Where do I Start?

So after I started this blog last night I had a chance to really think about it and pray about it and ponder over what and how much I share with the "public" - and I realized that I am just going to write from the heart. If I feel like sharing details, I will but forgive me if I don't because A. I don't want to really rehash a lot of it and B. because of the grace of God, most of those details don't even matter anymore.

In thinking about blogging in general, I think sometimes you get into a rush to just "spill" the back story - lay it all out there and give as much detail as you can so people are "up to speed" (yes, I do plan to use quotes for all those cliches, because well, that is just the cool thing to do). BUT - my thought is that the stuff I want to share should really be spread out - because the wonderful thing about God's grace and mercy and His weaving of your lifestory is that as you look back, details make much more sense in context and are more powerful as you share WHAT you learned as a result of those details. SO, I am not going to just spill out the back story, I will just write about bits and pieces as they come and weave them together with the lessons I've learned and what I hope to learn through this crazy thing they call marathon training.

So, my "training plan" (see, cool right?) officially starts on April 25th. I am running a 5k on April 24th with my brother Jason and my sister in law Marcie and then I'm jumping into a 24 week training plan to that will take me right up to race day! I tell you this because well, I'm kinda going to need a little thing you might call accountability - so throwing it out there so you can boss me around.

Now a little more about this amazing story God has been weaving in my life. May sound contradictory to an amazing story, but I'm divorced. Something I never thought I would ever say about my life or my family or the way things are for me - but I'm coming to terms with what reality is and that God loves me regardless of any label - in fact, my sweet Jesus knew this was going to happen long before I did! He so sweetly and intentionally prepared me for it all over the past 10 years - looking back and seeing those details now are amazing and touching and breathtaking. The long story short - on February 17th 2009 after having a wonderful 30th birthday party for my dear friend Emma Avery (RUNNER WITH ME IN THE MARATHON - more about her in another post), I discovered my husband had been having an affair - the night was a blur but I will tell you this, that night God held me so tightly and answered a prayer in a way that I couldn't fully appreciate until now. I made this awful discovery while my husband was out. I called my mom at midnight her time and told her and to please get up and pray with my dad that I knew my husband was having an affair. She was so confused but I said I was just sure and I needed her to pray for calm and collection when he came home. I hung up and did the same. I remember praying SO hard for God to just give me peace - to not kill him. To not go ballastic like I wanted to because my 2 precious girls were in the house. I will stop short of everything to say that God delivered in a big, giant way that night and in turn has delivered me in a big, giant way into a life of more joy and peace than I've ever experienced. I'll weave a little more later but I tell you those details because when this all happened, I lived in Chicago. 10 days after this happened, I moved with my girls to Georgia - I left Chicago behind and quite honestly, with a bad taste in my mouth. So, that's why I'm going back to do something BIG in Chicago. I want to settle the score with myself there. I want to accomplish something bigger than I've ever done physically in a place that scarred me so bad emotionally. I can't wait to run across that finish line holding my hands high and knowing that God carried me out of a place to put me where He wanted me and that He will carry me back to heal places that I thought weren't still hurt. Look out Chicago - I am on my way!

God is so amazing in the way He works. The next few days I will talk about the two verses on my mind. Hebrews 12:1 and Exodus 14:14. Both of these verses hold such a special place in my heart right now for so many reasons and have meant so much to me over the past year and 2 months.

Until next time!