No More Excuses...

Hi! We are back from a very wonderful vacation and training is moving right along! Yes, we did run while we were gone but now that we are home, we plan on not missing one day. Hitting it hard from now til the end is our motto. After I finished running yesterday, I was thinking how hard it had been and needed some encouragement from our leader. She said, "Remember when you had a hard time running 1 minute and walking 2? Well, you just ran 4.7 miles! You've come a long way!" That is so true. I remember when we first started our training, we were to run 1 minute and walk 2 minutes for a total of 30 minutes. And it was hard! Now, I can run without stopping for 2 full miles and am getting stronger EVERYDAY. That kinda makes me think of my walk with Christ. When you first become a Christian, trying to fit in time for daily Bible study and prayer can be overwhelming and scary. Especially when you don't know where to start. But if you take a few minutes each day to be in the Word and spend time talking to the Savior, then you get stronger, and it gets easier. Now, granted...not everyday is easy. There are days where you have so much to do and don't think you can get it in, but the more you practice making that apart of your life, then you find that you're praying ALL the time and continually thinking about the things of God. It's just like with running, you can get great benefits from it, but you have to put in the effort to get up and go. God has promised to fulfill us with His love and salvation, but we have to put in the effort for Him. We have to get up and go! And when we do, the results are uncompromising! I pray that you "get up and go" today as you continue with your walk with Christ. Put the effort into Him, and stand back and watch the blessings fall.

What to do....

So I have a problem. I know this is a total surprise! NOT! I did really good last week (for me) and ran 3 miles 3 times and was feeling really good. Then I ran again on Sunday and was thinking how great it was because I'm leaving for vacation Wednesday and I was going to get in at least 3 runs before I left. Well my body has different ideas I guess because I woke up yesterday nauseated and not feeling good at all. So I finally decided that it would be okay if I didn't run and I would just catch up today. Run for as long as I could and call it good. Well, I'm still not feeling very well. What is the deal?! I NEED to run so I don't get further behind but I don't know if I could run without throwing up. I'm about to do a lot of sitting and relaxing, so should I push myself and just see what I can do? Or do I just ignore the fact that I need to run and concentrate hard on it when I get back? Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated!

God is good...ALL the time!

It is going to be a very busy week and last week was very busy and next week is going to be busy. Do you see a pattern here? While all this busyness is good and helping to further the kingdom of God, it's still busy and hard to get in all the runs we need to. But every time I take the time to do a run, God blesses me. Whether it's by giving me really good conversations with my friend Robin, or showing my parents just how dedicated we are to this purpose, I am blessed by it. I am going to be completely honest though...I don't always enjoy the run. AHHH! Did I say that out loud? While I enjoy the benefits from the run, the actual run itself is not my favorite right now. My knee is very sore right now and making it hard to run without pain. Do you think Satan is at work again? I think so! So I do not allow him to win and I run through the pain because I am doing this for my Lord and Savior and to help further his kingdom. I run for the people who have donated to our cause and believe in us. I run for the kids in Africa who will benefit from this in the long run. I run because running is a sacrifice and I WANT to sacrifice my body and time. Yesterday started our official training and I got an email from Michael Chitwood who is the president of Team World Vision. In his email, there was a video from him and it talked about how this is going to change our lives. That excites me! I want it to change my life and I want it to change my heart. And that is a big challenge from him...to allow this experience to change our hearts. I'm ready Lord! Change me, mold me and break me! I believe that the pain I feel when I run is just a distraction (and nothing compared to the pain Jesus bore) and I need to start focusing on God and not my pain. But speaking of pain...I did run this last week without my ankle brace and feel no pain AT ALL in my ankle. Yee-haw!! See...God is good and answers prayers! Thanks for reading and I hope God blesses you today and I hope you find a way to sacrifice because it brings blessings like you could never imagine!

Sneaky, sneaky...

We had a wonderful weekend (a fast one but wonderful none the less). We went to a family wedding in Eastland, TX and got home last night just in time to enjoy some rain. Anyway, it was our first challenge to fit in a run while trying to be good family members and enjoy our time with them. Jerod had missed two days before we left and I was on a good schedule of run one day, rest one day and we really needed to fit in a run. Especially after spending a lot of time in the car on Friday and Sunday driving back and forth. So my hubby went out and measured 1.5 miles along the access road and then off we went. Let me explain something about Eastland. While it is not Corpus Christi or Houston, it definitely is NOT Amarillo. It is hot (not something too different for me) and humid (VERY different for me). It was about 11:30am and I was hot and sweaty in about the first 5 steps. Oh well...I was running with Jerod and it was going to be great to show him how much better I've gotten in the last week. See, we hadn't run together since he had to lift me up a week earlier but I had run three times since then and just knew I had advanced. He did really well and ran with me and walked with me when I needed to. He told me how good I was doing and tried to push me when he could tell he could get away with it. So we got to our 1.5 mile mark and I'm beginning to think I'm not going to make it. It's hot, I'm sweaty, I have no water and my throat is dry (not easy to run with a dry throat just in case you were wondering) and it is a LONG way back to the hotel. But we turned around and started back and I was determined to finish. Jerod keep looking at me and smiling and asking if I was okay. Very sweet this man is! By the time we finished, I looked pretty scary (just ask any of my family members who saw me) and as we were walking into the hotel Jerod looks at me with this funny grin and says, "Congratulations, you just ran 3.5 miles". WHAT! He tricked me! I didn't believe him at first but I thought how cool that was and just let myself believe him. "Why did you do that?" I asked him. His answer was priceless..."It was an easier place to turn around." And that was it. Driving another 0.2 miles to turn around was easier than just saying 1.5 miles is to the auto store. No let's run to where we can turn the car around even though we aren't in the car, we're on foot! But, he knew what he was doing. It allowed me to know that I can now say that I can run 3.5 miles and that does a lot for me mentally. If I know I have conquered little steps like that, I know I can conquer the BIG ones. Thanks baby for being sneaky...you lift my spirits and make my heart happy...but I will never trust you again when you go out and measure a run for us! : )