God is Good || Half Marathon

God bless MLK Day! This weekend was incredible and extremely full, and having today off just makes it all so much better. The women in our Sunday School class went on a retreat this weekend. It was such a wonderful time of sweet fellowship and time to "retreat". We had some great sessions and activities. One of the things we did while there was choose a word for the year that we wanted to focus on. After much prayer and thought about this time in my life, I came to the word, TRUST. Merriam-Webster defines the verb trust as "believing that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective; to place confidence in, to depend on or rely on, to have faith in". I want to focus on trusting God and his perfect plan for us which he has already laid out before us. I want to be able to give up control and let God do his work. Philippians 4:1-20 is my prayer. Yesterday, verses 6&7 were my prayer.

Have you ever accomplished something that you know full-well you did not accomplish with your own strength? I have--yesterday. About eight months ago, I signed up for the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, and I began training in July. I then stopped training in August--when school started. I was disappointed in myself, but I soon got over it because I knew I had already taken on too much. That said, I had come to the conclusion about mid-October that the 2014 half marathon would not happen for me, and to be honest, I was at peace with that. Fast forward two and a half months… some of you have read about our family fitness challenge, and that's where things began changing for me. It has been almost three weeks since the challenge began, and since the beginning, I have been running almost every day to get my daily work out. In order to receive a point for a work-out in the challenge if you are just going to run, it must be 3 miles, and that's what I did… almost every day. The farthest I ran was 3.5, and I'm pretty sure it was on accident. On January 9th, I sent my mom a text, "Would you maybe still want to run the half?" I was not with her when she received the text, but I can bet money she almost fell out of her chair, but I was 100% serious. Where did this confidence come from? The Lord. There is absolutely no other explanation. Fast forward again ten days…

Here we are (my mom and I) before embarking on this 13.1 mile run! The weather could not have been a bigger blessing! When we started, it was right at about 50 degrees. We both started in long sleeves (with plans to shed them at mile 3). I also started with ear-warmers, because my ears are very sensitive. Just waking up and getting downtown was an accomplishment. As odd as that sounds, it was for us. We were out there, doing it. With each step we took, we surprised ourselves. We hit mile 3 feeling really good, and then all of a sudden, we were at mile 6 feeling just as good.

My sweet dad and amazing husband were at each of the mile markers above cheering us on and encouraging us to keep going. Matt had a blast taking selfies at each of these mile markers, as well. He was such an encouragement. I told him it was even better than running with him, because I would look forward to seeing him at each of these places. My uncle picked us up at mile 3, and the three of us ran the entire way through mile 9. I was completely overwhelmed and blown away at that fact. But once leaving mile 9, I was hurting pretty bad--feeling the "not-training pain" in my legs and shins--so my uncle went on ahead of us.

That is where Philippians 4:6-7 came in. My prayer-warrior of a mom, truly an inspiration, started reciting these verses. It seemed like those last four miles all kind of blurred together. We could not believe we were at mile 12. And then at about 12.5, my uncle randomly appeared from behind us (after he had seen a friend and stopped), and the three of us got to finish together! We did it!! Praise the Lord! Although I would never recommend not training to anyone, I will say with confidence that with God's strength, there are so many things that we can accomplish. We truly can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.

To make it even sweeter, I got to trade in my old kicks (that have now been through two half marathons) for some much-needed and much cuter new ones! A gift from my parents for running yesterday. 

I wear a Fit-bit for those of you who know what one is. If not, it tracks my steps, mileage, sleep, calories (in and out), activity, etc. It connects wirelessly with an app on my phone, and before going to sleep last night, here are my results from the day… 

How crazy!

What can you accomplish with God's strength?