Joy in the Unlikely Places

Hi friends. It's been a while since I've posted anything. I wanted to write after our Biggest Loser 10K and tell you all about it. But I waited a week to get the pictures. That week ended up being extremely busy. So hence I'm coming to you now, story in hand, two weeks later haha.

Jared and I just celebrated one year of wedded awesomeness. Honestly, we look at each other and go, "Wow. This is amazing. We are best friends, a great team and I never get sick of being with you!" So to celebrate God's blessings we went out to Austin and what do we do? We run a 10K! Only us crazy people!

But seriously, we got to the end of the trip and asked, "What was our favorite part?" Our answer was...the Biggest Loser run. It wasn't the most organized event we have ever attended, but it was just FUN. Pictures below:

He's such a stud!

Sprinting to the end!

I make myself smile because I remember how excited I was!

Us being...us.

Biggest Loser Scale!

When we got home we instantly got into craziness. Jared had an interview in Dallas, so we had the mad dash up there and we were so busy. Then the next week came up and it seemed as busy as the last one. I took a week off running to recoup from a running strain then started into a strength training regimen. So I didn't really run for two weeks.

Let me tell you, it was the grumpiest two weeks I think I've ever been. I thought it was just because I was stressed out. After all, everything seemed to be like paddling upstream. Besides work and volunteering, I don't know what is coming in the future for Jared's job and I was frustrated that I wasn't seeing him much.

But today, I realized my lack of running and decided I should probably go if I wanted to keep up my endurance. As I started to get ready, I started to get excited. I was HAPPY to go running, even in the rain! Duchess was especially excited to go running (if only I caught her tearing around the apartment on video)! We got out there and I was saying, "I missed this!" I only went two miles, but those were some of the best two miles EVER.

So what does this say? I think that I have actually found something that makes me unashamedly joyful. It is totally unglamorous wearing no makeup and getting sopping wet as you run in the rain. But honestly, I loved every bit of it. I was shocked to see how happy I was in those pictures from our race. But I have found that running can completely change my mood for the better and can actually help me process though things in a healthy God-given manner.

What makes laugh even more is how scared I was to train at the beginning. I was terrified of trying to run two minutes straight! I have been faithful and now have an activity that makes me feel truly alive.

There are always things in our lives that we get scared of doing. Opening up to people, being honest, having that hard conversation, or trying something new. God constantly asks us to do things out of our comfort zone so that we learn to rely on Him rather than our own strength. That freaks me out! But I am taking a page out of the Biggest Loser. Instead of looking at the issue from a standpoint of, "What if I can't do what God wants me to do?" we need to understand that we are right! We can't! But if God has asked us to do something, nothing is impossible to God! We can then ask ourselves, "What can God do through this because He can?"

The answer to that my friends is 1 Corinthians 2:9:

'But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him."'

Still running Across America. Didn't make much progress the last few weeks but here I am today:

Over 200 miles down!