Stronger with Every Step

For those of you who are up to date with my love-hate relationship with running.

I'm back at it after a ridiculously long lay off from a knee injury.

I want to jump right in and overdo it again but I know that slow and steady is the way I'll get back to top form and be at my high mileage again. 

So far I have been adding half a mile a week. With that being said I was ecstatic when I hit 2 whole miles on Saturday! I feel that once I hit 3 miles I can begin to keep up and run with some of my favorite gals ever! 

It's so hard not to be bitter about how far I used to run versus how far I run now...2 miles seems measly now but I have to remember that......

And that I need to also......

I love how so many times we want to rush things instead of waiting on God's timing and we end up messing it up somehow. Much like my injury, if I don't keep running and doing a steady mileage increase I'll end up hurt again and back to square one or even permanently not able to run, the same thing goes for opportunities that God wants to give us. Things need to be in His time or we could end up permanently messing up an opportunity.

I feel myself getting stronger through ever step and every half mile I increase. Im doing half mile intervals because by the end of the half mile my knee is very warm and starts to get sore. I know that means that I need to slow down a bit, and if we listen to God He gives us that self same warning to slow down, take things easy and allow Him to strengthen us for the works ahead.  

So be strengthened, be strong and remember that it's worth it to be slow and steady and to do things right and to wait on God and His perfect timing.

I'm finding out that He's never, ever wrong or going to let me down and He will strengthen me for what's up ahead if I keep focused on Him and let go. Through my training I'm also learning to keep persevering because I'm stronger with every step.

My Feminist Side

My sweet husband has pointed this out to me numerous times over the years and I have finally admitted it to myself.

I'm can be sort of a feminist at times.

There. I said it.

Not that I'm anti-male or think of the male  population of our species as not needed and they need to go. I love my husband a little too much to believe in that nonsense!

Nor do I think that if all women should be treated the same. Face it ladies in the feminist movement--we aren't going to be treated the same as everyone else, nor should we.

I'll probably get some flack for that but it's true. I don't, wait can't, teach each child in my classroom the same; whether male or female they are each individual people who have different needs.

However, I must say that growing up I was always given the sense of self that I didn't have to rely on a man for anything or everything in my life. A relationship with a boy did not define me, thank goodness, and I always felt that I could do anything the boys did, many times even better.

It must have something to do with being the first granddaughter born to my paternal grandparents after 12 or so grandsons. I mean, I kinda had some odds stacked against me to becoming a girly girl. For all of the hard times my cousins gave me they also instilled confidence in me and they didn't even know it. I knew I didn't have to depend on my cousins to bail me out of something because they taught me enough to get my own self out of it.

During my younger years my best friend was also a guy, we would ride our bikes to each others houses (only about half a mile or so away from each other) and play football and soccer, good times for sure, so I never really had an interest in makeup or dolls (unless they could ride a toy horse) or any of the other stuff that girls my age were supposed to be interested in.

It bored me.

Give me a toy tractor and the mud and I was good to go! I still have a love of mud that, at times, scares me as an adult.

Which brings me to a point (and all this time you thought I was just rambling!). I can be so strong willed at times that living up to my vows to honor and obey my husband can be downright hard!

It's totally not programed in my brain or genetic makeup to be calm and submissive towards a man.

I know some women don't have a problem with this while others do. I've found that it not only pertains to my relationship with my husband but with that of my Father God also.

I struggle with it so much!! I tend to think of my husband as weak in certain areas and so I then have a superiority complex about it. Not. Good.

My prayer lately is that God humble me and help me to see my husbands strengths and not to feel superior or think of him as weak in certain situations. I ask that He show me my setbacks and weaknesses, even though I would rather not remember them, in order to show me that I too am not perfect.

I've found that this way of thinking not only hurts my relationship with my sweet husband but also with God.

If I can't submit to and respect my husband majority of the time (let's face it we'll have fall outs) what makes me think I do so with God, someone who I see by faith and not by sight?

This has been a real issue in my heart. Especially since I'm a control freak. I want to have every portion of my day planned out and my husband and God just don't work that way!

I need to start trusting them and submitting to the things they know better about and not blindly take charge of things like I want to do regarldess of the consquence.

My husband only does what's best for me and God is in control of my life.

How awesome are they?