I Swear I Lived

So basically my church is awesome and God knew exactly what He was doing when He moved me there which makes God even more awesome (like the most awesome).... But anyway, our AMAZING worship team sang this song this morning at the end of service. Maybe it was the fact that the lyrics were being presented in a "prezi" way but it really spoke to me and goes along perfectly with the blog I wrote two days ago. No matter how hard life gets, I want to be able to say, at the end of the day, I swear I lived. God took time to make this life just for me, now it's my turn to live up to it! 

Go listen to this song! (Although, I'm pretty sure the worship leader sings most songs better than the original artists, so I'm sorry if you don't get the privledge to hear him sing it.)

Hope when you take that jump, you don't fear the fall

Hope when the water rises, you built a wall

Hope when the crowd screams out, they're screaming your name

Hope if everybody runs, you choose to stay

Hope that you fall in love, and it hurts so bad

The only way you can know is give it all you have

And I hope that you don't suffer but take the pain

Hope when the moment comes, you'll say...

I, I did it all

I, I did it all

I owned every second that this world could give

I saw so many places, the things that I did

With every broken bone, I swear I lived

Hope that you spend your days, but they all add up

And when that sun goes down, hope you raise your cup

Oh, I wish that I could witness all your joy and all your pain

But until my moment comes, I'll say...

I, I did it all

I, I did it all

I owned every second that this world could give

I saw so many places, the things that I did

With every broken bone, I swear I lived

Oh [4x]

With every broken bone, I swear I lived.

With every broken bone, I swear I...

I, I did it all

I, I did it all

I owned every second that this world could give

I saw so many places, the things that I did

With every broken bone, I swear I lived.

Oh [4x]

I swear I lived. Ohhh [2x]

One Republic "I Lived" 

Another One Bites The Dust

Well here we are. Another year down. Yet another birthday gone by.

Milestones,like birthdays, get me thinking about life. As they do most people I'm sure. Things I've thought about today in particular: how tired I am, how no one should ever work on their birthday, how much my toes hurt, how boring my life is, blah, blah, blah.... 

But then I got to thinking about everything that has happen this year.  I mean we can get so caught up in our everyday, boring, routines that we forget about the amazing things that happen in our life. So forget about my toes (easier said than done), let's take a look back....

My 28th year:

My adventures this year included my first mission trips:

Questa, NM

And Uganda...

I also got to check a few things off my bucket list like: 

Stay at the resort where Dirty Dancing (the best movie of ll time) was filmed.

Visit wine country in CA- Napa and Sonoma.

Visit San Francisco and some pretty famous landmarks for 90's kids like myself (Full House)

I also accomplished some pretty great things too, like:

A 55 mile bike ride....

My 3rd and 4th half-marathons

 

As well as my first full marathon

I also took some time to look forward today. So with a new year starting today these are my goals and things I'm most excited about....

My 29th year

Goals: 

-buy my first house (hopefully it'll make me feel a little more grown up)

-complete my second sprint triathlon 

-run some more half marathons 

-ride a 100k bike event

What I'm most excited about:

-becoming a Godparent (seriously this consumes 90% of my thoughts nowadays)

-my second Questa mission trip

-buying a house

It's good to look back to remember all the things God has brought you though. It gives your future more of a purpose, I think. But looking forward, I just keep reminding myself that "life's like an hourglass glued to the table" and we can only make tomorrow better than today. 

 

My Best Friend's Baby

Let me start off by saying... I love kids but I don't actually want kids. I know that might sound strange coming from a person who is around little people 6 days a week (by choice), but the thought of actually having my own kids has never really been on my list of "Things to Do." Don't worry my husband is (almost) completely on board with me. 

However... my best friend (soul mate, sister, other half) has been desperately trying to get pregnant for about 2 years now. And while I don't understand the super strong desire to have children, I understand her. I understood when I got a phone call at 6:00 in the morning and only heard sobs on the other end, knowing it was yet another "negative" pregnancy test. I understood that all I really needed to do was cry with her (cause what else can you do).  I understood the importance of driving her to a doctor's appointment just so she didn't have to think about how to get to the office, on top of everything else. Bottom line is.... we get each other. She is my person.

So... when I get a text saying "Don't freak out, and don't tell anyone but...*and a picture of a positive pregnancy test*" I definitely understood that I should go to the nearest bathroom and freak out as quietly as possible so no one hears me! Thankfully it was a single bathroom cause you better believe I called as fast as my shaky hands would allow. What I heard on the other end sounded much like the sobs I heard the morning of the "negative test" but these sobs were full of fearful "what if's..."I assured her that no matter what the "what if..." we (her family) will be there! 

After taking another test to confirm, she called me to confirm and that's when I lost it.  I've never wanted something, for someone else, so much in my life, and now in two words it was happening! It's funny because up until that moment, I would imagine that moment and cry, and now it was happening! I drove straight to her house and as soon as I saw her I lost it again. I haven't cried that hard in a LONG time. But in a way I also felt like the Grinch (just hear me out) cause I feel like my heart grew three sizes that day. In a matter of days, I've gone from a person who wasn't too terribly interested in babies to, I've never loved anything more.... AND IT'S NOT EVEN MY KID!!! I can't imagine being pregnant myself! Lol. 

I am so excited to go on this journey with you, even if it's just to hold your hand, and I can't wait to meet you Baby C. I just hope I can live up to all my Godmotherly expectations ;)

 

The Sun's Up, A New Day's Begun

Last week I was driving to work, a little later than normal, when I noticed (amongst the *awful* metroplex traffic and construction) that the sun was just about to rise over the horizon. 

When I went to bed the night before, I fell asleep to the sound of rain pounding on my window. The earlier part of the week had been very ho-hum and ordinary, nothing special.  And now here I was looking through my window at very crisp skies with a few lingering clouds at the sun coming up over the horizon. 

Everyone seems to be in a hurry in the city. Rush here. Rush there. No one is ever going fast enough. I am never going fast enough (trust me, I still hear your car horn even if I don't speed up to your pace).  I wondered in that moment how many other people saw the sun rise. How many people took 5 seconds of their morning commute to appreciate it's greatness. 

It got me thinking... sometimes God puts these excruciating (at the time, to us) trials in our lives. We gripe and complain about them (guilty), we try to rush through them (guilty again), we pray that they go away and stay away (yep still guilty). But then once they're over, we rush back to life as we knew it before the trial. Maybe things are a little clearer. Maybe things have changed ever so slightly. Maybe our whole world has crumbled and fell, leaving us with nothing. But no matter what happens, we get back to a new "normal" or the old "normal" and we forget sometimes to stop and look at the sun.

I think of people who have been in the most unfortunate of natural circumstances (fires, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, etc) {Ok maybe I think about it WAY more than I should.} No matter how long the crisis lasts, no matter how long it's dark and cloudy, the sun ALWAYS comes up again. It may be days, it may be minutes, but it ALWAYS comes up.

So, seeing that sunrise last week on my way to work, sparked a new sense of hope in my life.  I feel like I've been under a big dark, scary cloud for a long time now, and in that moment (Thank You God for that moment) I finally saw the sun! The sun rise is a very hopeful thing, don't take it for granted. 

(This was clearly not the sunrise I saw but I could wake up to this everyday.)

INSPIRATION? UMMM.... NO.

Well helloooo there! New Year's resolution #9862- Start a blog... AGAIN

So I joined this health and fitness challenge group on Facebook to kick the year off right, and one of the first things that I was "challenged" to do, was name my fitness inspiration.  INSPIRATION? Huh? No. No no one popped into my head so I did what any other natural born introvert does and I waited for someone else to answer first.  People started posting like crazy! Most of them naming infomercial fitness personalities or stars of their favorite weight loss shows.  Some mentioned people they knew personally who had lost tons of weight by blinking three times and standing on their heads naked. But seriously... the majority of the people in this group were inspired by people who had lost a lot of weight (50-100 pounds) in  relatively short amount of time (1-2 years) by making a few changes to their habits (drinking more water, exercising more, etc). Blah, blah, blah....

I recently had an acquaintance of mine lose a lot of weight (100 pounds or something like that).  It took them roughly 2 years and all they did was drink more water and start running, or so they made it seem.  This person will tell you that it was a struggle and it didn't happen overnight, and they had "hard days." Losing weight isn't easy. DUH! But this person will also tell you they LOVE working out and running is "so much fun!" And if they can do it, you can too! Blah, blah, blah...

Kudos to them, but I'm sorry that is not inspirational to me AT ALL!!! In fact, it kind of infuriates me. Show me someone who has *genuinely* struggled to lose 30 pounds. Like it has taken them more than 3 years to lose 30 pounds while they worked their butt off and ate perfectly. Someone who has done everything in their power to change everything about themselves in order to be a better person despite setbacks and not losing anything for long periods of time (not a month-long plateau). Someone who has risen above all of lives challenges and lost the weight anyway. THAT will inspire me! 

I finally commented on the challenge group and said "I honestly have not met or heard of anyone who has struggled the way I have (with the results I've gotten). I am my own inspiration." One day (soon) I'll post my story on here, but until then I'm just going to keep on keeping on, and keep on looking for that inspiration.