Seeing Jesus
Today the weather was perfect, and I worked through lunch so I could get out and enjoy it. I decided to go for a run on the canal trail to Hebron, planning on a 10 miler. When I got to the 5 mile mark, I had already decided to push it to a half marathon, meaning I'd go through Hebron (to the end of the sidewalk) and turn around. As I was coming around the corner into town, I passed a woman walking, pushing a wheelchair. I thought it was a stroller first, but then I realized it was a wheelchair, and in it was a boy, probably a young teenager (at oldest). I passed them by, but they made me think...
...after I'd hit the turn-around, I saw them again, still heading in the same direction. But they turned down a side street and I kept running. Except I needed to talk to them. So I stopped my stopwatch and ran after them. I first spoke to the woman, thanking her for taking care of someone with special needs. I don't know if she was his mother or just a caretaker, but for some reason, it touched me how she was walking with him in the beautiful weather. I told her that when I saw her caring for him, I saw Jesus working through her.
Then I turned to him and greeted him and introduced myself and made a comment about the weather, and his face was radiant. His smile was ear-to-ear, and his eyes lit up. And when I looked into them, I was looking into Jesus' eyes.
I know why I ran when I did. And I know why I stretched it into a half marathon. It was because I was supposed to. God wanted me to do it, so I would see His Son.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Living it
On Wednesday morning, I met my pastor friend Rob for an early morning run in one of our nearby parks. We meet there somewhat frequently (every few weeks now that he has moved out my direction and is somewhat settled now), and we run fast and spend a bit of time talking about what's going on.
I don't usually see other runners (or many walkers, for that matter) where I generally run, but when I do, I always greet them. So we do the same when we're running on the path, even when it means saying "Hi" to the same person multiple times.
Wednesday after we finished running, we were stretching a little before we left, and a guy went by us toward the path. We greeted him and continued stretching. Not long after, we saw him returning to the parking area. He came over to us and asked us, "Are you guys believers in the Lord Jesus Christ?"
That kicked off a cool conversation and we were all able to encourage one another and ended up praying together, but we asked him how he knew we were believers. He said that he had seen us on the path before and the way we always greeted people made an impact. There was just something about us...
The way we go about our normal day-to-day activities is important. The way we treat total strangers, the way we participate in our hobbies, the way we behave wherever we go... it all reflects who we are and Whose we are. Everyone can make an impact for Christ by living for Him.
On Wednesday morning, I met my pastor friend Rob for an early morning run in one of our nearby parks. We meet there somewhat frequently (every few weeks now that he has moved out my direction and is somewhat settled now), and we run fast and spend a bit of time talking about what's going on.
I don't usually see other runners (or many walkers, for that matter) where I generally run, but when I do, I always greet them. So we do the same when we're running on the path, even when it means saying "Hi" to the same person multiple times.
Wednesday after we finished running, we were stretching a little before we left, and a guy went by us toward the path. We greeted him and continued stretching. Not long after, we saw him returning to the parking area. He came over to us and asked us, "Are you guys believers in the Lord Jesus Christ?"
That kicked off a cool conversation and we were all able to encourage one another and ended up praying together, but we asked him how he knew we were believers. He said that he had seen us on the path before and the way we always greeted people made an impact. There was just something about us...
The way we go about our normal day-to-day activities is important. The way we treat total strangers, the way we participate in our hobbies, the way we behave wherever we go... it all reflects who we are and Whose we are. Everyone can make an impact for Christ by living for Him.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
March Madness Running Challenge
I have always been competitive when I run. Even when I was just running around Nicholasville with Nathan and my dog, we would generally end up faster, trying to "beat" one another to an imaginary finish line. I usually run alone, but whenever I see someone off ahead of me, I (consciously or not) speed up the pace, hoping to catch them. But even when I'm running by myself, I push myself to run faster. Those "slow" runs on a training schedule can be difficult!
I love to challenge myself to run faster, so when I saw that dailymile was holding a March Madness Running Challenge, I jumped at the chance. This is how the challenge worked: for the first round, anyone could join (they had separate challenges for men and women). The challenge was to run the most distance in a week. There are some real workhorses on dailymile, and I just barely managed to eke my way into the top 32 and into the second round (especially as I had just run a half marathon distance the day before the challenge posted).
The second round was a speed challenge; the 16 fastest 5K times would advance. I ran a 5K... about 30 seconds slower than I wanted to. I might have advanced with my time of 20 minutes, but I wasn't sure, and I sure wasn't happy with my time. So after a rest day, I tried again... and ran my fastest 5K yet: 19:00! (I ran a little long, so I actually broke 19 for the first time since high school!).
That was good enough to make it to the Sweet Sixteen, another distance challenge. I cruised my way into the Elite Eight, averaging 8 miles/day for the three day challenge, and it was on to another speed challenge, this time at the 10K distance.
I have never run a 10K race before, but I have been running pretty well lately, so I was originally planning to run toward a goal of 44 minutes. Except I went faster. Quite a bit faster. And due to a Garmin that went a little wacky, I ran a little far, and still broke my goal time by 2 minutes. Until I realized that I'd run far - so I did the calculations and realized that my adjusted time was 39 minutes! I was so psyched! I made it to the Final Four.
But that was where I was going to bow out (as gracefully as possible), as this two-day distance challenge saw my 16 miles eclipsed by two guys who had monster weekends (54 and 34 miles!)
It was a really fun competition, and it hit that competitive nerve that gets me going.
I know that not everyone who reads my blog is a runner - nor should they be - and the point of me talking about running isn't to shame anyone into running or to call anyone out or anything of the sort (I write about running because I enjoy running). The point of this blog is that there was something that drove me to work hard to do something I didn't think I could do. Is there something that you have wanted to try that maybe you just need some extra motivation?
I have always been competitive when I run. Even when I was just running around Nicholasville with Nathan and my dog, we would generally end up faster, trying to "beat" one another to an imaginary finish line. I usually run alone, but whenever I see someone off ahead of me, I (consciously or not) speed up the pace, hoping to catch them. But even when I'm running by myself, I push myself to run faster. Those "slow" runs on a training schedule can be difficult!
I love to challenge myself to run faster, so when I saw that dailymile was holding a March Madness Running Challenge, I jumped at the chance. This is how the challenge worked: for the first round, anyone could join (they had separate challenges for men and women). The challenge was to run the most distance in a week. There are some real workhorses on dailymile, and I just barely managed to eke my way into the top 32 and into the second round (especially as I had just run a half marathon distance the day before the challenge posted).
The second round was a speed challenge; the 16 fastest 5K times would advance. I ran a 5K... about 30 seconds slower than I wanted to. I might have advanced with my time of 20 minutes, but I wasn't sure, and I sure wasn't happy with my time. So after a rest day, I tried again... and ran my fastest 5K yet: 19:00! (I ran a little long, so I actually broke 19 for the first time since high school!).
That was good enough to make it to the Sweet Sixteen, another distance challenge. I cruised my way into the Elite Eight, averaging 8 miles/day for the three day challenge, and it was on to another speed challenge, this time at the 10K distance.
I have never run a 10K race before, but I have been running pretty well lately, so I was originally planning to run toward a goal of 44 minutes. Except I went faster. Quite a bit faster. And due to a Garmin that went a little wacky, I ran a little far, and still broke my goal time by 2 minutes. Until I realized that I'd run far - so I did the calculations and realized that my adjusted time was 39 minutes! I was so psyched! I made it to the Final Four.
But that was where I was going to bow out (as gracefully as possible), as this two-day distance challenge saw my 16 miles eclipsed by two guys who had monster weekends (54 and 34 miles!)
It was a really fun competition, and it hit that competitive nerve that gets me going.
I know that not everyone who reads my blog is a runner - nor should they be - and the point of me talking about running isn't to shame anyone into running or to call anyone out or anything of the sort (I write about running because I enjoy running). The point of this blog is that there was something that drove me to work hard to do something I didn't think I could do. Is there something that you have wanted to try that maybe you just need some extra motivation?
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