Monthly Archives: July 2015

38

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This little girl had dreams a plenty.

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She was going to be a diplomat;

a writer;

maybe the next Oprah Winfrey.

But mostly she just wanted to be someone’s Mom.

At 4 she would wander around her house with the couch pillow stuffed up her shirt pretending she was pregnant. She carried her baby doll with her everywhere and  dreamed of a day when she would have a herd of kids running through her backyard.

34 years later she finds she never did get to become that diplomat or that talk show host.

But being that mom, well that dream came true.

Three beautiful babies that fill her world with such joy.

And as she turns the page and starts her 38th chapter she feels particularly blessed because those three little girls have given her the courage to be who she is today.

They are the long hoped for goal that yielded so much more than she could have ever imagined.

She knows that but for them she would not be that writer,

that athlete,

that executive.

So as she watches them make her breakfast and offer their homemade tokens of celebration for her birth, she acknowledges that their births are her greatest present.

Those nearly 11 years as their Momma are truly the reason she can celebrate today.

The happiest of birthday’s occur when you accept the privilege of having lived the last year and acknowledge the opportunity of the new year to come.

Today I am grateful for the life I get to live and excited to watch how the rest of it unfolds.

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Losing it

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Today, I looked at this precious face, and I lost it.

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“We have to go”,

“You need to get dressed”,

“You are going to make me late for a meeting”;

words spit out.

She wouldn’t stand for the rushing.

Me hurrying her out the door when she had just awoken from slumber.

So I let go and I lost my patience.

“You must hurry. I am going to leave here without you!”

Really? Did I just say that?

What greater fear of a 4-year-old then to be left behind; all alone.

Once safely ensconced in our car, hurling down the highway, I felt the sadness.

I had started the day with such good intent. My heart full after my run and devotionals.

But yet when my 4-year-old asked for the same, a peaceful start to the day on her terms, I left her empty handed and feeling a bit abandoned.

I apologized right then.

And her in all her preschool wisdom,

“It’s ok Momma. I messed up too. We’ll both try harder”.

Grace.

 

The downhill

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I’m a creature of habit, a lover of the routine.

Wake up, drink my tea, eat my Nugo bar, morning devotionals and then my miles on the treadmill.

On the weekends the girls are gone I log those miles on the long, winding, country roads around my house.

This past Sunday I woke up with my mind ready to run but my body telling a different story.

In reality much of the last 7 months have found my body and my mind speaking different languages. One running injury after another have plagued me. This month’s injury had me out for 7 days (well really only 5 but no one other than my doctor is counting).

My body was silently revolting against my routine.

Mind over matter eventually won out and my feet hit the pavement on Sunday.

But the rebellion had set in and felt a deep longing to change-up the routine.

So off I went heading north instead of south, deciding to run my usual 5 mile loop in the opposite direction.

Crazy I know.

1.5 miles in and I discovered there were hills on my regular route I didn’t know existed.

All those miles logged and I had not known that part of the course I was running was a gradual downhill? Now running the course backwards turned those previously easy strides into head down, leaning in, long and gradual uphill ascent.

Over the next miles I continued to feel astounded by what I had not known but was clearly always there.

Why didn’t I turn around more to acknowledge the hills (both up and down) I had been running?

How much of the last year had I been coasting and not realized it?

And there my friends is why I run.

Us runners, given enough miles to think it through, can turn any moment into a life lesson.