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Showing posts from September, 2017

FINDING LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS - RACE REFLECTIONS

It is amazing sometimes how God's plan can so vastly differ from my own. In the past couple of days, I have begun to reflect on my experiences at the Run for the Rocks Half Marathon, and the aftermath thereof. A week ago, I was approaching it with no real concrete goal in mind. I planned to take it easy, and run little more than a relaxed (for me), leisurely pace - a chance to recover after a difficult, but fulfilling, summer of racing. But somewhere about three days before the race, I started to feel like God's plans for this race were far different than my own. On His leading, I decided to run the race to support and represent Prodigal Ministries of Kansas, a small men's transitional shelter I have been involved with on several levels for nearly a decade. It felt like a calling to be a voice of light for a ministry that, on so many levels, changed my life and my heart many years ago when I was in a dark, dark place. With this renewed focus put on the race I was r...

ELIMINATING THE JUNK AND NOURISHING THE SPIRIT

So, for the last couple weeks we've been on a "sugar free" kick. Challenged by Staci's parents and her younger brother, the goal has been to see who can go the longest without sugar-laden desserts and beverages. The effort has been to promote a healthier lifestyle at home. This hasn't been easy. My sweet tooth is legendary. I have never been known to turn down a chocolate chip cookie or a bowl of ice cream. Even my morning coffee is often filled with sweet liquid coffee creamer. One lesson I figured out right off the bat was, instead of just simply eliminating food, by necessity we had to replace the bad stuff we were consuming with healthier options. For me this meant, especially, more fruits, veggies, protein and water in the areas where I had been consuming empty calories. I started how to learn to better fuel my body instead of just feeding cravings. Immediately my focus became how to nourish our bodies with what we took in, instead of just habitual consum...

RUNNING FOR THE BIGGER PICTURE

"If I give all I possess to the poor, and give my body over to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."  I Corinthians 13:3, NIV I am fighting an unfamiliar feeling right now. I have a half-marathon race on the docket a week from this morning, and I'm not giving much thought or concern to how fast I run it. Now, anyone who knows me knows I have a ten-mile wide competitive streak. And that streak runs widest when I am competing with myself. So, to look toward a race and not have a concrete time focus is unusual to say the least. This definitely does not mean I do not want to run the race well - I do. But during the last few training runs, I have noticed I am not running with this race in mind. I am, instead, focused squarely on a couple of bigger picture goals. First, I am attempting to break the 2,000-mile mark this year for the first time since I started running 7 1/2 years ago. Even a year or two ago, the idea that such a mark would...

FINDING REFRESHMENT IN A BITTER WORLD

“ Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your  words  will be an  encourage ment to those who hear them.” Ephesians 4:29, NLT Most of my mornings start early – like, no daylight, crickets-still-chirping early – around, or often before, 5 a.m. If I’m still in bed at six, even on the weekends, you might want to check my pulse. The pre-dawn hours before the day turns the wind-up crank on my energetic two year old daughter Makenzie is my time of refreshment and renewal. In those times, there are generally three constants – a pair of running shoes, multiple cups of coffee, and a camo-covered Bible. By way of confession, sometimes there are too many cups of coffee and not enough time with an open Bible. With a hyper personality made significantly moreso by seemingly endless refills of java, finding the balance is not always easy. Countless stresses that overload and overwhelm the already hectic pace of life. The morning news is filled with stories of g...