Much better!

Oh goodness was today's running better then yesterdays! Thank goodness!!! I climbed onto the torture trap that is the treadmill again this morning, set "go" on my watch and began running. No egg in the throat today, no knee pain, nothing. Just a normal three mile run. Thank You Jesus! I continued to call out to Him this morning to give me strength in my legs and air in my lungs and you know what? He did!

Tomorrow will be a 6 mile run. I will keep you posted on how it goes. Maybe tomorrow I will finally paint a picture of all the people in the gym I see almost every morning. Oh what a beautiful picture it will be! Side note...this morning I went to the gym a little later and saw the women I usually see next to me on the treadmill, in the locker room getting ready for work. Wow do people look different after a shower and some mascara! I know I do. It is a scary scary sight if you see me at 5:45 am at the gym. If you ever do, I am so so sorry.

On Sunday while watching the Super Bowl I was flipping through a Real Simple. Meg had said she had already read that one and there was some great articles in there. I was flipping through and one caught my eye, well more the picture caught me eye. It was a woman running. She had the same arm warmers on that I had and was wearing a University of Texas hat. She was extremely fit, one of those "real runners" I have talked about earlier. As I started to read the article I was shocked at what the article was actually about. This beautiful runner who I thought was my age was actually a 40 something year old mother of three teenage daughters with a demanding career. She was a distance runner but had never run a full marathon, but it was on her "to-do" list. She has MS, which had been at bay for more then 17 years, never causing many problems.

One day she went in for a routine check up for her MS and they found a small lump in her lung. The doctor proceeded to tell her there was a 95% chance it was cancer and that they would remove the upper part of her lung. She asked if she would be able to run again and the doctor, not knowing she was a distance runner, said she would be running no marathons. This shook her to the core of who she was and she decided she needed to run a marathon...now, before her surgery, just three weeks from that date. She and her hometown made their own marathon. No one but her ran the whole thing, but many people ran legs of it with her. She finished this marathon in 4 hours and 8 minutes, an outstanding time!

A week later she went in for surgery and as the doctors was elbow deep in her body he realized it was not cancer in her lungs, but a mere infection. When she woke up the doctor told her the good news. She was grateful that she didn't have cancer but wondered how she got so lucky. She realized all that she could do-like run a marathon!- and how much support she actually had.

Wow! What a story. If you were diagnosed with cancer today, what would you HAVE to do before you went in for surgery? This woman had to run a marathon.

As I read her story I couldn't help but think about what would I HAVE to do. What have I been putting off that would need to be done. There is no question that there have been a couple of people who have known me for a couple years now, and I have never been bold enough to outright share the gospel. Sure I have talked about church and what I was learning and about why I went to Italy for 5 weeks and why I was part of a little group called KB in college. But have I ever asked them where they think they are going after the die? No. Have I ever been bold enough to share my complete testimony? Nope. Have I ever asked them, "do you want to give your life to Jesus?" Negative.

Although this article never mentioned God once, it sure inspired me to think a lot about why I was put on this earth. My new goal....share the gospel with these couple of people who I truly do love...now.