Relationships and Priorities

I just got done with an almost 5.5 mile run.  It was very slow, but I kept moving, I only had to stop to walk for a couple of brief intervals.  I was hesitant to even attempt a run tonight because it had gotten late and I had already taken the kids to the zoo and walked quite a bit, but my husband knows what I need and pushed me out the door.  I had planned a 6 mile run, and probably could have finished it had it not been for the darkness in a not so great part of town.  It felt REALLY good.  I could have probably run faster, but my goal today was to just keep going and not have to walk, and I think I did a pretty good job of that.  There is still a part of me that wishes I were faster, but I know that speed will come in time and right now I need to focus on the fact that I am doing it.

I sat down at the computer to unwind and started reading a couple of blogs and I stumbled upon a link to a blog written by an avid runner.  It is called "Hey Fat Girl" and if you have ever thought that you were too "big" or inexperienced to intermingle with the incredibly fit, then I highly recommend you read it.  I cried like a baby.  This guy totally hit the nail on the head when it comes to the thoughts that I have when I meet people on the trail who are going so much faster than me or are obviously in much better shape than I am.  It just made me feel good to know that some people understand the struggle and the negative thoughts that can come along with a journey like this.

Since the hubby's work schedule changed recently, I've had to change my running schedule around a bit.  I used to do my long run on Saturday morning, but that doesn't work anymore, so the past two weeks I've run after church on Saturday evening.  It is going really well, at least mentally, for me.  Facing the biggest physical/mental challenge of my week is so much easier after being renewed with great worship.  We are seriously blessed by the quality of our worship leader and band at "The Bear".  I also strongly believe that the Holy Spirit controls my playlist, which is always on shuffle, but the song that I need to hear always comes on at the right moment.  As I was nearing the end of my run tonight, I really wanted to start walking and I had started for a few seconds and then a new song came on.  It was "Good Morning" by Mandisa.  It is pretty much impossible to not pick up the pace when that song comes on, even if it was 8:00 at night.  I started to think about how successful she has been in overcoming her addiction to food and weight loss and it gave me everything I needed to keep going.

I've been struggling a lot lately with feeling like I'm relationally challenged.  I feel like I am horrible at being a friend, party due to trust issues and partly due to time issues.  The trust issues stem way back to an experience I had in 5th grade.  I had two "best-friends" that I pretty much did everything with.  One of them was sleeping over at my house one night and she decided to call the other one while I secretly listened to see if she would say anything bad about me....and she did.  My so-called best friend didn't even really like me and didn't like hanging out with me.  Maybe that happens all the time to 5th grade girls and they let it roll off their back, but it has always stuck with me.  To this day, it takes a ridiculous amount of courage for me to even pick up the phone and call anyone outside of my family because I pretty much assume that no one wants to hear from me or hang out with me.  This makes it difficult to build and keep relationships going for me.  There are very few people in my life, outside of my family, who I feel like I could even publicly call a "friend", and it makes me feel extremely inadequate.

However, tonight, our message at church was very much about relationships and friendships.  Our pastor talked about how it is important to have a few close relationships that you can develop and the rest kind of have to stay at the acquaintance level.  I felt a little bit better about things after hearing that.  The women that I spend the most time with outside of work/family right now are my small group gals (ok, so half of them are family) and I think that I am in an ok spot.  I wouldn't mind adding a couple of other non-family close friends to the mix, but I know that I need to step out of my comfort zone to make it happen.  I guess it is something for me to pray about.

I've just been thinking a lot about my priorities in general. The book I'm reading right now is by our senior pastor (I think I mentioned that in my last post) and he talks about his top 5 priorities and how everything he does in his life is pretty much filtered through them.  He's mentioned this many times during his weekend messages, and I've always kind of felt like I pretty much did that, but I've never actually taken the time to stop and identify them.  My top four are pretty clear to me, but number 5 seems to waver. My top 5 are:

1) Strengthening my relationship with God and glorifying him in all that I do
2) Building and strengthening my marriage
3) Raising amazing kiddos who love Jesus
4) Keeping strong relationships with my family of origin and the in-laws
5) Transforming my body and mind to be healthier and stronger

Not going to lie, it is a struggle to keep them balanced, especially in this order.  I believe that this is the order that they should be in.  I think that keeping them in this order makes everything go better.  If something doesn't fit in with these top 5 for me, then I really have to think hard about whether or not I have the time for it. 

How we spend our days is so greatly influenced by our priorities.  I think one of the best things that we did was remove the TV from our living room.  We decided shortly after Rory was born that we didn't want the TV to be the focal point of our home or family.  We still find ourselves in front of the computer too often, but not watching TV has been incredibly helpful in transforming my life.  I always think it is interesting when I listen to someone tell me how busy they are, but they always know what happened on American Idol or The Bachelor.  We all have the same amount of time each day, you get to determine how you spend it....choose wisely!  (This is a reminder for me as well).

I have to remind myself daily that clean dishes, folded clothes and moderate organization aren't anywhere on that list.  I get so frustrated and overwhelmed by the amount of work there is to do around here that I miss a lot of time with my kiddos.  I'm trying to be better about just spending their waking hours with them rather than worrying about the dishes in the sink and the food stuck on the kitchen floor (but it is oh so hard to ignore).

So those are my thoughts for today.  I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.  Thanks for reading!