30 More Days of Grace

I stumbled into church Sunday morning a whopping 7 minutes before the service started, and I was feeling pretty good about that accomplishment.  I wandered over to my typical, might-as-well-be assigned, seat in the back corner and dropped my purse onto the chair, but before I could even sit down, I was intercepted by a great friend whose mother-in-law in the hospital with end stage vascular disease.  His wife has been camped out at the hospital with her mom for the last 10 days or so, and he was at church with the family and extended family.  I hadn’t heard an update for the morning, yet, so he quickly filled me in on the night and the exhaustion they all were feeling.  I’ve sat in that same hospital, in those same rooms, and even worked with those same surgeons, and as he explained all the things happening in that hospital, I felt that weight on my own shoulders from my own hours in their shoes.  Before he even finished updating me, a friend from bible study st...

Limits There was one day of volleyball tryouts that I dreaded more than any others.  The thought of that day gave me anxiety, caused me to lose sleep, and was almost enough to make me forego playing volleyball in high school. The 2 mile run. I loathed running in middle school, high school, and, honestly, throughout the first 37 years of my life.  Running represented all of my weaknesses and limitations. I was never a skinny girl. In fact, throughout my late elementary years, I was a bit on the round side.  I hit puberty between 5th and 6th grade and shot up, but I still didn’t “thin out.” And, I don’t know if you ever really get over being the “fat kid” in elementary school.  So, when I was forced to do a timed run for volleyball tryouts, every insecurity and all of my limits dominated my thoughts. We had 20 minutes to run 2 miles.  The reality of this was that I never had a problem actually making my 2 miles in 20 minutes, but the fea...