Nothingness

Ever have those days you feel like you have nothing left? Days that even a smile feels out of grasp. Your tired, your beat up and even a bit discouraged.

I have those days.

Running is such a great illustration for being beat up, worn out and overall discouraged.

I have these days when everyone around me appear to be pumped full of sunshine.
Days my running partners are all rock stars. They are running like gazelles and I am in the back panting like a dying dog and running like Yertle the Turtle.

My training has me running 20 miles all the while I am running out of gas to even turn my engine over.

But I press on. With all I have and sometimes that is Nothing at all.

This is not a blog that I post to advertise my miles I run or the pace that I run or even the races I have accomplished.
It is designed to share my Nothingness.

To show my transparency, my Love to the Lord for making me, a nobody, a somebody to HIM.
Allowing Him to use me through my running to just encourage one person.

Yesterday morning at church they sang all the old hymns.
"Amazing Grace...how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me..."
I came into church smiling and within minutes my heart was bleeding.
It was just moments when I caught my breath and balanced my emotions when the next song echoed.
"How Great is our God..Sing with me...how Great is our God...."
I felt myself getting angry. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to smile and my heart trembled with tears. We sang this over and over when Ariel was alive. It was our camp song, out ministry song, it was the popular song when we were together. Summer camps and retreats they always played this. Ariel would be next to me with Mo beside her, best friends.
But Ariel is not with me any longer. But what I have left is what I sowed in her. I gave her all of me and in return I have her memories, her words, her love. I had NOTHING to Give her but my LOVE.
The same for my mother. I had NOTHING to give her but my LOVE.

Nothing. I had nothing left in me. But....
LOVE.  In my tears I had LOVE. In my sadness I had Love. My bleeding heart was pierced with LOVE.
I have NOTHING to great to give anyone, I have NOTHING amazing to share. But I have sweet sweet memories of LOVE.

Galatians 6:3 "For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4. But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to another." 

At the end of the day people aren't going to remember how many miles I run, how many age awards I receive or what races I have ran. These all mean NOTHING.
But they will remember how I LOVED them. They will remember how I treated them.

I am Nothing, not because I think I am something. Because trust me..I know I am just a little fish in a big pond. I rest in the shadowlands of greatness.

Examine your own work: It doesn't matter what others do or do not do. Be inspired by others. This is always a tough one.
Today, I found my place in the back. I ran behind the others. I watched as they ran freely
through the trees, the breeze flowing through the woods, perfect, majestic.
I reminded myself to keep my eyes in front of ME. Focus on my running, my breathing. To stay strong for myself. Do my best for ME.
I thought this is how life is. We have to do our best because it is the right thing to do, not because others are or are not doing that.

THE CATS out of the BAG: 
I haven't made this announcement yet....BUT here GOES...
LACEY kept a big secret this past week. She snuck to Traverse City and ran Bayshore Marathon.
She was hoping to qualify for Boston but didn't want me to know. She didn't want the pressure.

AND SHE DID!!
This is all she has been wanting for 2 years. For  both of us to run Boston together. I am sooo proud of her.
The week she ran Boston, 5 weeks ago and didn't qualify she was broken. Discouraged, sad, angry and a barrage of emotions. I was scheduled to run that following week, Glass City.
She called me the day after her Marathon and told me "YOU run that marathon, and you run FAST..."
She still wanting me to give my all. She wanted me to do my best for ME. Not for her, Not for any other reason but because that is what I trained so hard for.
I didn't want to run hard, I wanted to throw the towel in. I didn't want to hurt. I didn't want the pressure. I didn't want the suffering.
But she was RIGHT. This is what I trained for. I had to do it for ME.

Do it for YOU. In your Nothingness, in your brokenness, in your heartbroken, self Don't Quit. Keep doing what is right, what you have worked for, what you have pressed for, what you were designed for...
In our NOTHING we are SOMETHING.
But Examine YOURSELF. Your intentions, Your motives, your heart.

RUNDOWN:
Distance: 16.8
Where: Highland Rec trails
Time: 3:22

Anita~