Olympians

Honestly, I’m really full of thoughts, and I can’t seem to find the right spot for a good Internet connection. And that makes me upset and angry. We live in America, where things should work, where most things do work, and between my laptop, and the house setup, I can’t connect.
I just finished watching the end of the women’s Olympic marathon, and then immediately after, the women’s 50 freestyle swimming race. What could be more different! I dream of some day being awesome enough and self disciplined enough to be able to finish a marathon. It amazes me. Over 26 miles and running still, after hours. And the Olympians can do it much faster than I would ever be able to, but still-it’s a MARATHON. I loved that the woman who won was serious, pumping her arms, checking her watch, and she dove right in and took the lead early. No messing around. And she held on strong until the end. She finished well. I cried, I must admit. To see her checking over her shoulder for the competition (which she blew out of the water) and yet, she ran well. I felt proud for her, proud for women, proud for the Olympics.
Immediately flowing the marathon finish, they showed the finals of the 50 free. The 41 year old woman swimming against the 16 year old, and it too was an amazing race. But of a completely different sort. All finished within 30 seconds, really, probably finished within 26 seconds, and these women were also phenomenal. All were so close to each other; there isn’t even really time to breathe in the 50 free. Maybe you get, what, 4 breathes in during the race, but otherwise, get your head down, your arms and legs pumping, and hope for a great start. Cause this race is a flash in the pan, and it was over. So fast and furious, you couldn’t even tell who had won. It came down to .01 of a second.
Maybe you are all in love with Michael Phillips….fine. but I am pondering these races. I loved seeing the women compete, just does my woman’s heart good. And I am inspired by each and every single one of them, moms, teenagers, Africans, Poles, women out there, sticking with it and being amazing athletes. In college, one of my friends died in a terrible car accident, and he was a runner. I think he was known to have said something like when I run, it brings glory to God. And that made me proud of him for running. I imagine that he is a running fool in heaven; I hope that maybe he is. Anyways, these women also seem to be living out what they were made for.
And this makes me want to blog about the difficulty of living out what we were made for. But maybe I can keep that conversation short for tonight and just share that a side conversation today spurned these thoughts: If I’m honest about what I feel is true about what I was made for, it means I will not live close to my family, and this breaks my heart. If I instead choose to live close to my family because they mean the world to me, I will not be doing what I was created for. And I do not know how to find any balance in that.
Back to the marathon. I heard an amazing sermon about running marathons and thoughts on what Paul shared about finishing the race well. Which is at least found in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. Basically the sermon said that we are not just running any marathon here, in life, we are running a full contact marathon. Do not be fooled to think we just have to finish the race, unfortunately there is much more at stake. This marathon includes full contact tackling and such other things as tripping and probably clawing. Maybe there is an Olympic story about this….maybe more than one. Anyways, just as the guy was tackled in the home stretches of his race to the finish line, so too, we can and do get tackled in our race. So, the sermons point was probably saying, hey, you might and maybe already have been tackled. Don’t give up. Get back up. Keep moving. Finish well. And I was really challenged by that. I was at a point, about three years ago, and I was on the ground, tackled and crying…there was about 0% run still in me. But, gradually, I was able to stop the tears, and get up, and then, slowly, keep moving. I want to finish well. And to see these women today finish well, and some of them finish well despite obvious pain–this inspires me.


Other things I know:
I need my mom.
I need my big sister.
I need my family.
I am sad to be away from my community in Denver.
I am so thankful to have this time and this friendship with M, J and kids.
I am scared to start school, for lots of reasons.
I want a library card.
I always need good hugs.
I want to live somewhere with people, sorta cheaply and I want it to be good.
I often think it is hard to make choices to go against your brain, and follow your heart. I wish the two could work together more oftenly.
I don’t usually like to be the party planner. I am happy to be the one to come and enjoy the party, but I don’t want to have to plan it. It’s not a strength of mine.
I’m thankful for Nate and Dayspring. Thankful.
God works in mysterious ways. My prayer life and even quiet moments with him have been few and far between recently, but still, he has been sweet to me. I’m thankful.