Running for God

I am not a runner. In fact, I am not an athletic person at all. I can run about twenty steps and then be completely winded. But, I need to run.

See, in the next year or two, there are a lot of mission trips I'd like to be able to go on, lots of precious kids I want to love. I want to go to Peru, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, and Uganda. That's approximately $16, 500 worth of mission trips. That's a lot of money. You can be sure that people will get tired of me asking for money for missions, so then what do I do?

How on earth do I get that much money?

My dad gave me a solution. He sure knows how to motivate his daughter. A 5K. I have to run a 5K. He says that if I can do it, he'll pay for one of my mission trips. A whole mission trip. That's a least $1, 500 off my plate.

At the beginning of this week, I could walk a mile in about 20 minutes. The past two days, I've cut that down to 18 minutes, alternating between jogging and walking. That's a big deal for me. I didn't think I could walk a mile, let alone jog parts of it.

I don't enjoy running, though. I don't enjoy it one speck. But, I see it as reaching a goal, as running toward something. Every mile I run is a mile closer to Peru or Africa.

God is showing me that the things I never thought I could do, He can do through me. I can share my testimony in front of a church full of people who don't speak my language. I can run a 5K.

We can run for God, just like we run for a mission, or for any cause. No, reading the Bible isn't always the funnest thing ever. No, we don't always want to go to church, but we do it because we have to keep running. Because if we stop, we may never start again.

Laps

I am not a very healthy person.

Try as I do to just forget about eating healthy and keeping my body in shape, it's just not something I can "forget" away.

I was brought to the abrupt realization that I need to change the way I live by my doctor, who told me that if I didn't change, I might one day have diabetes, heart problems, and all sorts of other nasty medical issues.

I've heard some people say that, in order to be a Christian, you have to eat right and exercise daily. I don't believe that. I do believe that my body is a temple for Christ, and I have not been giving it that respect.

Some people are naturally good at sports or being fit. Not me. I don't like exercise. Maybe because, for my entire life, exercise has only been something to improve you. So when I exercised, it seemed to me like that said, "You're not good enough." And I hated that. Especially when I didn't see immediate results except fatigue and time wasted that I could've been doing something else.

I'm a picky eater too. I was fed all manner of high-calorie, high-fat foods when I was little to get me on the growth charts, and I'm sorry to say that my "high-calorie, high-fat" tastes have not worn off.

I like comfort food - fried chicken, mashed potatoes, pizza, that kind of thing. I don't like many fruits and vegetables - something about the texture of them unsettles me. On top of all that, one of my favorite things in the world to do is bake. Bake cookies, bake brownies, bake cakes, make ice cream. And being "healthy" says that I can't enjoy any of those things, that those things I enjoy so much are "bad."

So I've had to compromise. I've made some resolutions. No dessert except on weekends. At least one fruit and one veggie a day. No pizza or chicken for breakfast (generally I'm not a huge fan of breakfast foods). And I've started swimming laps. Every day. I swam 40 laps today, and my legs feel like jelly.

And, I've had to come to the conclusion that I may not see immediate results. It may be weeks, or months before I see or feel any changes. But I'll have to get through it.

And, who knows, maybe in time I'll learn to enjoy it.