She's here!

Julia Grace Lehmann was born this morning at 9:10am weight 8lbs 1 oz and was 20 inches long! I just talked to the mommy on the phone and she is elated and Julia even said hello, well cried, but give the girl a break she is only an hour old. Aaron and I are on a plane the minutes the Lehmanns' give us the thumbs up.

Pray that Alex and Sara feel God's love and affection for them at this special time and that Julia continues to progress, like a healthy baby girl should. Pray the Lord gives Sara and Alex strength during this time of no sleep.

Praise Jesus for Julia! Pictures are to come!

PS...no running today. I will do my 10 miler tomorrow after work so A and I can celebrate V-day all day on Saturday!

ITS GO TIME!!!!!

Hi everyone! Who knows who actually reads this...but I have exciting news! My sister-in-law is in labor!! It is go time for little Julia Grace to arrive in this world. Praise Jesus. I will keep you posted on all the updates and pictures. They are in LA so we will sure be planning a trip soon. Pray for a safe delivery for Sara and Julia. Pray that their little Lehmann family is surrounded by support and love in this beautiful time.

There are so many things to be happy for right now. Some I will go into detail a little later, but one of them is I did finish the 6 miler today, even in the rain...booo!

I promise...one of these days I will tell you about the ladies at the gym. There is just too much going on right now! :)

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.

Bad Day

There is only so much to say today.

This morning I hopped on the treadmill, I put it to its normal speed, set my watch and started to run. This was just a small 3 mile run just to get back into things. I hadn't run all that weekend because we were in Pullman having way too much fun. I got to mile 1 and my knee was killing me, my legs refused to keep going and it felt like there was an egg stuck in my windpipe. So I stopped walked a little bit and then started running again. I couldn't go more then 1/2 a mile. It was so embarrassing and frustrating. I almost cried leaving the gym. How could I not be able to run 3 miles? I had run 10 just 5 days ago.

Oh how quickly Jesus reminds us that we need to keep our focus on Him. I often think "I can do this, I am strong enough, I can do this on my own." That is so horribly wrong I can't even stand to think about it anymore. I can run because of Jesus, I am strong enough because of Jesus, and He is giving me the opportunity to run. It has nothing to do with me.

Jesus I am so sorry that I said I could do it on my own, for even thinking of it. Thank You Jesus that You gave me the opportunity to run, but more specifically to have a relationship with You. I love You Jesus. Continue to remind me that I need You for EVERYTHING. Amen.

Thank you...

This morning before I climbed onto the treadmill I shuffled through all of the magazines at the gym. Today the racks were especially full. They must have known it was my birthday because I found TWO juicy, gossipy magazines. Yes these magazines are my guilty pleasure that I read only at the gym. Runs are a whole lot easier when you are reading about the latest trends or who married who. Who really cares, right? Right, but boy oh boy does it make miles go by a lot faster!

Birthdays are a weird thing as you get older. You start to realize all the people that have helped you get to where you are at this certain birthday; all the sacrifices people made to make sure you were happy and taken care of all of these years. It is a bit overwhelming when you start to process the love, patience, support and guidance that was given to get you to the next birthday.

But there are two people who deserve the most thanks. My mom and dad, 24 years ago today, welcomed me into this world and dedicated their lives to making sure I was well taken care of and loved. They taught me self respect, how to love others, to chase after your dreams and to listen to God. And one of the greatest things they did on birthdays was to make sure that I felt special. They never took birthdays for granted and always made sure to celebrate them in the biggest way.

It is clear that I would not be who I am today without the love and support that mom and dad offered me. So on my birthday I want to thank them for raising me. For helping me and supporting me. For giving me an amazing sister. For teaching me what it looks like to be a good spouse. And simply for loving me. There are millions of children around the world that don't have the parents that I did and and I don't want to miss this moment to thank them. And to thank Christ who knew they were my parents before even they knew.

Birthdays are great; they make you turn your head to the sky get down on your knees and thank our Savior that we are saved. And also loved by our parents here on earth and our father in Heaven.

Thank you mom, dad and Dad! I love you!

Wave goodbye!

I have been all too aware of injuring myself during this long journey to the start line of this marathon I am supposedly running. I have heard horror stories of people training for months and then it comes to the last week and snap, break, tweak, something happens. People are either put out of the marathon all together or have to end up walking it.

Listen to me people....if this ends up happening to me please find me, pull me out of the hole I will have found and tell me to stop crying. But seriously, does that not sound horrible! You train for months, your feet look like aliens, your muscles have done things no human should ever do and then BAM, you're hurt. Oh gosh, pray I don't get hurt.

I am telling this weird story to tell you one little thing...I did not run this morning. I walked and lifted weights. I walked to make sure I am not "pushing it", whatever that means. Tomorrow I will go for a birthday run something small like 3 or 4 miles. Just enough to sweat. I love sweating!!!! I know I am weird.

I came across this picture of me today. This was right before I was to plunge myself into Lake Washington to start the swim of the Danskin Triathlon (I am the one with my hands folded like I was in a prayer...well because guess what? I was praying...praying the Lord would keep be ABOVE water!). Let me tell you a little secret, I am more nervous in that picture then I will be at the start of the marathon. I just know it. And yes I have done the Danskin for years. YEARS people and I am still shaking and crying at that start line. With the water touching my toes I look around for anyone to just say, "hey lets sneak you over to the bike." But no one does and I end up dog paddling the whole way. And no year has gone by without crying in the water with only about 100 yards left. That is when the mill weed starts to touch me and well an ALL FREAK OUT starts to ensue. This year I got new goggles that didn't fog up when I cried. Bless those goggles.

But this picture was right before the announcer announces "Look to your fellow triathletes behind you and wave goodbye!" You see there are waves to this triathlon because of the massive amounts of women that do this. So there are always women behind you waiting to start. As the clock ticks down for your turn to take the plunge you wave goodbye to your fellow triathletes. Its kind of a cool way to say "goodbye, but I will see you at the finish."

Wow! What a telling story in an eternal sense. This year when I was "waving goodbye" I got a bit short of breath. I started to think of my mom. I pictured her leaving this earth on the wings of Christ, waving goodbye to all of us. When we were crumbling she knew she was waving goodbye for now but she would see us at the finish.

Christ knew the same thing when he rose on Easter. He was waving goodbye shouting to keep fighting, to run hard towards the finish line of life. He wants us to be the hands and feet of Himself, to share the beautiful news of his death and resurrection. And what is so beautiful about His wave goodbye was it wasn't even really a wave goodbye. He is still living life with us, every moment of everyday giving us the strength to keep sharing His good news. So now we just have to do it!

Oh how I love JESUS!

Just some thoughts

At church on Sunday morning I was taking notes on Richard's sermon about being fully transformed when we accept Jesus in our hearts. With a pen in one hand and my Bible and notes in another I looked at the underside of my wrist. It was so plain, so white, just some horrible florescent like blue veins running through. I decided it needed a little "decoration," maybe in the form of a tattoo? No not a real one (stop having a heart attack dad). But I felt inspired, so with my pen I wrote "JC" in a small font right where my wrist meets my hand. JC standing for Jesus Christ. I don't know why I put that, I was just inspired with this continued journey that we all go through to be more and more like Jesus. And oh how I needed that little reminder of Jesus later on that day.

After church, what has became the normal routine, was put into action: grocery store, small bite to eat, off the run. I was up for another 10 miles. "Oh joy" I thought, "10 glorious miles". Then I thought of my Meggie who used to tell me she would run 10 miles to get ready for half marathons, so she inspired me. Thanks Meg! I set off for my normal 10 mile loop. With a half egg roll in my belly I was ready to roll...NOT! Then I caught a glimpse of my wrist, JC. And I remembered, "Through Jesus all things are possible." So I kept running. The normal hills hurt, my hands tingled at mile 4.5 like they always do, forcing me to strip my gloves off causing another glimpse of JC. "Through Jesus all things are possible," I kept thinking. Mile 6 I was done, until I saw my Jamaican runner of a husband. He was ready to run the last 4 miles with me, he said I looked great....LIE! But the JC was magnified on my wrist at that point, "keep going" I thought. So I did, often to crying out to Aaron that I couldn't. "Through Jesus all things are possible," was the constant thought screaming out at me.

At one point I started to freak out. I think this was at mile 8.5, only a mile and half from home. I said out loud what was running through my mind the whole time, "If I can barely do this, there is no way I am going to be able to run a FULL marathon." My Jamaican runner of a husband heard me and turned around and told me "later Shelbs this will just feel like a warm-up!" OH MY GOSH! If this is going to be my warm-up I am so DUNZO! I almost started to laugh at that point, but I was reminded quickly of when I used to try to make my Ratty laugh when we would go on runs, and she would scream at me, "stop trying to make me laugh! It takes too much energy to laugh! Stop it!" Good advice Ratty, no laughing, too much energy.

But before I knew it, I was back at home, riding the elevator to our apartment. I made sure I stretched (bad experience the Friday before with 6 miles, no stretching....crying ensued 3 hours later). I then proceeded to eat like a cow. I need to figure out how NOT to eat like a cow after these runs, or I will start to look like a cow, great legs and HUGE everywhere else. Not good! After eating, eating and more eating I hobbled to the shower, and basically fell in. And yet again I caught another glimpse of JC. And again I thought, "Through Jesus all things are possible."

Wow, maybe I should get a tattoo of "JC" on my wrist. Maybe I should freaking get it tattooed on my forehead. Because if I could remember "through Jesus all things are possible" that many times during my hour and half run, how many times could I remember it if it were there all the time? And no I am not going to get a tattoo, but I do need to remember that way more often then I do. Through hard times at work, in relationships, ect. Even through great things, Jesus' all encompassing power needs to be in the forefront of my mind.

I looked up what the definition of amazing was and here is what it says, "So remarkable as to elicit disbelief." If you take that definition and say that Jesus has amazing power in all circumstances I think we would all get a better understanding of just who He is. "Through Jesus all things are possible." Wow, thank You Jesus for who You are to me and to the rest of this world. Thank You!

Just some thoughts I had today...