How listening can help you find what you were made to do

Running a very wet half marathon last April with my husband and daughter

I love to run. When I am able, I like to set aside an hour, or longer, to run on Saturdays. I settle into the rhythmic pace. My muscles warm up. I breathe deep and think, "I am made to do this."

Instantly, I reject this idea.

My thoughts sneer at me, "You'll never win a race. You're slow. How can you even think that you are made to do this?"

It is true that I've never won a race. And that I only ran on the junior varsity of my high school cross country team. It is also true that I am the slowest in my family. Yet, I feel good when I run slow for 4 to 8 miles.

My body instinctively knows that I am made to do this. However, because I'm slower than others, I dismiss this innate sense of what I was 'made to do.' My head rejected this urge based on the interpretation of the data.

It is true that I am slower than many others but that doesn't make it true that I am not suppose to be doing it.

As quick as a pain reflex, my mind concluded that I wasn't made to do this based on comparing myself to others: I am not fast, and I haven't ever won a race. Therefore, I cannot say that I am made to do this.

These thoughts reveal an underlying assumption that it is only worth doing things when you are better than others. Plus, an assumption that it is particularly worth doing if you will win.

These assumptions cause me to look to others, or to a standard, to define my significance rather than what I am suppose to be about in my life.

Though I know that it is unwise to compare myself to others, I hadn't realized until now that in comparing myself to others I was dismissing clues to my calling. I was overlooking these almost imperceptible urges  about the true callings of my life.

How many other clues have I missed?  What else am I believing that it is not worth doing unless I am first? Unless it is big? Unless others will notice? Unless I have a chance at the gold medal?

Not everything that we were made to do will win a gold medal.

But it is hard to embrace this. It is hard to 'run' a pace that my husband can walk. It is hard to be the one who gets the whole family to go for a run but then I am the last one home. It is hard to run consistently and still be so much slower than my husband. It is hard to jog a steady pace and have walkers out-pace me.

It is also hard to hear the small, quiet voice inside of you telling you what you were made to do, especially if you aren't first. Especially if you never win a blue ribbon. Especially if everybody else is better than you.

But it is worth it to listen to the clues.  To learn what it is that we were made to do. To find the works that He prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

I need to stop looking at others. Stop comparing. Start listening to the clues about what the true callings of my life are. Even if I will never win a race.

What about you?  Have you missed any clues to your calling?

Join us in the comments and share your thoughts.

Also linking with Jen at SDG.

380 Miles

In 2011, I logged three hundred and eighty miles on my running shoes. It is hard to believe that I ran that many miles. With something that impressive, it seems I would have set out to do it. I didn't.

Rather, after seven years of sporadic daily exercise, I decided to run a half-marathon because my sister-in-law was finally ready to run it with me.

That was the main goal. To run a half-marathon.

Since I had run a full marathon several years before I thought this would be an easy goal to tackle. I was wrong. Yes, you can write that down. I was wrong. Not running -- really at all -- for seven years, gaining the weight I had lost back, and entering into my forties doesn't make for easy half-marathon training.

On a crazy note, because it felt like work to train, it made it easier to make time to train. "I have to do this" seems much more compelling than "I love this!" Usually I feel guilty for doing something that I enjoy. This time I only remember one good training run.

Yet, the reason 380 miles is on my mind is the gratitude I have for them. You see, I twisted my knee two days after Christmas. Running the upcoming half-marathon this spring is out of the question. Walking it is a maybe and a daunting goal, considering that I have not bent my knee fully for 3 weeks.

I am so thankful that I have run a half-marathon and the full 26.2 marathon before that. That full marathon was one of my top two items on my life list I things I want to accomplish. This set-back is only temporary. I will be active again.

But it is not a blow to a dream-goal.

I am so thankful.

There is disappointment. My son and I had signed up together and were training together. I loved that. I am sad about not being able to do that.

But I am so thankful that this set-back isn't putting me in despair of reaching a dream that I've had for a long time. It can't!

This obstacle cannot strike a blow to the goal of running a marathon because I have already done it! Amazing!

Thus, this realization has caused me to think about the number one item on my life list. It has been there longer than running 26.2 miles.

So... now it's time.

Time to pursue that dream. Cross it off the list before some small obstacle knocks a blow to that dream-goal.

Hopefully next year at this time I will have logged 380 miles pursuing my other dream. No regrets. May the Lord continue to "teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12

How about you?
Have you ever encountered a disappointing set-back
that surprisingly gave you a better perspective on life?

Love, Kathleen

Linking with SDG Sisterhood at Jen's. 
and with the Company Coffee Girl's at Rachel's

Finding a New Groove

One of the groove busters: our MN vacation.
Here are the kids 0n Paul Bunyan's lap in Northern Minnesota.

Somewhere along the way, I lost my schooling groove and my blogging groove. I am looking for them. If you find them --or any of my other good grooves, will you return them to me?

Ahhh, if it could only be that easy.

It's always harder to restart than it is to keep going, isn't it? So, why do I have such trouble remembering that? Sometimes it's a circumstance: a vacation, a sick child, a broken car, or some other time-consuming event. Then my feelings take advantage: I don't feel like it.

Another pic from our groove-busting, memory-filled vacation.

It is just like when I am running along and then... bam... there I am walking. I didn't decide to walk. But I am walking none-the-less. It is best if I take three quick steps as soon as I notice I'm walking or I may walk a long way. And so it is with my habits, I need to take quick action or it may be a long time before I'm grooving again.

Unfortunately, I did not take quick action and so I find myself today in need of lots of gumption to find the grooves of schooling and blogging.

One of the easier grooves to re-establish has been running. It hasn't been as long since I was in the groove as it has been with the others. Also, my oldest is running with me. He woke me up yesterday when I didn't hear my alarm.

So there is that, too: fresh enthusiasm from another. Always very helpful to get over a hump of inertia.

And in the running together, I have passed on a couple of tid-bits: watch your form and it's a mental game. Now, at first they were for him. But, I have found that I need to apply this mental game advice to my every day life.

Our family at our dear friends' wedding.

Most of us can get up and run -- even if it is not your method of getting a work-out. But the big part of learning to run (and a great benefit of running) is to teach your mind to direct and not your body. Decide beforehand how long you will run and how you will run. The work-outs can be slow and easy with no walking or fast and hard run with short walking breaks.

The type of run doesn't matter as much as training the body to do what your mind says and not what it feels like.

And isn't that great advice for tackling the daily details? Determine in advance what you will do in spite of what you feel like doing.

And so, I determined in advance that we will do math this week even though it is birthday week at our house (three birthdays, seven days). We will set our alarms and begin our routines. And instead of reading lots of blogs this morning, I am writing my own blog post. I need to re-establish the blogging groove somehow. Here it is.

Cute, aren't they?
At the end of our three-day camping trip in Northern Minnesota.

What are you determining to do in spite of how you feel?
Are you in a good groove?
Or, are you like me and beginning again?

P.S. Welcome to the Company Girls...I've been gone awhile...thanks for checking in on me...and for my other readers click HERE to get to know some other folks...

A Different Kind of Help

I invited my husband to run with me two Saturdays ago. Then, I sent him away. With a scowl.

"Go on. Run ahead of me."

He turned his head toward me. He gave me a funny look. He ran a few steps ahead and said, "Like this?"

"No," I said, unpleasantly. "Keep on running. Stride out."

He did.

He ran ahead. With a puzzled look on his face. He came back, checked on me, and continued to run ahead.

"Uh-oh," I wondered. Would I be in trouble with my husband? I did invite him and then proceeded to send him away. And not very kindly either.

What compelled me to do that?

Was it my youngest of five, independent, "Do it Self" attitude that needed to prove something that sent him away?

Was it that during high school cross country races I ran by myself?

Or was it that he was w.a.l.k.i.n.g. while I "ran"?

Once he was ahead of me, my gasps for breath were no longer magnified against his walking self beside me. When he was next to me, I heard each clunky step of mine next to his quiet stride. The comparison slowed my steps, making my effort seem even harder.

When he went ahead of me, I looked up.

I began to imagine my stride as more graceful. Instead of the fitness gap between us discouraging me, I began to be inspired.

I will never run as fast as my husband even if he was not in shape and I was. He is male and talented. I am female. I run long and slow.

But watching him run fast stirs me to keep training so that I'll be as fit as I can be. It doesn't have to be the same pace as him.

I liked having him ahead of me more than next to me.

How odd this struck me, at first.

But as I pondered why I liked having him ahead of me. I realized that this was a different kind of help. An inspirational kind of help instead of the in-the-trenches sort of help.

And this is true in my daily life as well.

I need friends who are running the race at the same pace and the same effort AND I also need people ahead of me, showing me the possibility of what can be done.

I need both: the trudging-right-alongside-me friends and the way-up-ahead friends.

How about you? Do you need both kinds of friends in your life? Do you have an example of someone in your life that encourages you more by watching him (or her) run ahead of you than if they were right beside you?

Joyfully,
Kathleen

p.s. Thankfully, the hubby wasn't offended in my sending him away. I was still credited with the points of inviting him along for a run.

p.p.s. I promise that this is not becoming a running blog -- at the very least my next post idea has nothing to do with running.

ppps Thanks for coming for Company Coffee and go HERE to read more.

In the Middle of a Five Mile Run

In the middle of a five mile run I am a crazy woman and I think crazy thoughts.

I think, "I could run forever because I feel so good."

I think, "Sugar? Who needs it. I'm done with it forever."

Then as I huff and puff at the end of my run, I wonder when it will be done. Will I ever finish? I slug it out. I do finish. (See? I'm not still running but rather writing a blog post).

Soon after I am home, I find that brownie. You know that brownie, full of sugar, that I could take or leave for the rest of my life during my run?!?

Usually those wild ideas happen in the middle of the run but last week they followed me home. As I looked into the bathroom mirror, I thought, "Wow. My waist already looks smaller." (I am only three weeks or so into my new determination to exercise.) Since I had already stopped moving, reality hit much sooner: I may have lost a few pounds but we can't see it yet.

How do such preposterous ponderings gain such credibility in my mind? A myriad of ideas fall into my mind throughout the day -- whether or not I'm running -- but it's those five mile run thoughts that get me convinced. Those are the ones I believe.

Then, it comes as a shock: I am surprised that it's hard to finish the run. (Didn't I just think: I could run forever?). I am tempted so mightily to eat a brownie. (Wait...I thought I gave that up forever?) My stretch jeans fit snugly. (How can this be? I looked smaller!)

It's as if the five mile run almost makes me believe it. Not three or two miles. Not one. Not six or seven. But it is the five mile run thoughts that get the most credit. Is this part of the runner's high? Or some other strange phenomena?

What do you think? Do you have crazy five mile run thoughts? Perhaps somewhere else besides a five mile run?

Have a great weekend!
Kathleen

I'm linking up for some Company Girl Coffee here.