On Saturday, right after I woke up, I headed into the gray abyss to run. Runners in the Pacific Northwest are really getting the short end of the stick. Getting up to run would have been a lot easier if it would have been sunny and not rainy aka, California, Hawaii, ect. But these are the cards I have been dealt so I just have to deal with it. My dad has a saying about that, but it is one of those sayings that uses all the same words, but one word is different the second time around. ANYWAY...this run was hard! I knew I was by myself the whole 10 miles and do you know what 10 miles of running plus being by yourself can do to you? Oh the things I thought about, concerts I rocked out to and OH the pain of every little motion. I knew I was in a lot of trouble when I reached mile 2 and I literally thought to myself, "I cannot do this today, I might not ever be able to do this." But of course I have WAY to much pride and am too stubborn to even think about that, so I kept running, at one point actually screaming out loud as I pushed through a hill. And yes the random old lady walking her dog, that could have been a cat, looked at me and considered calling 911.
As I reached my apartment and started on the last 4 mile loop that would return me home I did consider stopping, but that hunk hunk of burning love was sitting upstairs and I would have to explain to him why I stopped, and again my pride got the best of me. I kept running. I was slowing down and begged the Lord to give me strength in my legs and to stop this side ache that was attacking me at mile 8. But before I knew it I was back at home.
Here is where inlays the problem...I walked in the door, barely breathing, sweating up a storm and A gave me one of those "holy molly what semi truck hit you?" looks. Oh I knew it was bad, I looked horrible. As I sat on the coffee table staring blankly into the TV I started to pull layers off, just so my skin could breathe again. My lovely husband rushed over with THREE pain relievers. Oh wow, I thought, I must look horrible. My pain that I was feeling and trying to keep invisible was all too visible. I didn't talk for a good 7 minutes. As I stripped of my socks, my toes looked like the rest of me felt, disgusting. How do you hide physical pain? I don't think you can at times...and this was one of those times.
At church the next morning with my feet still sore and now this weird back pain taking over, I was violently reminded of something. It is our job as Christian, followers of Christ, to make the invisible God visible. Let me say that again, to make the invisible God visible. Now I am not sitting here saying we serve a God we can't see. Because clearly if you look around at people, nature, etc you can see the Lord. But what about the people that don't know the Lord? If they look at you would they be able to see Christ? I know that I have to say no. There are a lot of times when I am not making the visible expression of Christ that I need to be.
Let's face it, we will come across people who the only Christan they will know will be us. So what are doing as Christians? We need to step it up. I need to step it up; to make sure that I am making the invisible God visible.
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