What Next?

I am a competitive person. As far back as I can remember, I have always been competitive. I remember a time when I was playing U12 soccer and I was miserable. I felt like the coach was always picking on me. It always seemed like when we would get to play a scrimmage game, he would always play, too, and he would put himself on the other team, and then he would man-mark me. I was getting kicked and banged up by the coach, and I wanted to quit.

My parents wouldn't let me quit, but they listened to my concerns and talked to the coach. Turns out he thought I had potential but "needed toughening up." I thought I was tough enough, and I decided to show him in our next practice. When it came time to scrimmage, sure enough, he lined up across from me. When the ball came, I missed the ball (later I would find that this was called a "professional foul" and kicked him in the ankle. He went down, and he never played against me again. Several years later he was refereeing one of my games and he pulled down his sock to show me that he still had a scar from where I'd kicked him. I guess I was tough enough!

As we went on and as my skills got better, I would routinely play against better players, and I loved it. I loved running drills in practice, and I would work as hard as I could. Track practice was the same; when I was supposed to run a 400m interval in 75 seconds, I would run it in 70. Sometimes my teammates didn't like to practice against me because I had one speed: all out.

I really liked having a coach push me to work harder.

But after playing high school soccer, and after playing club soccer in college, the days of having a coach were over. I still play as hard as I can, but I don't have someone else pushing me. At least I get to play. I wonder about someone who has played football at a high level - where do they go next? At least a runner can run local races. A basketball player can play Y-ball. A soccer player can play in an open league or an age-group league (when I was a teenager, I swore I'd never play in one of those old man leagues like an over 30 team). But what about a football player?

I wonder, what's next?

Like I said, I am competitive. I have been running races a lot more over the past several years. One of my life-long goals was running a marathon, and once I did that, I wondered what my next challenge would be. It was running a second marathon (the way I saw it, anyone could run one, but it took more to run a second one). But then I wondered what would be my next challenge.

I began running more 5K races - for a couple of reasons. One was that I like seeing some of the same people at every race and making new friends. But, of course, I love the competition! For a while, I focused most on my finish in my age group, but lately it's been about my time. I set a goal this summer of beating 20 minutes (42 seconds better than my then-PR), and I accomplished that goal with a time of 19:35. What next?

One of the things I see a lot with some people is that once they accomplish a particular goal, they live off that accomplishment. For example, if the goal was to run a marathon, then they do it, then for the next 5 years they eat like they just ran it! "yeah, man, I ran a marathon. Now pass the pork rinds!"

Or in life in general: maybe they did something high level, but now they say, "I did that once, so now I just sit around." To that person, I say, "What next?"

Exhausted

Sorry for a lack of posts here - I am beat. It is hard work having a baby in the house, even when the baby is wonderful. Waking up twice a night every night is no picnic, even when the wonderful little fella sucks his bottle right down and goes back to sleep.

Unfortunately this leads to mental exhaustion as well, and when it comes time to write something new, well, let's just say it doesn't come easily!

I've kept up the running, mostly because I want to do well Saturday in our local 5K, but I will just have to accept it if I don't do as well as I have been doing lately; some of my runs have been miserable!

Despite the level of exhaustion, I've been doing pretty well personally, and our family is grateful to have friends who have stepped up and helped out!

Discerning a Call to Ministry

Now that's a mouthful if ever I've written one. What does that even mean: discerning a call to ministry?

I don't have any idea.

I think it's a nice way to say that I figured out that I *can't* do anything else; I *must* be in full-time ministry.

When I was getting ready to go to seminary, my friend Roby told me, "If you can do anything else, then do it."

What he meant was that even though I was feeling a pull to seminary and to enter some kind of full-time ministry career, if there was any other way I could live, then maybe the ministry wasn't for me.

I didn't really get it then, but after a lot of soul-searching, I think I do. Here's the thing: I wouldn't be fulfilled in any other line of work. The fact is, I *must* be about the LORD's work.

I first started to realize that God was calling me to do something for Him after I went to Russia on a mission trip. There's something about being a full-time missionary (even for only 6 1/2 weeks) that makes one evaluate what's true and what's worthwhile.

I realized that some things I valued weren't of much value to God and some things I badly wanted weren't things that God wanted and some things I feared weren't of any consequence to God.

And God spoke through me while I was there, obedient to Him.

Talking about this experience with a trusted small group of friends helped me to understand that this was God's plan for my life. Very encouraging, but kind of scary, too.

Seminary was a great time of growth for me; besides a whole bunch of fantastic book knowledge, I gained a deeper intimacy with God and a more healthy understanding of pastors, potential pastors, and seminary professors as regular humans (for good or not).

I love being in ministry, because for all of my life, God has been preparing me for it. If you are in the midst of wondering "Is God calling me to ministry" here is a page with some further stories from other young clergy about their call to ministry. And if you're in the 18-24 range, you'll want to check out this event.

I Forgot to Mention

When Jonathan told people at the party that he was going to get a baby brother, I asked the boys what the baby's name would be.

Andrew replied, "Donut!"

Jonathan said, "Well, I think it should be Mason." (I don't think he even knows anyone named Mason).

Turns out he was only one letter off... he put the middle initial onto the first name.

Baby Jason

Today at 2:30 I got a call. it was our social worker with job and family services; would we take a foster child? details? he's a little guy, born on august 7th, and he needed somewhere to come home to from the hospital.

And so, at 4:00 were we introduced to the newest member of our family, for however long we get to keep him: Jason Michael!

he's the sweetest little guy... funny thing: on saturday, Jonathan told people at a party that he was going to get a new baby brother.

Baltimore Festival 5K

I know it seems like all I do these days is run - that's because I've been pretty busy and haven't taken the time to type out many of my other thoughts.

Anyway, Saturday was the Baltimore Festival 5K. It was a packed field; all the cross country kids were out to run this race. It was a very narrow start, so I made sure to start near the front. Good choice. The race announcer told people that if they weren't planning to run fast, don't start near the front; you will get run over.

My first mile felt good... good and fast. Just over 6 minutes (contrast that with my usual 6:20-6:30 first mile). My second mile was in 6:20, and by this time, I knew that unless something catastrophic happened, I would beat 20 minutes.

My final time: 19:35. I broke 20 minutes! I was so excited, I was floating all day. Full results are available here.

2009 Lancaster Festival 5K results are now online

You can go here for the overall results, where you can see that Brian Visnson placed 17th, and you can go here for the age group results, where you can see that Brian Vinson was 2nd in the 35-39 men's group.

And my official time was 20:09.

Only 9 seconds left to drop!

Lancaster Festival 5K

Saturday morning I ran another 5K. Last year I finished 27th (or so) with a time of 21:08, and I was really hoping to drop time this race. My goal of 20 minutes would have only gained me about 5 places overall, but I'm not really racing against "them" right now: it's all a race against myself.

I was running late getting there, but I still managed about a mile or a little more of a warm-up, and was ready when the race started. Last year's start seemed to be really sudden; the race director was talking, then, BOOM, the race was on. This year we were prepared for that, but it started like most races start.

I went out feeling like I wasn't pushing too hard; when I run work-outs (and even in practice 5K runs) I feel like I'm always really pushing hard, even when my time doesn't reflect it.

The course was pretty simple: straight down the street to a bike path: follow the bike path to a turn-around (through a neighborhood - this was a very well-run race, with people at every intersection directing traffic: both runner and automobile), then back on the bike path to the same street. So a glorified out-and-back path.

I was shocked to hit the 1 mile mark at 6:14 because I hadn't felt like I was going out so fast. By this time, the pack had thinned out (and the leaders were so far ahead that it wasn't even funny), but I still had some runners to pick off.

Most notably was one guy I know: I'd never beaten him, and he was out in front of me, but not too far ahead. I decided that I wouldn't let him get away.

By the turn around, I'd caught him, but he wasn't giving up without a fight. We ran together pretty much the entire rest of the race; I would get some ground on him on hills (both up and down), but he would come back. In fact, on the last 1/2 up the street, he started turning it on and got some ground on me.

Second mile was in the mid 6:30s, at which point I realized that if I ran a mentally strong race, I could possibly come close to my goal time of 20 minutes flat. I'd set this as my goal for the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival race (in early September), but if I could hit it now, that would be awesome!

I worked hard on the final 1/2, which was a slightly uphill grade, and barely missed my target time: I finished in 20:08, which was a (post-high school) P.R. for me.

I was 2nd in my age group, and I'm not sure of my overall place, but neither of that was what was important: what was important was what I proved to myself: that a sub-20 minute 5K (meaning a drop of over 42 seconds off my P.R.) could be a reality this summer.