I haven’t been writing because I haven’t been back to the street. Someone asked me the other day if there really is a street named Glory Lane. There really is. This isn’t a metaphor. I just stumbled upon it one day in the middle of one of my therapeutic runs. And every time I go, I learn something, or don’t, but I meet God. In the midst of chaos, pain, joy, all of it.
And I think He wants that from us. He won’t beg for it or force it. I like that. But He waits. The patient kind of waiting. Not the foot-tapping-mad kind of waiting your parents would do when you wouldn’t come in for dinner on time.
As for running, I continue to. I’m actually training for a triathlon in October. I was reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I’ve mentioned him before and his book that asks each of us to live a better story for our lives. In his book, he realizes he’s just existing in life. That he’s kind of a boring guy. He mentions that it doesn’t take much to live a better, more thrilling life, you just have to try.
Well, I’m still trying to figure out I’m doing this part of my life, so I decided to live out a good story while I try to learn what it is I’m looking for. That’s where the triathlon comes in. Since about April or May, I’ve wanted to do this. A sprint tri, the shorter distance ones, but still insanely hard.
Oct 17th I will be running 3.1 miles, swimming 250 meters, and biking 16 miles. Right now, I’m at 6 miles running, 0 meters swimming, and maybe 4-6 miles biking. I have an incredibly long way to go. But I’m kind of excited.
If you’re like me, in the middle of transition and not quite sure where the next step is, I encourage you to put something in front of you. Like a marathon, or if you’re a little more level headed, a half marathon. My friend in LA is stuck in a job that she hates and loves at the same time, and is almost to the point where the hateful parts aren’t making any of it worth her time. But she needs to pay off loans, etc. So she put something in front of her. She called me up today so excited I could feel the energy through the phone. She’s doing something totally different than what I thought of. She’s volunteering time for a domestic abuse hotline that requires 40 hours of intensive training and a once a week, 5 month commitment. By the time she’s done, she’ll be a certified domestic abuse counselor, which happens to be extremely helpful with her job.
That’s a great idea, too. You can even drag someone else in to your making-a-better-story plan. Tonight I took one of the kids I’m living with to the lake to watch the sunset. Not a typical thing we do. She got to watch the sun literally sink down second by second until it disappeared. We thought it was pretty cool. Nothing huge and earth shattering, but something that makes for a better story when the day is done rather than sitting on the couch watching the tv til bed time.
I think we naturally find glory when we try to write a different or better story for ourselves. And the end goal is incredibly glorious: to sit with God at the end of life, watching a slide show of pictures of my life and my stories...and learning the meaning behind them and the depth or just enjoying reminiscing. A place with no guilt, no condemnation, but love, joy, and lots of oohs and ahhs and knee slappin' laughter.
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