Sick and Tired

The past few weeks have been difficult. I have been fighting a cold and felt extremely exhausted. Amanda (my running partner) and I have hit that part of training where we are running a LOT, and we still have a few weeks until race day. Every day, I feel sick or tired or both. Also, it's not as if I'm spending my days just leisurely resting up--I am trying to maintain order in a room with 24 six-year-olds. Many of them with coughs and sniffles of their own.

Saturday was a big run. Since we are overachievers, we decided to go above and beyond what our training plan had recommended. So, we set out to run 14 miles. During the day Friday, I felt pretty bad, but I woke up Saturday morning thinking, "I'm not going to let a cold stop me from running." So, I headed to meet Amanda for our run.

I should've known we were in for trouble when about 2 miles in, I realized that I had led us off-route in a major way. But we adapted our route and made it work, so crisis averted. We got to mile 5 where we intended to pick up speed, refueled, and increased our pace. I felt GREAT during that mile. We kept going at a good pace, but at about mile 7, we stopped for a minute, and I admitted to Amanda that I didn't think I was going to be able to run at the pace we had set out to maintain. Please keep in mind that this was at mile 7. So, we were halfway there, and far enough away from our starting point that going straight back wouldn't really help. I was going to have to finish the run. And we did it. Together. And slowly. I was so relieved when my watch beeped that 14th mile.

Part of this race is personal. Amanda and I want to break 2:00, and that is important to me (she has done it before, but it'll be a first for me). But a bigger part of this race is about Show Hope, and that is the thought that kept going through my mind while trying to run those last 7 miles. This race is bigger than any goal I set. It's about giving hope to orphans--and by first realizing that I was orphaned, but grafted into God's family. It's about bringing that awareness to others around me and joining together to do something about the 147 million orphans around the world.

That's why adoption is so powerful to me. Because it is a clear picture of the Gospel. God has adopted US into His family, and we will share His blessings, because we are accepted as His very own children.

"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons."

Galatians 4:4-6

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