other two children...oh, and not to mention that we have had a BLIZZARD and now another huge ice/snowstorm which has made travel dangerous (and of course she is driving back and forth to the hospital) and had her other kids home from school...which has meant her having to find other people to watch her kids.

And then yesterday I got the phone call. The phone call that made my stomach drop and my eyes instantly well-up with tears. Andrew had taken a turn for the worse. They were beginning to think that the infection had spread throughout his little 3 yr. old body. My friend could barely choke this out on the phone....however, she was calling me to send out an email asking for prayer. Which I did. And right now I am just waiting to hear any news. She stayed at the hospital all night with him. I'm not sure if she was alone or not. I asked her if she would have someone with her and she said "I think so". My other neighbor and I struggled all night last night wondering if we should go there and be with her. But my neighbor is a very private person, not like me at all. We were worried we might be more of a hindrance than a help.

So now we wait. And we pray. We pray for the doctors to know what to do for Andrew. We pray for him not to be in pain. We pray for him to feel God's presence with him. And we pray for his mom. That God would give her the strength and comfort she so very needs right now. It is in His hands....

Celebration

My brother and I went to a funeral a couple of weeks ago for my great uncle. It was a "nice" funeral and we actually decided we liked some of the things they did. Like putting an embroidered bass (fish) jumping out of water on the inside of the coffin lid. You might laugh, but I kind've thought that was a nice, HONEST touch. He loved fishing. Why not put that on there for him to stare at for all of eternity?

So that got me thinkin'- what would my husband put on the inside of my coffin lid? A picture of my kids? Something to do with bootcamp.....what dumbbells embroidered? Maybe a picture of Blue Bell Pralines N Cream ice cream or a box of sweetarts? Cuz these are all of the things I love........... well, hopefully not.

I think I'd like a Bible verse embroidered on the inside of my coffin lid. Not that i will be looking at it. But for all of the people at my funeral to see. I even know what verse: Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your FATHER in heaven." Hopefully all of the people at my funeral will read that verse and agree that they could see Christ in my life. It was evident.....by my words and actions.

I also want upbeat, happy music. This should be a celebration if we really, truly believe we are going to spend ETERNITY with OUR LORD AND SAVIOR!!! My husband can play one tear-jerker - "I can only imagine" and the rest need to be songs like, "Strong Tower", "Revelation", "Born Again", etc. Oh, maybe two tear-jerkers cuz I love David Crowder's "Never let Go".

Anyways, then I want the Gospel told. If there is anyone at my funeral that doesn't know Christ as their personal Savior, I want them to accept HIM right then and there. Wouldn't that be awesome?

So, I'm not planning on dying soon or anything. I just want to make sure that when I do, my funeral is not some morbid, depressing affair. I want everyone there to know that I am with My Jesus.

Oh, and one last thing. Do it as cheaply as possible. We just finished Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I do not want my funeral to cause any debt!!!

Lady with one earring

I was sitting in church Sunday morning listening to the campus pastor start his service when my attention was drawn to the lady sitting two rows in front of me. You know how you scan the rows all around you and check out who's in church? Anyways, I realized that this lady (guessing from the back of her head she was about 40-something.....short hair and sitting next to a teenage daughter) was missing an earring. She had one large black hoop in one ear and nothing in the other. For some reason I could not let this go. And look, here I am 5 days later blogging about it.
I started wondering what happened to the other earring. Did she just forget to ever put it in? Did she put it in but forget the back so then it fell out unbeknownst to her? Did she put both in but then talk on the phone so she pulled the one out and forgot to put it back in? Was it her cell phone? So was the earring in the car or at home? Maybe the earring was on the sidewalk on the way into church? Whew.......lots of possibilities about where the missing earring was and how it went missing.

Anyways, this led me into thinking about how we are all just like that lady with her missing earring. We all get ready and try to look "put together", but we are really not. Put together, I mean. Everyone has something "not perfect" in their life. It might look perfect on the outside, but I guarantee it is not.

And you know, I think Church is one of the worst places where everyone tries to act "put together". You know Sunday morning my four children fought in the car the whole way to church over the seating arrangement in our suburban. You know, a REALLY IMPORTANT thing to fight over.....It ended with Chris getting frustrated and yelling at "the instigator" of the fight. I tried to calm everyone down (I'm putting that in here because it is usu. opposite - I'm usu. yelling and Chris is calming). Anyways, we get out of the car, all paste on our smiles, and tell everyone "Good Morning". Nobody knows that World War 3 was just going on in our suburban. Then, we sit in an awesome service, pick up the kiddos from their classes, get back in the suburban and guess what? Yep, you guessed it. The STUPID FIGHT RESUMED! So, this time normalcy reigned and I was the one yelling.

So, I guess my point of this whole thing is that we are all missing an earring. It's just that
some of us are more open and honest about these "missing earrings" than others, but nobody has it all together. Thank goodness that Christ loves us no matter what.

Jeremiah #2

First let me say that Jeremiah is a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGG book with LOOOONNNNGGG chapters. I have had to amp up my Bible reading or I will never get through it I'm afraid. Also, I read the commentary after every chapter so it is taking me doubly long. However, if I were not to read the commentary I wouldn't understand half of what I'm reading.

That being said, I am truly amazed at those crazy OT people. Chapter 34. So Jeremiah has been warning King Zedekiah and all of the people of Jerusalem OVER AND OVER that they will not succeed in fighting against the Babylonians. God had already determined to hand over the city of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. In vs. 8 - 11, Jeremiah brings to light the evil practice of the enslavement of Israelites by their own people. This was a violation of God's law (Ex. 21:2-11). Perhaps in a desperate attempt to win God's favor, King Zedekiah grants all of the slaves their freedom. Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves in accordance with God's law. So, after the people had made the covenant in the temple before GOD, sure enough, the Babylonian army broke off its attack. They had to break their attack to repel an attack on them by the Egyptians.

So now the people of Jerusalem start hoping for an Egyptian victory, and then they start thinking "hmmmm... if the Egyptians are successful and take down the Babylonians, we are gonna' have some major rebuilding to do here. So we probably need to get our slaves back!" So the people reneged on their promise to God and took their slaves back.

WHAT???? Seriously. They make vows before God in His temple that they will let their slaves go in accordance with HIS Law.......amazingly the attack from the Babylonians stop.........did they not think maybe they should be THANKING God for this reprieve? For another chance? But, NOOOOO, they forget all about God again (seems to be a general theme of the OT) and take their slaves right back to start rebuilding! Truly amazing.

So, as you can imagine, they pay the price for this. Vs. 12-20 shows God rebuking the people for their inconsistency. When they rescinded their promise they profaned God's reputation because the covenant had been made before God in His temple. God's punishment matched their sin. By revoking their covenant, the people had not proclaimed freedom for those Israelites who were wrongfully enslaved. Therefore ironically God would give them freedom to die by the sword, plague, and famine. Uh-Oh. BIG MISTAKE PEOPLE!!!

So I started thinking about how we do this exact same thing really. We tell God we will stop doing certain sinful behaviors "if only He will (insert your request here)". But then once our prayer is answered, most of us continue about our sin like nothing ever happened. At least I think just about everyone is like that. I know I have done that exact thing. Maybe not as fast as the Israelites reneged on their promise, but.......over time. It might be a slow, gradual fade back to the sins, but it happens.

COMPASSION

Last week sometime I heard the phrase "be the hands and feet of Jesus". Could be a song. Could've been from something I read. Not really sure. But that phrase has gone through my head a lot over the last week. You know, it would be a lot easier to lead a "self-filled" life, rather than trying to be Christ's hands and feet. It means putting other's needs before your own. It is the opposite of what our culture tells us today. There are so many needs all around us.......many greater than our own. We need to have compassion. God has taught me compassion in numerous different areas in the past year. Compassion for those with addictions. Compassion for those going through financial hardship. Compassion for single mothers. Compassion for those with loved ones in hospitals. Compassion for those with cancer. Compassion for mothers with really sick children.... So, those are just SOME of the areas I can think of right off the top of my head. Guess you have to go through some hard things to gain compassion. Or at least it has worked for me.

C - caring about/for others
O - offering to help
M- meeting needs
P - prayer for those in need
A - acts of kindness
S- serving
S - sharing the burden
I - not about I
O- owning the problem
N- noticing needs

God's Word

Man, how I love God's Word. I am happy to be able to say this because just a short few years ago this was definitely not the case. I truly thought it was boring. Now I am just fascinated by what I read. God definitely "opens the eyes of your heart" the more you delve into His Word. I only wish that I had a better memory at this point in my life. So many times I find myself fascinated by something in my morning reading and by afternoon I can't remember what it was! Sad, I know.

Right now I'm in Jeremiah. As my dad said the other day, God really commands Jeremiah to do some weird things. Like going to the city gate and yelling out a doomsday message. Or wearing the yoke around his neck. In today's society, we would be calling the authorities and that person would end up in the nuthouse, right? Really, imagine if God told you to go to your local church or courthouse (or Wal-mart for that matter) and stand outside and yell "Repent! Quit your sinning. Turn to God. Don't worship all of your idols (today's world: money, stuff, money, other people, celebrities, money, your job, money, etc....). If you don't God is going to pulverize this whole place. Oh, and go ahead and let yourself be taken by the enemy, because if you do then you will end up being blessed. But if you run and hide, forget about it. You will suffer extreme hardship and DIE!!!

Hmmmm.... I'm pretty impressed that Jeremiah had the guts to do all that God wanted him to do. Would like to think that I would, but probably not anywhere near those extremes unfortunately. Just being honest. It's hard enough for me to hold my hands up while we are singing in church. I'm up to one hand now. Pretty big for me really. Pathetic, I know.

I like this verse from Jeremiah 15:16 "When Your Words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty."

Anyways, I'm now praying that God will give me understanding and memory when it comes to His Word. This is a prayer from Paul in Eph. 1:17-19 - "I pray that you, Father, will give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation , so that i may know you better. I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which you have called me, the riches of your glorious inheritance in your people, and your INCOMPARABLY GREAT POWER for us who believe." Amen. Awesome.

So much more I could write on this, but gotta' run....well, spin. I'm teaching a Thursday morning spin class now.