Convicted to live for Jesus

Most of my readers know that I work at an elementary school. We earn "blue jean" passes for different things that allow us to wear jeans on another day other than the designated "first Friday of every month". I am not a big blue jean fan but my friend, Melanie, and I wanted to be "twinkies" today and wear our finisher shirts from the race. I told Melanie I didn't have a pass - she reminded me that I did indeed posted on the wall outside her room. Back in January we were asked to use descriptive words about the people on our teams - my team is the Special Ed team and there are about 12-15 people on our team. During Valentine's week every person in the school found a red heart in their mailbox with the words that had been used to describe them. Today when I used my pass, I re-read the words my peers had used to describe me. Wow - what a compliment but at the same time what conviction! It brings tears to my eyes to read these words but also makes me feel guilty because I know that I don't always live up to these things. The words they used were: reliable, determined, dedicated, energetic, passionate, efficient, trustworthy, motivated, cute (??really??) and faithful. I wanted to post these on my blog as a reminder to myself that God wants me to be these things to people. I want to serve him and be a light to others. Thank you to my sweet friends who think I exhibit these qualities - I am humbled. Forgive me when I have failed you. Until next time, I am running on faith.

Wow - what a morning! We get up and the news says they are starting the marathon at 6:45 instead of 7:00. We run out the door and Justin drives us. Every road we try to go down is already closed - woops! Justin finally gets us close and we can see the Elite runners already going. We jump out of the car and walk until we get to corral 9 people - I see my friend, Melanie, husband and he tells me she is way ahead of me. We jump in the corral and start moving and before we know it here we go. I find her at mile 2 and away we go. I am so proud of her - she did a great job for her first half marathon!! Way to go Mel - you rock! We went across the finish line holding hands raisesd in the air. 2:36. It doesn't rain on us at all. Shortly after it starts to thunder, lighten and rain. We find shelter and are in contact with Jim. He is running the full. They close the course at mile 21 but Jim is determined to run the entire way. He turns around to run back and gets stopped by the police. He turns back around and heads to LP Field - he runs the rest of his miles in the parking lot! Crazy, stubborn, determined friend! We leave before he finishes. We are all back now. Dry, clean and tired. God is so good - no major storms and we got the race in! Thank you Jesus.

We are in Nashville with our good friends, the Dorris family, for the Country Music Marathon this week-end. We stay with Jim's brother and his family, Charles, Rebecca and the Z girls. This is our third year to do this race week-end together. We get to the expo today and are looking around. I always like to buy a shirt, coffee mug or something to remember the week-end. I was looking at a jewelry booth and saw a necklace with a charm that said Running on Faith with a 26.2 on the flip side. The second charm on the necklace was a cross. I couldn't believe it!! I got Jeff's attention and said "This is it, this is what I want. It is the name of my blog! I have never seen a charm like that at any of the expos I have been to. He purchased it for me and I immediately put it on. When I found Ellen a few minutes later she said, "Aw, you got a necklace." Then she saw what it said and her eyes got really big and she said "Wow!" It was such a confirmation from God about my choice for my blog name! I feel his presence really strong right now:)

Up and Running

So, I decided that I needed a blog to record all my thoughts, prayers, hopes, dreams, fears and adventures of my very first mission trip. So here we go - 40 days and counting until I leave Birmingham with my daughter, Ellen and several other teens to Tegucigalpa, Honduras for 2 weeks of house building, hospital visiting, feeding residents of the city dump food and growing my faith and relationship with Jesus Christ. Ellen has said since 6th grade that she was going to Honduras but last summer God really pricked my heart that even if she changed her mind, he wanted me to go. At Christmas, we broached Jeff with our desire to "just apply for passports". He wasn't very keen on the idea but finally agreed. Then, passports in hand we committed to go to Honduras. We began to raise money and over the last 4 months our excitement has grown. I cannot even imagine all that God has in store for us. I waver between total excitement to total fear. So many people who have gone before me have said to me "I wish I could go to see you with those babies" or "I wish I could go to see you worship every night" or "I wish I could go to see you on the bus rides every day" - hmmm, that one worries me. My prayer every day is that God prepares me physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally for this grand adventure. For a little girl from Gadsden that has never left the US - this is just huge on so many levels.