Thanksgiving derailed me… and the daughter, from our raw lifestyle. Then I kept saying, “we’ll start back tomorrow.” Most days I was low-fat, raw vegan until after dinner when the french fry cry reached a deafening pitch. Today, I looked at the daughter and remembered one of the reasons we were doing this thing. She needs it and so do I. We’re stocked up with fruit and veg, and ready to take on those fatty, starchy cravings.

Although my raw resolve wavered, I jumped back into running. I find that running is so therapeutic for me. Unlike parking myself in front of a workout video (not knocking them, relied on them for years – especially when my kids were little), I’m able to think about something other than what the instructor is saying. I set my iPod on “random” and allow God to direct the order of the music that I need.

Last week, during one of my runs, I was doing pretty well. I elected to run uphill and into the wind first with the hope that I would get to run downhill, with the wind on the way back. Well, as happens so often around here, the wind changed direction right before I turned toward home. “You have got to be kidding me.” Not only was it in my face, it blew harder. And then the whining began. Moan. No sooner had the words, “Oh Lord, please make the wind let up,” come from my mouth, God answered. It was immediate. It was stern. It was just what I needed. He said, “Stop asking Me to make things easier on you.” I’ll tell you, I shut-up in a hurry. His authority always leaves me speechless. I think I muttered something like, “yes sir.” He went on to tell me that I need to let Him grow my faith through the struggle, and to stop asking Him to remove the obstacles. He said He would remove them when He saw fit. So I said, “bring it.” Um, yeah, the wind picked up even more, and my pace slowed despite my best effort to keep it up there Even still I wore a silly grin on my face. I sang something like, “God’s my trainer. He’s working the junk out of me!” Ok, so it wasn’t poetic, but in that moment on the trail I really didn’t care.

Then, as the Lord would have it, the song, Unbreakable, blasted through my headphones. This is the perfect “run into the wind when you want to give up” song. It was exactly what I needed. You know what, He did turn the wind at the very end. I’ve thought about what He said to me several times in the last few days. Today, while I gasped through back to back sparring sets in TaeKwonDo, and I was against higher, or more aggressive belts… and I wanted to stop, I didn’t because, “God’s my trainer, and He’s working the junk out of me!”

“Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.”
~ James 1:2-3 (AB)