>This past week was not fun. Lots of wheat was sifted. Saturdays, by far, are my worst days. As a good friend told me, Of course they are! It’s the day before I get on stage and help lead the congregation in worship. The enemy wants to do anything and everything he can to distract or discourage me.
I ran another 5K yesterday, Whitney’s Walk. The weather in my opinion was perfect. Drizzly, a little foggy and cool for July. My time was 31 minutes and 30-some seconds (official results aren’t up yet). I did about 45 seconds better than my Race for the Cure time but I was devastated inside. My perfectionism is a demon I’ve been fighting for years, and it always creeps in. School, work, my marriage (since when am I old enough to be married? I feel so young sometimes) and then in my exercise. Aaron told me he was proud of me. He gave me a nice pep talk. He’s always so encouraging and makes me feel so special. I got some goodies from Megan at a bread store and then I felt better. Carb therapy. 😉 Just kidding. All credit goes to the Lord.
I’m continuing with my half-marathon (13.1 miles) training. Today was my long run, five miles. I can’t believe I did it, in 55:41 no less. I stopped only to turn around. I got a new iPod yesterday.. that kept me motivated. I also have been drinking much more water and eating more protein. At three miles I decided that I was not going to stop. At four miles I got a burst of energy and picked up the pace. at 4.5 miles, I hit the last big hill and then semi-sprinted my last quarter mile. I feel great! I will do interval training this week, too.
Tomorrow I start my new job at a fabric store in town. It was totally a God thing. I went in there Thursday afternoon to get items for a project. There was a “We’re Hiring” sign, so I asked a lady for an application. I filled it out, being explicit about leaving soon but not knowing when. The same lady, a manager, asked me about why I was leaving, so on and so forth, and then asked me if I’d like to come in on Friday for an interview. I went in Friday and had the interview and filled out all the paperwork. I start training tomorrow afternoon.
I was thinking today that since I was 14 and started teaching piano, I have never been without a job. God has been faithful to me, and Aaron, and the faithfulness doesn’t stop! I wanted a job right now to be something of God, not me blindly jumping into things before it was time. And it fell into my lap. That’s kind of how my teaching job happened, too. I’m definitely not advocating laziness, but it’s important to wait on the Lord.
I will honor God in this job with tithing and paying down more debt. I want to pay off that last credit card by the time I get to Korea. Sometime I need to do an update on our debt. I’ve done one before, but that was months ago.
I’m going to spend what’s left of this evening listening to some new music (a couple friends raved about Andrew Peterson so I had to check him out, and I downloaded some Over the Rhine too) and relaxing.. maybe have some tea.
I now know the meaning of “the joy of the Lord is my strength”. Last week I literally had no strength left. Like I said in my last post, why would I want my own anyway?
mercies per mile 