Dailyness.

A great deal of my thoughts lately are consumed with running.  Probably because I set a goal to train and run a half-marathon this spring.  My first half-marathon.  My road to post-partum fitness.  And much to my chagrin, Ben told me that he, too, would like to run with me.  I may or may not have dropped dead at that moment!  Delighted, I was (for Yoda-lovers everywhere).

With all this running going on at our house, I had a vision one night (nothing weird, just a mental picture).  I saw our family running a race together as a team.  The race was life.  As a mother, I saw myself as the "running buddy."  There were times when I needed to fall back, run a little slower with a needy child, staying beside them until they were back with the group again.  I felt such an urging to be ever-ready for when those times came, because, inevitably, they do.  I realized that I had to be in-shape: physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc.  I had to keep order in my life, build my stamina, so that I could focus my energies on who needed a running buddy at any particular moment.

(Sidenote: I had to take a break from this post a minute ago to TOW a guy out of our front yard.  He'd slipped off the road and drove his car up and OVER one of our landscape rocks!  Truth be told, I love being a woman to the rescue:))

I was reading a talk by Elaine Dalton and she inspired me to embrace the dailyness, the becoming, of a good running buddy:

I am the facilitator who enables a busy family to go and do and accomplish . . . .  At times I have resented the dailyness of my life; but as I look back, I see that dailyness has patterned and schooled me.  Daily doings add up, and they can make an eternity of difference . . . .

These daily doings draw me closer to my team, keep me family-focused, make me more aware of when I need to fall back and run beside someone.  And that "someone" is ever-changing.  I guess it hit me hard that I'm my family's greatest advocate.  More often than not, I set the tone.  That thought is a little sobering sometimes for a fun-seeking girl like me, taking on all that responsibility.  At the same time, I DO love a good challenge.

I was grateful for this teaching moment for myself.  Life has a way of teaching us things in a myriad of ways.  That's what keeps things interesting, don't you think?

On that note, it's time to get running . . . again!