I feel like that is all I ever do on this journey is begin, but there is never any finishing.
I suppose that is a good thing. There really is no arrival point, no end, no finish when you are addicted to food, but there is always a chance to begin, over and over, again and again. I think the finish only comes when you stop having the desire to begin again, and then it isn't even really a finish but rather a defeat.
So here I am, staring 2015 in the face and ready to begin. It isn't a New Year's Resolution. I would be doing this even if the new year weren't coming with the sunrise. I'm not one for resolutions, but I do like goals.
I took a look back at my goals for 2014, which I didn't call goals, but instead, opportunities. I won't rehash the specifics in this post, but they were perfect peace, write, food and obedience. I will call 2014 a success in the area of writing and obedience, but this year I need to work more on the other two.
I actually hadn't even remembered that I had specifically called out obedience in 2014, but when I look back over the year, if I were going to pick one word to sum it up, it would be obedience. I mean, running a marathon because God told me to when I didn't think I could was a HUGE step of obedience. It is very rewarding to look back and know that when I trusted God and followed, he pulled through for me.
I don't feel any strong sense of direction for what God has planned for me next, but I hope that I can continue on the path of obedience because His plans are so much better than mine.
For 2015, I have three areas I'd like to focus on, two of them are repeats as I suspect they always will be.
Food
Yep, it is my enemy. I'm re-reading Made to Crave because I've fallen back into some old patterns and need to get my head right around food again. I read it back in 2012 when I started this journey and I figured it was time to revisit. It has been very helpful already. I started Weight Watchers after Thanksgiving because I am up 20 pounds from my lowest point. I'd very much like to be under or right around 200 pounds (50 pounds to lose) when I run the Twin Cities Marathon in October 2015. I had such an amazing experience running last year that I couldn't fathom not doing it again. I'm so excited to see how God is going to work through the team this year. I want to make sure I'm fueling my body in the best way possible to do the things that I feel like God is calling me to do, which right now, happens to be running.
Running
I'm beginning again here to. I don't need to restart because I've stopped, I've run at least twice a week since finishing the marathon with the exception of a few weeks recently to try and heal a back/hip issue. However, in finding the cause of my pain, it was determined that I need to change my stride and my cadence, which has been really difficult for me, so I decided to start over. I'm re-doing the Couch to 5K at a faster pace than I did last time in hopes that it will boost me towards a faster overall pace and a faster marathon next year. I honestly don't care what my finish time is for the marathon, but I desperately want my training runs to be faster! So I'm re-building my base, something I had planned on doing a couple of times before but then always signed up for a longer distance race and put that to the side. So I'm taking this winter to run shorter distances and work towards a faster pace. When I say fast, I mean fast for me. I'm aiming for 10:00 minute miles consistently. This is a big jump, but I feel like I have the capacity to do it, I just haven't pushed myself hard enough.
Joy/Peace
This will probably be one of those things that is always on my list to improve. I have a really hard time choosing joy and I am prone to over analyze and worry about every little thing. My body is showing many signs of being over-stressed and I need to start taking better care of myself in this area. I think taking care of this will help with the food area as well, so it is pretty much the base for everything else. It is really hard for me to trust God in the day to day things, I like to make sure I have it under control, and I really just need to stop. My default setting is to look at the negative and find everything that is wrong (with me, not others) and I need to start focusing on the good things. (Do you ever feel like I say the same things over and over? I do, and I know I've said this before.)
So that is where my focus will be. Now, how about looking back at 2014?
2014 Year in Review (with lots of pictures)
Here are my ten favorite things from 2014.
I'm going to share this here, because this is the not so pretty part of running a marathon, but it is a battle scar I'm proud of. This is the ginormous blister I ran with from mile 10 on. It took about three weeks to heal. I'm also pretty sure my big toenail on the opposite foot is going to be falling off sometime soon....but so very worth it.
2) I have a new position at work. I struggled with being a mom with a career outside of the home for a while, but I feel like I have found my sweet spot and I love what I do and I'm not going to apologize for that.
3) My oldest kiddo started Kindergarten. I love how much she is blossoming.
4) We took a really fun family trip to Duluth in November and I had a great run along Lake Superior.
5) I went sledding with the kiddos. SO MUCH FUN! I couldn't have done this when I was in the 300's.
6) I rolled down the hill at Harriet Island with the kiddos a couple of times. It was fabulous, despite almost losing my lunch. I can't get the video to embed, but you can watch it here http://youtu.be/E7GLXL1TN7s
7) We went hiking A LOT this summer and fall, it was splendid.
8) I actually liked the way I looked one day despite being up 20 pounds from where I started the year.
9) I allowed myself to be vulnerable and ran with some of my fellow Team World Vision teammates on training runs. I knew they would have to slow their pace to run with me, and I never wanted anyone to do that for me, but I finally caved and they sacrificed and it was amazing. I love them all very much.
10) I started a new blog (www.reticenceunveiled.com) where I pretty much only talk about things that make me a bit uncomfortable to talk about. Like how broken I am and how amazing Jesus is. I hope to do more of that in 2015.
You want to know what is really awesome, I probably could have kept going. I don't know that I've ever been able to pick out so many awesome things from one year before. 2014 has been life changing and I'm a little bit sad to see it go, but I'm also very excited for 2015 and all of the new beginnings it brings.
Happy New Year!
