thankful on a thursday—good giver of gifts

Okay. I get that part of the point of engaging in this weekly exercise of listing things I am thankful for is to remind me of how many reasons I have to be thankful. Since I've been a bit ridiculously absent on this blog for the last month or so, I haven't been engaging in this as much.

Then I was at home community on Sunday, and as we were going around sharing how our weeks went, what we wanted prayer for, and the ways God's been answering our prayers, I was bowled over by how faithful the Lord is. As we went around the room each person's words reflected God's work in our lives. It was incredibly encouraging.

And friends, I needed that.

So much.

I know that He is faithful. But sometimes my faith falters and I need more than just the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of what I do not see. I got that on Sunday in heaps and piles.

Five days later I am still reveling in His provision.

1. The people in my home community.
2. Running.
3. FOUR new leaders for the high school group. Such a HUGE answer to prayer. Seriously.
4. Watching my high schoolers graduate. I am so proud of the young women they are.
5. Summer in Portland.
6. Friends who remind me of what is best for me, even when it is hard.
7. A new crew of eighth graders moving up into the high school group. I cannot wait to discover who they are.
8. Better relationships with my coworkers. Some of these have been a very long time coming.
9. My friends. Seriously. How on earth did I get so blessed?
10. The truth that my value comes from being loved by a God as faithful and unchanging as Yahweh.

thankful on a thursday—people

A father daughter date. That's what it was. We sat across from each other at a little cafe, my latte warming my hands, his green tea still too hot to drink. "I feel like I'm in a rut," I say, "like I've gotten into this routine and I don't know how to get out. It's comfortable and safe, but what I want is adventure." It is freeing to say these words. It is healing to confess them to him, to one of the fathers I've been blessed with, to have him listen, to have him offer words of kind intention. "What about teaching English somewhere?" He asks, "you said you'd always wanted to see Japan."

I consider his words, consider uprooting myself from this place–from these people, and it hurts. "I don't think moving is the answer," I reply. "It would feel like running, and there is nothing here I want to run from."

Weeks later I am on the phone with a friend, recounting this conversation to her. "You can run or you can dig in," she says, "those are the two ways to get out of a rut." Her words are true, and they confirm the direction I have chosen to go. Not that it was a hard decision.

I choose to stay. I choose to dig in. I choose to invest in the people, in the relationships that seem to multiply weekly. How did I get here? How am I suddenly surrounded by so many incredible people? Though if I consider consider the road I've walked, these people have not appeared so suddenly. Looking back I see how many different intersections I've crossed, the ways our paths have joined and continued on in the same direction. I wonder if this is how Paul felt when he would sit down to write his letters to the churches, thanking God for them and for their faithfulness. What a gift it is to be surrounded by these people, to love and be loved by these people, to serve with these people, to simply encounter them, even if only briefly.

This week, I am so very thankful...

1. For the high school leaders and the way they love the students.
2. For the high school students, for their beautiful hearts and the ways they struggle to love and serve the Lord.
3. For friends, new and old.
4. For a run with Sarah around a beautiful lake, and for all the conversations we had.
5. For an upcoming visit to see my Dad.
6. For how different my relationship with my Dad is only a year later.
7. For all the different fathers my Father has blessed me with.
8. For a place to share my stories and my mess.
9. For getting a card in the mail from Kath.
10. For the most wonderful weekend with Erica, and all the subsequent phone calls, emails and texts.
11. For the way he holds my hand.

let's do this

Hip issues early on in my marathon training slowed me way down. "No worries," I thought. If worse comes to worst I'll just run the half.

Well, worse seemed to come to worst at my last physical therapy appointment when my PT said he was concerned about me being prepared for the marathon in October. I was discouraged, but not all that surprised.

I kept my chin up and gave myself a few weeks to mull things over. Then last week I decided I would email the race director and ask about running the half, certain it wouldn't be an issue. It is an issue. The half is sold out. This leaves me with the following options:

1. Blow off the race.
2. Take a DNF.
3. Just go for it.

My first reaction was to do #1. My second thought was a slightly defeated, "yeah, I guess I could DNF...." My third and final thought was, "LET'S DO THIS."

[Image is from Threadless]

go big or go home

Well...I'm going to do it.

guest blogger

The lovely Kathy Simpson asked me to be a guest blogger on her site Kathy Runs. It took a little while a few months, but it's up. Check it out.

getting ready

I go back and forth between thinking what I am going to do is HUGE and thinking it is no big deal. Regardless of my current mood, tomorrow I will be running my very first EVER half-marathon. I am excited and nervous. My clothes are laid out and I am about to pin my bib on the tank top I'll be wearing tomorrow. Who knew I'd love running this much...not THIS girl, that's for sure!

i won

With every additional mile I am surprised by the excuses I seem to come up with for stopping.

With every additional mile I am encouraged by my ability to discount those excuses.

With every additional mile I am amazed by my body's ability to keep going.

With every additional mile I am delighted that my legs keep going, even though they've not yet covered this distance in a single run.

On Saturday another battle of wills took place. I challenged my stack of excuses to a nine mile run.

I won.

encouragement

I love to encourage others. LOVE it. When I was an intern at Twin Lakes we took the spiritual gifts test and one of my top gifts was exhortation. I know, it sort of sounds like a sneeze when you say it. But it means "the act of inciting to laudable deeds; incitement to that which is good or commendable; language intended to incite and encourage; advice; counsel; admonition." Prior to taking that test I'd never really thought about my love of encouraging others very specifically. I just figured I was really verbal. That shift in understanding my love for encouragement has been huge. It has helped me understand the power of words, the importance of lifting others up, and the fact that most of us, myself included, have a pretty difficult time being encouraged. It also opened my eyes to the fact that I LOVE to be encouraged. I might have a hard time hearing the compliments, but I love to hear kind words from someone who cares for me.

So. Yesterday I arrived home [to my NEW home...expect a post on that in the near future] completely DRENCHED from a run in the torrential downpour weather forecasters like to call rain to find a package waiting for me on the counter. My FIRST piece of mail at my new house. It was from Kathy. She'd told me she was putting together a little something to help me train for the half marathon I'm running in July. But it was SO much more than just a little something. I opened it to find a poster full of encouragement, inspiring women marathoners, and a picture of a gun firing peanuts [inside joke]. There was also a water running training schedule [great for off days and rehabbing bum knees]. AND. There were NINE CDs:
For the Love of my Life Volumes 1 & 2 [nice, chill, relaxing tunes]
Not Just Arm Candy Volumes 1-6 [running mixes]
Kara Goucher Endurance Mix [LOVE her, also a running mix]

Kath, you're the best. Thank you for ALL the encouragement, advice and love.

day 30: finish strong

When given the challenge to finish strong I thought, "yeah, yeah, sure." I was skeptical that I would actually rise up and meet that challenge. After a long month full of exercise whose end seemed defined by injury I wondered what I could possibly do to challenge myself.

My answer to that question: Interval training.

I recently signed up for a half-marathon and Kathy, and kick-ass marathoner, in SF put together a customized training plan within 10 minutes of me telling her about my plans to run. Yesterday's prescribed training was five miles followed by five sets of two minute intervals run at race pace [9:30 / mile]. I did an unprescribed five mile run on Wednesday, and with my knee griping a bit I lowered the initial mileage to four miles at a very easy 10:47 / mile pace. After that I kicked it into gear, Girl Talk urging me on as I ran my five intervals.

I left the gym feeling like such a bad ass. And when I extracted my phone from my overly full gym bag [seriously, how did all this crap make it in to my bag?] I saw that right about the time I'd hopped off the treadmill she'd called and left a message wondering how my first set of intervals went. I called her back and we encouraged each other [she'd just finished running sets of four minute intervals at a 6:30 pace and running at an 8:00 pace in between...SUCH a bad ass] and talked about the importance of Vaseline and Body Glide.

So I pulled it out in the end. I finished strong. I love it when I surprise myself.

addicted

I may have signed up for another month long fitness challenge.

Okay...not just may have. ACTUALLY have.

Here is the good news:
1. I will not be blogging about it here.
2. If for some strange reason you desperately WANT to know what I'm doing each day for exercise you can read about it here.
3. It will keep me accountable and help me stick to my half-marathon training plan.
4. I'm LOVING this whole exercising on a really regular basis thing.

So that's what I know. Well, not ALL of what I know. But it's some of it.

day 29: come on legs!

Yesterday was run club day. We did the Springwater Loop and chose to do five miles instead of the three. My running buddy and coworker agreed that she'd run the five with me if I promised we'd take it easy and I wouldn't go crazy and try for sub-10:00 mile averages. I agreed, somewhat reluctantly, seeing the merit in her request as I remembered that I am still sort of recovering from my injury.

It was a beautiful spring day in Portland, sunny to the north, dark and ominous to the south. It was perfect running weather, so perfect in fact that I didn't even notice how fast our pace was until we hit the 2.5 mile marker at 23:45...oops. I apologized profusely to my running buddy for going faster than I'd promised. She told me not to worry, and we turned around and headed back for our second half.

I didn't negative split this five mile loop, but K.ben was right. I did find my sub-10:00 mile time again. I finished at 48:13, faster than my previous five mile time that was pre-injury. Granted, my legs complained more this time and my knee was asking for ice louder than it had, but I still felt good.

Bonus Workout[?]: Lugging the LAST of my boxes up the stairs and into my new place. Now there's just the furniture to unload this weekend....

day 18: not as young as i used to be

Wow. Saturday was wonderful and painful. PUFF [Portland Ultimate Frisbee Federation] hosted an ultimate frisbee clinic for women on Saturday. Tons of fun, tons of women, tons of running, cutting, drills, catching, throwing.

And TONS of sore muscles. Almost everything above my knees and below my abs hurts. I am hobbling around like an arthritic 70-year-old. BUT my commitment to the BOWC, to Ultimate, and to the half marathon I signed up for on Friday [Sauvie Island Foot Traffic Flat, July 4 2009] has stayed strong. I am on a strict regimen of RICE. I have purchased both Tiger Balm [feel the burn!] and Traumeel [another homeopathic, less fragrant than Tiger Balm] and am applying them at regular intervals.

Bonus Workout[?]: Any and all walking I did after the clinic ended.

13.1

I did it. I just signed up for my first half marathon.

AND I AM SO EFFING EXCITED!!!

I've been wanting to do one for quite some time. For a while I just wanted to do one for bragging rights. You know just so I could say, "I ran a half marathon."

Then I for a while I thought, "That is crazy. Like I could ever do that. My body isn't made to do that."

Now I think, "I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT WAIT TO ACTUALLY RUN A HALF MARATHON."

It's the Sauvie Island Foot Traffic Flat. It is on July 4, 2009. And have I mentioned how excited I am to be doing this yet? Oh, okay. WELL I AM.

I have to say that I am incredibly lucky to have Kathy Simpson as a best friend. She is a KICKASS runner and an even KICKASSIER best friend. As soon as I told her I was doing this she went to work on a customized training plan that factors in the fact that I like having Sunday off, Run Club is Monday and Wednesday, and until mid-June I have ultimate on Tuesdays and Fridays. She also said, "You know I'm going to act like your running coach, right?"

Man...she is the best.

AND I AM SO EFFING EXCITED!!!