The Marathon

Whoo-hooo! I ran my third and final marathon last Sunday, took a shower and got on a plane. The flight was delayed, so I got back to Atlanta and dropped into bed at 12:30 a.m. Then I was up at 4:15 a.m. to go live on the radio show for the first time out of Atlanta. Yes, I am crazy. Because then I couldn't walk for three days!

But you learn a lot about yourself running 26.2 miles. Pushing your body to its outer limits is painful, but empowering. The mental game is what keeps you going in an endurance test. Back in 1992, when I ran my first marathon, I told myself, "If this were easy, everyone would be doing it."

This year, several signs encouraged me:

• Toenails are for wimps!
• I am Kenyan!
• You inspire!
• Finish strong!

And then I prayed... and told myself, "I'm a retiring marathoner." Repeating scriptures also helped.

When you are going beyond your former best efforts... what sayings, signs, adages and scriptures encourage you?

Your marathon may be literal or figurative. Finish strong!

I Need You

The father walked with his three children into the park ahead of me. As I jogged around the trail, I heard a little voice cry out, "Daddy! Come here! I need you!" I turned and saw a fourth little one, this boy no more than three years old. He was trying to climb a pole on the playground equipment and wasn't getting off the ground.

The father was 50 feet away. What he said next was brilliant: "I need YOU! Come on." The dad kept walking, and the little boy ran to catch up. Now you and I know the father only needed the child to be moving in the same direction, so the family could reach its destination together.

Isn't that like our situation? We cry out to our heavenly father: "Come here! I need you!" We want God to come and push us up the pole or rescue us from the high slide. We are in a dilemma of our own making, but He's got other plans for our lives, a better path, and He needs us to catch up to Him.

I don't have any illusions that God needs me, but I hope He will use me. The good news is we will always reach our destination when we turn around and follow Him.

A House For Sale

It's official... our house is on the market, and we're moving to Atlanta for two great jobs. We serve a God of miracles!

This is the fourth house I've sold as an adult, and the process for getting a house ready to sell is as bad as the "go and show" stage you have to be in once the house has a sign in front.

Getting ready to sell: fix everything so that the house looks so great, you won't want to leave

Staying ready to sell: make the house look as though you don't live there

You may have heard there's been a run on St. Joseph statues because supposedly, houses will sell more quickly if you have even a little plastic Joe on your property. My realtor's religious history involves Catholicism, and she gave us a little statue in the last house, and another one this time. God doesn't talk to me in a booming voice, but I had the distinct impression He did not want me to give Joseph the credit if we sold our house quickly.

So, I look forward to telling you how God provided a buyer! The house has been on the market three days... and we serve a God of miracles!

Blessed to be Busy

Do you ever want to send out an email to your entire address list or record a blanket voicemail that says, "If I owe you a letter, email, check, call, reply or hug... please excuse me right now. My life couldn't get any crazier." I'm afraid if I did that, someone would say, "But you had time to send that message."

Being underemployed this year, I have come to view work as a blessing, not only for the monetary security it provides, but for the human contact, too. God has answered my prayers, and I am busy with work. So please know that I have no complaints, but if I am behind on my email... it's not personal, it's divine!

Tell Someone

Tell someone today why he or she is special, talented or loved.

"Perhaps once in a hundred years a person may be ruined by excessive praise, but surely once every minute someone dies inside for lack of it." -- Cecil G. Osborne

A New Ministry?

Have you ever been to a bus station? Four years ago, my husband and I were working for the Law Enforcement Television Network and covered an effective program conducted by the Tallahassee, Florida Police Department. Officers had a strategy for finding drug dealers who were traveling by bus. Tallahassee is a big hub, because it is the convergence of highways going west to Pensacola and beyond... east to Jacksonville... north to Atlanta and south to Orlando and Tampa.

As Mark rolled his video camera that day and I interviewed police officers, I couldn't help but notice the bus passengers. They had sad, tired faces. Many carried grocery bags as suitcases. You know how people going on vacation at the airport have happy children and smiles on their faces? None of that here. The kids looked scared and the parents looked tense. Some looked hungry and didn't have change for the vending machines. Others looked as if they hadn't had a shower in days or didn't own a change of clothes. It dawned on me that if you had money, you didn't ride the bus--you drove your car or bought a plane ticket.

"This is a place of need," I thought. "You could really help people." Ideas ranged from handing out water bottles and healthy snacks to giving away Bibles and canvas bags. Maybe even wet wipes or diapers. From time to time, I thought about what a "bus station ministry" could do and wondered how or when I would try to start something like that in my community.

Then God intervened. We had a caller on our radio show yesterday from Tallahassee. I mentioned on the air that I had an idea for a ministry, but time didn't allow me to describe it. After the show, another caller, from Georgia, sent an email saying he lived close to Tallahassee, so I wrote him about the bus station.

He called back on the air today to say he was going to present the ministry idea to his Sunday school class! I was so excited tears came to my eyes.

To top it off, before the show aired, we prayed that someone with Krohn's Disease would call in-- because another faithful listener had sent a book for us to give to someone with that condition. The caller who wants to start the bus ministry has a wife. Guess what she suffers from?

God is full of surprises. Can you believe how He is working to get people taken care of? Wow.

His Eye is on the Pomeranian

Yesterday, my husband just happened to come home mid-morning to pick up a piece of equipment from his home office to take to his job, four blocks away. He just happened to leave the gate open.

As he left the back door, he sounded startled: "Oh! That's not one of our dogs."

And instantly, I fell in love with a blonde, hairy canine. Her tag read, "Shasta," and we started calling the numbers listed. Quickly, a vet's office connected us to the owner. I heard Mark say, "Mr. Newsom..." and I shouted, "It's Coach Jim's dog!" Coach Jim is our neighbor down the street and a well-known fixture in the Fort Worth running community.

Coach Jim is also a Christian and didn't even know his dog had escaped the yard. I carried Shasta down the street, where I met Coach Jim. He explained that his pastor had come over to swim (that's a whole other story) and left the gate open.

Coach Jim was so happy to see Shasta. His wife raises Dobermans, but he said, "This is the smartest dog we've ever had. She's my dog."

I smiled, happy that God was watching over the Pomeranians. I knew the chances were small that Shasta would enter a yard where people would instantly return her to her owner, so he wouldn't worry.

God is good.