Gratitude

They say the key to life is happiness, and then people pursue this happiness to their misery.  I don't think the key to life is happiness, nowhere in the Bible does God promise that we will be happy.  Happiness is not sustainable, like all emotions, it is fickle.  Don't give up on what I'm saying just yet, hear me out.....

My daughter got to spend a week with her schoolmates at a camp on the other side of the island.  At first I thought this week would be unbearable because I knew I would miss her, but Ryan and I decided to make the most of our alone time and have fun, and man did we have fun.  We woke up Tuesday early so we could run a 10K together, something we rarely get to do as a couple.  We both run, but we never get to run together.  It was very nice.  Then we hopped in the car and drove down the coast to Natadola, a slice of beauty that is indescribable and pictures do not do it justice.  It was low tide so we spent our day walking slowly up the coast to the hidden beaches that most tourists never see.  When we returned to the main beach Ryan went fishing and I decided to have a beach massage.  It was afterwards as I sat on the beach in silence just breathing it all in that I realized that I had lost my gratitude somewhere along the way and that had caused me to not be content.

I began to pray and thank God for the beauty that was before me, to thank him for all that he provided on a daily basis, to thank him for this time alone with my husband, and the time of growth Ella Mae was most certainly experiencing at camp.  I realized that I hadn't expressed my gratitude in awhile and you know what, my attitude reflected that.

It's easy to thank God when we get good news, or a prayer is answered.  It's easy to be thankful when things are really good.  Sometimes it's even easier to be thankful when things are really bad because you are reminded of how good things can be.  Often times we forget to be thankful when life is just life.  That was where I was.  Fiji was not new and exciting anymore so I forgot to be thankful for the blessing that it is to my family.  I am blessed every single day!  Even when it's tough, even when it hurts there are so many blessings surrounding me.  I pray that God will keep my eyes open to all of the ways he blesses me in every waking minute, so that I don't lose my attitude of being content.

Back to my issue with the pursuit of happiness.  Don't get me wrong, I am happy, I love being happy, happy is great, but contentment, that is where it is at.  See, maybe a new car might make someone happy, but it won't stay new.  Maybe more money will make someone happy, but it will never be enough.  Maybe a bigger house will make you happy, but then there is always a bigger house.  We work our bodies to the bone in the pursuit of these things that we think will bring us happiness, but they are just things and they cannot sustain our emotions.

1 Timothy 6:6-8
But Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.  But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

To be content is to be thankful for what you have and to not feel the endless need for more.  To be content is saying I have all I need and if I never have more that is OK because I am rich beyond measure.  That kind of contentment only comes from one place, from a loving relationship with Jesus.  When we have Christ in our lives we have more than we will every need and the joy will follow.  Contentment comes from a constant state of gratitude, the moment we stop being thankful it can start to slip from our grip.  I pray that God gives me a heart so filled with thanks that I never feel the need to chase worldly riches again.

Isaiah 26:3
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

I need a spirit of gratitude!  The more I thanked God for his provision the more I realized that I had been very selfish with my time.  Pastor Conan spoke on being generous last Sunday and I realized that it is easy for me to be generous with most things, but I have a hard time being generous with my time.  I have spent the week trying to be more generous with my smiles, with my abilities, and with my time.  The truth is that I am content right now and that gave me the ability to slow down and listen to God and he showed me an area that I never realized I needed to change.  I am thankful that.

God uses every opportunity to teach us and guide us through life, this week without Ella Mae was a chance for me to reconnect with my husband, to spend time doing things that he likes.  I booked us a white water rafting tour on the other side of the island and it was amazing! I would have never gone white water rafting on my own, but because I am in a place of contentment and seeking God who showed me my lack of generosity, I realized that a trip on the river and a night out to dinner would be something that Ryan would love and it was a way to give back to him with my time.

Ella Mae will be home in just about an hour and I am going to remember that she needs me to be generous with my time, that I need to put down what I am doing and focus on her when she has something to show me.  I will continue to work towards being generous with myself to those around me.  I will continue to pray that God keeps reminding me to keep a grateful heart so that I can be content in all that he has provided.

With only a week left until Suva Marathon my body has recovered and I am enjoying my taper week resting in the strength and healing that God has provided for my body.  God is so amazingly good, He has not missed a chance to show me his provision and has continued to do work on my heart and in my life.  Sometimes when God shows us things it hurts, its not always pleasant to learn that you have veered down the wrong path of discontent or stumbled over selfishness, but it is awesome when he helps me stand back up again and helps me on my way!

2 Corinthians 12:10
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Psalm 23:1
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Marathon Journey to the Start Line

Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also glorify in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Today as I ran I realized that crossing the finish line of the Suva Marathon is not actually the victory, getting to the start line is!  If I had chosen this race for myself I would have given up a long time ago, but as a LIFE Runner I run for God, every time my feet touch pavement I am doing His work not my own and so I can't give up, it's simply not an option.

A marathon was never my dream.  I can tell you, from the moment that Ryan passed me the magazine on our flight to Suva, opened to a page talking about the Suva marathon, my life has never been the same.  I didn't want to run a marathon.  I was quite content with short distances and nothing too challenging, but God had other plans.  My time in Fiji is a marathon, as God uses me to do His work with LIFE Runners my commitment can't be half hearted, it can't be wishy washy, I have to be all in.  The same goes for marathon training, you are either all in or you fail.  God was going to use this training to strengthen me, to test my limits and increase my faith, He was going to show me what trust looks like.

I have spent countless hours running for God since February, training and preparing.  I totaled them up today, and since February when I started training I have run 637.52  miles (1026 km)!  That is crazy!  That would be like me running from Rapid City SD to Des Moines IA or for my Fiji friends, that would be me running all the way around Fiji 2.2 times! I have run 637 miles all to prepare my body to run 26.2 miles! Many of my long runs happened in the predawn hours, alone with God in the dark running and praying over the streets of Fiji.  In the beginning it was exciting, and I could hardly sleep the night before a long run happy to rise at 4am and hit the road.  God knew that I wouldn't make it if it got hard early.  When it was time for it to get hard, for my faith to be tested, God was right there with me.

Pain is something that many of my loved ones suffer from chronically.  As I dealt with pain and struggle I tried to remember that they fight this every day, and mine would pass.  When injury knocked at the door I made a choice not to answer.  I have to choose to trust God every single run.  When my IT bands scream in pain, when my knees throb and ache, when my calves cramp into knots, when my thighs have nothing left to give there is only one place to turn.  I turn to God!  It would be so easy to give up, I'll be honest, I've considered it.  When I have spent more time limping around, stretching, icing, and rolling out sore muscles, it is really easy to get discouraged, but God is asking me to trust Him.

Training for a marathon is not just about running, actually running has very little to do with it in my case.  This training was all about God getting His way in my life.  He showed me where my eating had become sinful and he broke the bondage of food addiction.  Occasionally I will start to stumble and the urge to binge will come but God is there reminding me how much stronger I am now that I have shed that sinful habit.  He showed me that quitting is easy, but pushing through and not giving up has great Kingdom rewards.  When I run, even when it hurts, He rewards me by building and strengthening my faith.  He is trying to show me that when I am worried or scared that those feelings don't come from Him and can be rejected, and just like that your outlook can change.  He is teaching me patience, I need lots of patience!  As a wife and as a mother I struggle with patience, but this process is long and slow and for over 6 months I have trained and waited expectantly about race day to arrive.  When I faced my first injury only 3 weeks ago (5 weeks out from race day) I really had to learn patience, to not worry, but to trust God was covering the details.

The biggest test of all was my 20 mile run, that is the longest run in training before the race and I was at the peak of my knee pain the week of my 20 miler.  Honestly my faith was wavering and I was scared that I wasn't going to make it.  That morning I got up at 3:45am to stretch and roller my legs so they would be limber on my long run.  I silently prayed that God would give me a good run to encourage me.  I also knew that I had friends and family praying for me and over me that day as I set out on my way.  I can tell you that after I warmed up that run was perfect and without pain!  God showed me that even though everything looks hopeless He provides for our needs right when we need it!  He carried me for 20 miles/32km over 4 hours without pain!  It was just what I needed to find the courage not to give up!  As I continue to run on my taper weeks, when the pain flares up I just remember how far God has already brought me and stop looking at how far I have to go.

I could never cross the finish line at Suva Marathon if I was running for myself, but with God anything is possible and I will glorify Him by never giving up!  God called me to this and I have no doubt He will see it completed!

I couldn't have done any of this without God or my family standing behind me.  Ryan has been the most supportive amazing husband.  I know that living with someone who is training for a marathon is not easy, my mood sometimes needs a good adjustment but he is always there cheering me on and waiting for me to come home after a long early morning run with words of encouragement.  He doesn't complain that I smell like icy hot constantly and he never grumbles when I ask him to massage out painful calf knots.  If He didn't support me, this would have been so much harder.  This morning my sweet daughter laid hands on my leg that was bothering me and prayed for healing.  I am so thankful that God has used this training to strengthen not only my spiritual life, but also
our walk with the Lord as a family.  There is something truly humbling to have your 5 year old lay hands on you and pray over you.  Ella Mae tells me that she is going to run a million miles for LIFE Runners when she is older.  I thank the Lord that this ministry is so powerful not just for me but for our family.

On August 8th, when I cross that finish line, I pray that God is glorified, that the LIFE Runner message of hope was spread far and wide and that this is only the beginning of what He has planned for Fiji and our amazing team of Pro-Life warriors.

Romans 8:31
What, then, shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?