Until my marathon is over, this site has moved to....

www.betweenruns.blogspot.com


YAY!

I'm renting a HOUSE! A real, front-door closing, no loud upstairs neighbor named Steffan, two-bed/one bath, roommate sharing house!

And it's soooo cute!

And it's cheaper than my apartment now.

Big bedrooms, living room, den, big kitchen, moderate bath, backyard with a deck and right next to the running park!!!

Oh, and here's the best part (besides having a sweet roommate) it's 1.3 miles from my office.

YES!

Oh yeah, and there's no lease!

If I want to pack up and move to Alaska, all the landlady wants is 30 days notice

Please come see me soon :)

Idea of the day:

Wedgies are fun to say, uncomfortable to have.

hehehehehe wedgie

Friday turned out to be a pretty busy day.

I showed up for work around 8:30. A few phone calls, a trio of articles, and I was home by 4 p.m.

See, I was to cover a school board meeting that night at 7, and to keep my time card within respectable overtime limits I had to hit the road early (so I could stay out late.)

So, I got home, leisurely made some coffee and just relaxed. With my steaming mug o' Joe, I settled in on the couch and watched some Oprah (Hey, don't judge... I have four channels. It was either her, Judge Judy, Judge Judy copycat or Montel. I chose Oprah.)

That day's episode was a how-to seminar for the single ladies of America.

"Do these things and you can catch yourself a man, American women."

As I chuckled (and secretly took notes... hehehehe), I lifted the coffee cup to my mouth.

Wooo wee, it was H-O-T!!! The mug equally as scorching. It was so hot, I didn't want to hold the mug too tightly at the risk of searing off my fingerprints.

SIDE NOTE: In any seminar, FFA event or lunch meeting I have ever attended, they talk about the importance of a firm handshake. Web of the hand to web of the hand and hold securely for one pump up and one pump down. Then let go, lest you be labeled a creep.

Well, the loose grip got me that day. As I gingerly juggled the cup... it slipped out of my hand and splashed hhhhoooottttt coffee all over my lap and chest.

And time froze. Coffee arced out of the cup. If the arc had been bigger, I'm pretty sure some surfer could have totally hung ten on its curve. The cup slipped from my hand and floated mid air as the liquid came up and over the side of the cup, ribboned downward and splashed like Shamu on to my lap... there was so much liquid that it slid all over the couch, in between the cushions and soaking me down to my socks.

Everything was wet: me, the carpet, the couch... yep... that's everything.

Blah.

You know? I had a meeting in an hour. I didn't have time to be cleaning up a mess, changing clothes and trying to get coffee out of the upholstery.

No time for this mess.

Yet, I had created it.

Ooooh, how I wished I could have turned back time and not spilled that coffee.

That seems to be a common wish of mine.

After I screw up, I immediately want to go back... back when things were good...

Back before my hamper smelled like Starbucks.

And back before I hurt someone's feelings with a flip comment, put God on the back burner to watch a 10 p.m. showing of Everybody Loves Raymond, and wasted valuable time on nothing.

I screw up a lot.

But it kind of helps me be a better lover of people and a better forgiver. If I could go back and prevent the stupid things I did, then I could give the appearance of perfection.

And I'm not perfect.

I don't mean to mess up... but I don't not mean to mess up either.

Sometimes my screw ups are just what I need to remind me that I'm forgiven. Sometimes my "no take back" messes and stains are a reminder that although I really made a mistake, and it hurt, and I don't like the consequences... and I think I'm going to be scrubbing out the mess forever...

"The Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land........

On the day the Lord gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:

How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!....

All the lands are at rest and at peace; they break into singing."(Isaiah 12)

Isaiah is a book full of judgement and scary scary consequences for Judah and Israel's (and mine) sin... but there's also the story of release.

They were released from that captivity.

Isaiah talks about the coming of Jesus.

It talks about the future Kingdom.

This morning we sang It's Well With My Soul:

My sin, oh the bliss of that glorious thought. My sins not in part, but the whole, was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, oh my soul.

Because of Jesus, I'm free from sin. It's still there, and I can still sin... but through His sacrifice, I'm forgiven... and through the Holy Spirit, I have the power to overcome and rejoice.

Hence the word redeemed.

So... if I could go back in time... then... well?

I guess I wouldn't know all about that redeemed business.

Plus, I think after all that scrubbing, my carpet is cleaner than before.

Funny how that happens.

:)

I had a rough day... the worst of it came at the end of this story I'm getting ready to tell you:

There has been another dead body in my week. The remains of a human found over Labor Day weekend 2006 were identified as an Athens woman missing for about a year. There are whispers filling the air that, perhaps, a former J'ville policeman -- well known in these parts for the rape of several women and retaliation when they outed him -- is involved.

Those rumors can't be addressed in my story without attribution, which isn't forthcoming right now because there are federal cases still pending. Yet, tv news is spouting off this information without a name tied to it.

But that's not the worst part. While I'm trying to find this woman's mother (and consequently, guardian of her two children) I call a wrong number from a police report.

When I asked to speak with the woman I'm searching for, an elderly man said, "There isn't any X here. I wish there were. I'm all alone. I'm lonely."

The day pretty much got more discouraging from there, but there's no need to drag you down with me.

Oooooooh, people hurt in this world. People hurrrrrrrrrt, bad. I, as a Christian, am to make it better with the eternal balm of Christ. But, people hurrrrrrrrrrrt and I don't even know them. How do I help? How do I love people I don't know? How do I feed the hungry, give hydrate the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, take care of the sick and visit those in prison?

Oh, there's so much.

I pray today that I'll not just hurt for them, but actually help.

Today.

Come with me.

Running gives me a chance to think about things. It takes me outside, away from the television, away from the computer, and leaves me far too winded to talk on the phone (sweaty earpiece--- gross). It takes me to myself.

And myself wonders....

Why am I so complacent with my "cheap grace" life?

Buoyed by a book I'm reading and a sermon I recently listened to on my IPod, I'm certainly familiar with the term of "cheap grace," though I never would have named it that myself.

"Cheap grace" is telling Heaven to wait... I'm busy living the way I want to. It's not diving down deep into the eternity in my heart-- becoming a holy sanctuary of adoration, living a spirit-empowered life. It's going to the store for fruit instead of allowing God to cultivate fruits in me. It's changing how I act, instead of who I am being changed. It's seeing prayer as words, instead of as change.

I once heard a book described as "smelling of lust and prison."

Isn't that a great description?

It's also how a bunch of Bible men and women would be described...

They didn't just want more God, more time with God, more connection to God, more ways to say "I love you," -- they lusted (def: crave, intense desire or need) for it.

Death, jail time, fasting, crying, losing, loneliness, more and more and more followed them. They invited those things in... to get more God.

And it didn't matter what happened.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior.--- Habakkuk 3:17 (relativity of this verse was stolen from the Ipod sermon)

So, back to the question: Why am I content with living without that? Why am I not bothered that I don't hit the floor in desperation? Why am I not so shocked into action that I live that way all the time? Why are beliefs compartmentalized into "moral" and "unmoral"?

Why?

Why may not be the best question, so I'll stop asking it.

Here's a better one: How?

How do I live that way?

It's not through trying to act this way... because I've been trying. It's hard to constantly change the way I act and talk when my insides are the same.

The Bible says it's by throwing away what is mortal and allow myself to be swallowed by this life that I crave.

So, I get rid of me.

That's the definition of freedom if I've ever heard it.

Will I ever figure all this out?

It's the little things:

- I went to the grocery store and grapes were on sale!
- I only painted one coat of deep red on my nails... and they have yet to chip.
- I didn't go for a run today, but I can feel my knee healing.
- I made a tomato sauce dip for a "bring your own dish" work luncheon tomorrow. I'm going to serve it in a little baby crockpot. It doesn't get much better than that!
- I have a shrimp smell in my house, but it reminds me of gal pals Tam, Kat and Chelsea because we ate it together.