Marathon, not a sprint

This morning I rolled out of bed with a nudge from my husband, somehow changed clothes without fully waking up, and with Gu clipped to my shorts, went for a run in the rain. How is that for a long sentence?
When I first began running, I called my mom-- "If it starts storming, will you pick me up?" and I secretly hoped that it would storm.
It didn't storm.
You see, I was struck with an ailment this week that kept me from running my semi-long middle-of-the-week runs, so I thought, hey--I could just run the seven miler before the meeting this morning. The problem is that I have never run further than 4 miles by myself. So before I got to the pivotal moment of turning on the road to seven miles, or the four mile route I tried to talk myself out of running this stupid long distance so early in the morning.
But I had an epiphany. If I can't push myself to run seven miles by myself, what would I do if Abby decided not to run the marathon with me and there was no one left who ran at my pace? I had to run the seven by myself to prove to myself that I could do it. This epiphany led me to a better one. No one wants to keep on this path when they're tired. But as the world is decaying and the Lord is getting ready to take me home or to come here Himself, it is only going to get harder to stand on that solid foundation. We will be tired, worn out, and discouraged, at times. We will feel like we are running in a desert with ONLY the Lord to sustain us--no saints to keep us from stopping and sitting down--giving up.
We have to keep running.
Just keep running
Just keep running
Just keep running
This life with the Lord is a marathon, not a sprint.

Raging against the dying of the Light

This poem by Dylan Thomas struck me hard when I first heard it, so here I am. Two years later with the words still on my mind. This life is temporary. This is a lesson I've had to learn through seeing years of my life drift away while I remain sedentary and unchanged.

I have always desired to be an "artistic" person, able to laugh, sing, and dance with no regard for how it appears to other people. I have always wanted to learn how to paint and write, not to write and paint to express myself, but to express Jesus. But I have found myself for the past few years, very conscious of how I appear to my peers. I have spent countless hours and days "stalking" my friends and "friends" on facebook, and I have let many opportunities for true friendships pass me by because it was much easier with this one-sided relationship.
Why do I need to grab a cup of coffee with you if I can just look at your posted pictures to see what you have been up to? This life is too short to "save time" with friendships, this is what I have learned in the past few months.

Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light-- what light? Mr. Thomas, what were you really talking about?

Surely you were not speaking of just the dying of this life? No, it must go deeper- it must mean something that will carry on past death. Rage, rage against the dying of the Light.
The dying of the Light we have been given. Will I continue to waste time while there is still light? There is still time to learn, grow, and experience life. I'm not interested in experiencing life for what it can afford for me, no, I'm interested in experiencing life with my Savior, and learning to live with these wonderful people that have been placed in this small section of the swirling blue marble with me.

Do not go gentle into that goodnight
Rage, Rage, Against the dying of the light