All My Life, In All I Do, Soli Deo Gloria

What Lies Beneath

I'm a pretty fastidious individual when it comes to keeping a clean house.

I pick up the house before I head to bed every night, make sure the floors are swept/vacuumed and the bathroom is kept clean.

I'm a bit obsessive about keeping a clean/empty sink in the kitchen (the dishwasher is the most used appliance in my house) and I truly believe that the folks in R&D at Proctor & Gamble who created the Swiffer line should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Science for the amazing stuff they put on the shelves at Target.

If you were to walk in my humble abode right now, you'd be greeted by a pleasant aroma of my clean home, afforded by the many odoriferous cleaning agents I use and the hundreds of plug-ins scattered around the house (an empty outlet is a cardinal sin)

BUT...

This evening, when I got home, there was a note stuck in my door from the managment at Austin Ranch saying someone would be in my home on Monday to check for needed repairs, and do general maintenance.

You would think that someone REALLY important was expected at my homestead, because I've been in a frenzy pulling out furniture, vacuuming behind it, cleaning under sinks, cleaning out closets, using the crevice tool, wiping off baseboards, and the list goes on and on and on...

Why the frenzy? Because the maintenance men go where no one else goes. They go to those deep dark recesses of my house. They'll see the dust balls and crud pileup in those hard to reach places that even I refuse to see 99.9% of the time, my deepest, darkest, cruddiest, ickiest, dirtiest corners....

That got me to thinking.

When you look at me, you see a runner (cum fledling triathlete) who's obsessed with eating 'clean' foods and getting at least a gallon of fluid in my system everyday. Taking care of myself physically and presenting a "put together" individual is important to me.

Getting my workouts at the gym in three to five times a week is like unto what purgatory would be if it existed, but I do it anyway. For the most part, I try to get at least seven hours of rest and do more reading than watching television and have become a freakishly-addicted player of Sudoku in an effort to "exercise" my mind.

So when you step back and take a birds eye view of me, you see the clean house with vanilla plug-ins filling every empty socket. Beds made, kitchen and bathrooms clean, you see a facade of tidiness.

But daily, when Christ looks in the deepest recesses of my house, my heart...hmmm...wow...He sees....

...I've gotta go, I've got some corners to clean....

...because you can

My former running coach  Diane Proud lost her three year battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)  last fall. A couple years ago, I got an email from her responding to my feedback from my workouts. In her email she told me about the triathlon she’d just competed in in Australia and how she was headed back to the states to compete in what would be her last duathlon.

Her email talked about how because of the nerve degeneration, her breathing had become way too difficult, and the training to maintain her world class conditioning is making it more and more difficult and taxing for her to talk. She closed by simply saying “keep running…because you can.”

I’ve thought about that simple statement a lot the past couple of weeks as I've ramped up my training in preparation for joining my triathlon training group. And the more it gets into me, the harder I’ve worked in my running and my workouts. But on a spiritual level, I’ve also internalized those words.

Across the world in many countries, there exists ‘the persecuted church’. Believers who are afraid to worship together in public, believers who ‘disappear’ because their beliefs go against the government’s beliefs, believers imprisoned, churches burned, even worse. Yet, I as a believer who lives in a country that allows me to worship however and whenever I want, can find many valid reasons why I can’t make it to weekend services, why I can’t volunteer my time, why I don’t want to go to my hometeam, why I don’t want to, can’t make the time, don’t have the time/energy to serve/worship/spend time with God.

Diane’s words have made me rethink every one of those excuses. There exists right now someone who cannot worship freely like me. And on behalf of that person, I lift my hands freely and lift my voice in worship.

There exists right now someone who has no group of believers to meet with and on behalf of that person, I set my excuses aside and take advantage of all my opportunities for corporate fellowship and worship.

For the persecuted church I pray and on behalf of the persecuted church, I worship…because I can.

And for you Diane, I train, run, bike and give every workout my all, because I can.

Better Than Life

A couple years ago I shared with a friend a huge praise that I was finally “in the light” after having emerged from a dark time in my life. I painted the word picture of being on the back side of a storm in the flatlands of Kansas or Oklahoma, and looking in the rear view mirror and seeing how black and menacing what you’d just driven through actually was. I reminded her that when we drive through storms like that, most times we don’t realize how dark they are until we’ve exited the storm.

Last fall, on my way to watch a friend’s son play in a JV football game, I got a text from her saying the game had been cancelled due to severe thunderstorms that were slowly advancing toward the metroplex. So a block away from the stadium, I turned my car around to head the 10 miles south back to my house. The closer I got to my house, the darker the clouds got, the closer the lightening flashed, and in my rearview mirror I watched as the last rays of the sun were slowly engulfed by magnificent, prodigious, bruise colored thunder heads.

As I drove into the storm, I couldn’t help but smile as God brought to my remembrance all the storms he’s ferried me out of. When I shared my praise report with my friend, I told her how I’d been playing the song “Better Than Life” all that day. Blasting it in my car, singing equally as loud, hitting the ‘back’ button at the end of the song, and starting all over from the top again.

Your love is everlasting
Its an everlasting love
Your mercy is as new as every rising of the sun
And your loving kindness,
loving kindness is better than life

Fairest of 10,000 of 10,000 you are fair
Nothing in this world could ever measure or compare
And your loving kindness
Loving kindness is better than life

While I agree with the songwriter here, I must take artistic liberty and say, “your loving kindness, loving kindness has given me life”

Lord, I thank for your mercy that renews with every breath you allow me to take. I thank you for the storms that wash away, blow away, tear away what is not of you. I praise you that you set up camp with us in our storms.

I extol you that the storms will not last always. I exalt you because your very words, “Peace Be Still” have the power to extinguish the most violent of storms, and should you choose to remain silent and allow the storm to roll, your lack of vocalization does not mean that you have abandoned us, for you have promised us that you will never leave us, you would never forsake us.

I thank you for reminders, such as past thunderstorms of your past mercies and providence, and I pray that when those small reminders blow across our paths that we would take a brief moment to remember and celebrate your loving kindness, because it is better, so much better than life itself.

If It Takes All Night

I was so tired, I fought back tears.  I wanted to give up and call it a night.  Halfway through my workout, I was spent.  This workout, much more challenging than last week's.  I could give up.  The only one who'd know would be me. 

But I can't.  I didn't.  I pressed on.

Each rep, each set, I completed as she'd instructed.  Each plyo jump, each sprint, each lunge with 25 pound plates in each hand, I fought through.  My body going on pure will alone.  My mind fatigued, screamed, begged, bargained for a reprieve.

I paused, doubled over.  Sweat dive bombing from my brow, my chin, my chest, hitting the black padded weight room floor.  I stood, next set, endeavoring on. 

The seconds between sets grew longer, the muscles in my legs and arms spasmed uncontrollably.  I breathed deeply and whispered to myself "I don't care if it takes all night, I will do every rep and every set." 

I wonder how many times God has whispered to himself as I drug my feet whining and complaining my proclamations that I could go no further.  How many times has he whispered to me, "If it takes the rest of your life, you WILL get this."

An hour and five minutes later, as I sit on my couch digesting my high protein dinner, and trying to find the strength to shower and crawl into bed, I, with unabashed pride, applaud my efforts this evening.  I didn't want to do my workout.  I wanted to quit halfway through because it was too hard.  But.  I.  Kept.  Going.  And I finished.  All of it.  Everything I was told to do. 

It didn't take all night, more like an hour and 15 mintues.  But who cares?  I finished.  I ran through the tape.  Every step.   Every rep.  Every set.

Lord, there's a lot you're working on in my world right now.  Some of it is hard.  Having to break life-long behavioral patterns isn't even in nodding acquaintace with 'easy'.  However, despite the tears, sweat, quivering muscles, fatigue, nausea and a lot of empty excuses, I promise I'll finish every step, every change, every character building exercise.  All of it.  Everything you tell me to do. 

Even if it takes all night or the rest of my life.  

Rest

I am so very tired.  As my training ramps up in preparation for triathlon training in a month, I continue to tear down my body and build it up, tear it down and build it up.  I make sure every night to be in bed by 9:30 and lights out by 10:30, yet still struggle to get out of bed before 7:30 every morning. 

I've pushed hard and cajoled myself through workout after workout and am proud of how far I've come.  Today is a well deserved day off and as much as I want to at least go walk or ride a bike thus 'actively' recovering, I'm fighting the urge and just sitting still, on the couch.

Tomorrow training will pick up again bright and early at 6AM.  But for right now, I'm enjoying my rest, from working out, from blogging, from even moving. 

Don't Force It, Leave It Alone

On any given day, I have four or five things hanging out in the back of my mind that I want to write about.  Things God's showing me, general observations on life, a complaint here, or a story there.  Even though the ideas exist, the words don't always materialize with the thoughts.  In the dashboard of my blog there are several drafts of ideas I've started that have yet to make it from ideas and thoughts to actual words on a page.  Sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it's a relief.

Sitting at a stoplight this evening singing along to a song I've been captivated with the past few days, I, for the millioneth time thought about the meaning of the words I was singing.  I tried to piece together words in my mind that would convey the song and its effect on me, to you my faithful reader.  But I couldn't.  Even though the song evokes such emotion and such hope, I'm unable (as of yet) to concisely transfer my thoughts and feelings to words and sentences.  All I know is I need to write about it.  But I can't.  I've gotta leave it alone, let it grow on its own.

It's like a tomato plant (or any plant for that matter).  You know it's a tomato plant.  You know eventually a big red vegetable is going to pop up on the vine.  You can't just make it materialize.  You gotta wait, for the seed to take, the roots to grow, the sprouts to break the surface of the soil, the vine to grow, the plant to flower, the flower to die and the tomato vegetable to form and from green to red, ready for your consumption.

In a way, my writing process is like that tomato plant.  As much as I want to convey an idea, right now, I can't force it.  Just gotta leave it alone and let it grow and bud on its own.  Despite my frustrations this evening, I know that once it flowers, the right words will come to illustrate a perfect picture concisely orchestrating all my thoughts.

Stay Tuned.

I Hate Push-Ups

I hate push-ups.  The title says it all.  As I was typing the title, my mom's voice was in my head saying "Novia Renee, we do not hate anything, that's an awful strong word."  Not strong enough mom, not strong enough!  In the thirteen months I've worked with my personal trainer, there's yet to be a week where she hasn't inserted push-ups in my workouts.  It's like they're in cahoots.  Deb and push-ups.  Push-ups and Deb.

And what's even more maddening is that as soon as I get good at one kind of push-up, she changes it up and gives me a harder version.  If you think there's only a few version of push-ups, hang out with my trainer for 55 weeks...'cuz she's come up with more than 55 different ways to do them.  This week's work out, I get to pump out 90...yeah that's right you read it correctly NINETY push-ups six sets of 15, but they're not consecutive, they're in between other upper body scorchers...I wanna cheat, I wanna only do some of them or none of them at all.  But I do everyone...all 90 of 'em 'cuz I know she can tell.  She's clairvoyant like that. 

Recently, I settled in my spirit how to be kind to someone who I'm not particulary fond of.  So much so that others had complimented me on my graciousness and asked what had changed.  But then, BOOM, another person enters my life who I despise.  To no end.  A lot.  And the cycle has started all over again.  Just when I thought I was doing good loving my neighbor, along comes another troll for me to be kind to. 

That troll, is my push-ups.  This afternoon, I realized (after thirteen months) that my trainer wants me to  be so strong, that no matter how I'm asked to do them, I can pump out push-ups in my sleep, when I'm awake, when I'm tired, at the end of a butt-kicking workout when my arms are quivering with fatigue, with one eye closed, with one hand behind my back, suspended from one foot, you get the point.  She wants me strong no matter the situation, so just when I get good and strong, she changes it up, confusing my muscles and building more strength.

Likewise, this, my new irritation.  God wants me to love my neighbor.  Period.  Doesn't matter where I am, or who it is.  He said, "love your neighbor as I have loved you."  So what? I got good at 'loving' one unlovable person. Go me.  But now it's time for a new variation on unlovable, thus, enter a new person.  And I go right back to the beginning again, flexing that 'love the unlovable' muscle.   My guess is the unlovables will continue to come and invade my space, until I can love my neighbor no matter what, without even thinking about it I just do it.  It's second nature.

Thirteen months in I may be stronger, but I still hate push-ups...I pray that this exercise in character development takes hold quicker than the push-ups have.

Rage Against The Machine

My dad is techno-phobic.  He's afraid of all technology post the huge car phones in Miami Vice.  He thinks email is useless and says texting is ruining the art of modern conversation.  He doesn't like "the Facebook" or "the Twitter" and is sure if a picture of him is posted on either, his house will be robbed and he will be killed in some horribly brutal way.  I'm not using his name in this post, because I don't think he likes "the Blogs" either, and I don't want to test the technology gods by putting his name here. 

He doesn't understand that an iPod is an MP3 player ("it's the original MP3 player," I kept telling him over Christmas break) or that when taking pictures on his brand new digital EOS Rebel, he doesn't have to look thru the viewfinder to see the subjects he's about to take a pciture of, all he needs to do is look at the big screen right below the viewfinder.  And the list goes on.  He's chosen not to shun the neat things technology has spawned over the last three decades for what he's comfortable with.  Because of that, he's missed the amazingly magnificent metaphorsis of scientific knowledge.

My mom, on the other hand, has very gracefully ebbed and flowed with technological advances.  She's been along for the whole glorious journey (even though she's prefered a quiet space in the back seat for the ride).  If she doesn't understand it, she'll call me or my brother and we talk her thru it until she's comfortable with it and she shrieks like a excited little girl because she finally gets it.  Because she works with college athletes, she is masterful at texting (her students' main source of communication with her) and she understands that "i love you" thru a text is just as strong and meaningful as me telling her over the phone.  She has a Facebook page and knows what to put on her page and what not to put on her page.  She knows how to set her privacy settings and is selective who she shares her page with.  Where my father found great frustration with Siri over Christmas, my mother, found great amusement by asking questions such as: "who's your daddy?" of Siri. 

Mom and dad.  Night and day.  One rages against advancement, the other ushers it in, learning and molding it to fit her needs.  As much as my dad's admamant refusal to enter into the new century infuriates me, I must extend a lot of grace when dealing with him and technology in the same breath.  For I think of the many things throughout my life God has called me to change, adapt to, improve, stop doing.  The course directions that have changed drastically mid-race and the absolute knock down, drag out fits I've thrown because that's not what I wanted, what I was used to, what I thought was 'right' for the situation. 

God is ever-changing and never-changing all in the same breath.  When I think I've figured out an aspect of His goodness, or a side of His breath-taking grace, He throws me a curve ball, asks me to flex, asks me to change, to evolve to fit the environment He's dropped me in.  It's hard (so hard that right before typing that, without even thinking about it, I said "it's hard" out loud).  Nine times out of ten, I don't want to adapt, I don't want to change, I fight change, I want to stay where I'm comfortable, where all is familiar, because that's the way it's always been, and I like it.  But that's not what He's called me to do. 

As much as I enjoy my norm, the more time I spend raging against the machine, raging against change, raging against this evolution that is my life with Christ, the less time I'll have walking in peace and trust with God THE most marvelous part of the journey.

Drop Your Butt and Drive Your Legs

I’m in love with my friend’s dog Tonka.  Which really says a lot because I’m a large dog lover, and not that tolerant of dogs that are smaller than, oh, a border collie.  But Tonka, Tonka is my exception to the rule.  When I visited my friend earlier this year, she let me take Tonka out on his retractable leash.  And because I like Tonka and trust Tonka to make good dog decisions, I let him go to the end of his leash and followed him as he pulled me behind.

But after 10 minutes outside sniffing and burrowing and sampling every blade of grass in the yard, I decided it was time to go in.  I was cold, so potty break was over. 

Me: small tug on the leash “come on Tonka let’s go"

Tonka: continues to sniff around making sure he spread all of his puppy love to all of the fallen acorns

Me: little more of a tug, “Tonka let’s go”

Tonka: pretending to be oblivious to the brown lady on the opposite end of the leash continues to sniff.

Me: walking toward Tonka while simultaneously taking up the slack in the leash, “Tonka, come on”

Tonka: sensing the leash shortening and the space between him and me lessening, drops his butt, digs in his hind legs and pushes off.  He was having none of this, “let’s go inside stuff.”  There was all of nature to commune with and dadgummit, his communing was not to be interrupted.

Me: stunned that the dog had the audacity to act the way that I do, I giggled then slightly tugged at the leash as I continued to close the distance.

Tonka: once again, drops his rear and uses his hips to push himself ever forward.

I LOVE this dog!  He’s me, but ‘cept for he’s a dog!  Too frequently when God asks me to do or stop doing things, I tend to drop my butt and use my hips to push forward, keep going in the opposite direction, straining against the  safety and confines of God’s grace and covering.  I’m not ready, I don’t want to, I’m busy, this is more fun, you name it, I’ve said it as I test the limits of the grace that so tightly binds me.

There are times when God holds a mirror up to my face and it’s not pretty and I’m all kinds of ashamed and embarrassed even humiliated.  Yet there’s other times (like my foray with Tonka) when he holds a mirror to my countenance and with a little humor asks: ‘anything look familiar’ and I bashfully giggle, and say, ‘yes’ and adjust accordingly.

Whatever Happened to: Good Game?

Today, I’m breaking one of my cardinal rules and talking about my take on politics. 

This afternoon, one of the Republican Presidential candidates bowed out of the 2012 American Presidential race.  Much to my chagrin, he endorsed another candidate still in the race, (one who most likely will not win the nomination).  It is not the person that he endorsed that caused my irritation, but rather the endorsement itself.  As someone who’s worked on a national Presidential campaign before, I understand the reason behind the endorsement, it’s political posturing for future ‘favors’ down the road.  And as someone who’s spent time working in a political position in D.C., I also understand that afore mentioned posturing will not be forgotten, and will one day be ‘cashed in’.

When I saw the endorsement, I shook my head and thought “whatever happened to a strong hand shake and a sincere ‘good game’ and then just leaving the playing field with your head held high?”  Does that happen anymore?  Or when we lose must we always announce who we’re realigning ourselves with?  Why not just announce that you’ll support the party’s candidates once he/she has been selected?  I know, I know, dumb question, because it all goes back to that whole political posturing thing.

There’s a reason that after three years in the District I packed my bags and moved back to Texas.  It’s because as self-centered and self-absorbed as I am, my selfishness PALES in comparison to many folks who are in public office or in positions of power in D.C.  Was it ever ‘for the people’, ‘for a stronger, brighter America’ or was it always (and has it always been) just about them?

I espouse all of this not as someone who is sitting on my high horse of ‘judgment’ but rather as someone who struggles daily with pride.  As someone who has turned down great opportunities because I knew I would use the opportunity for my own self-promotion.  I knew that I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to be seen and adored and praised for all of my awesomeness, not ‘for the good of the masses.’  Sadly, I am quite intimate with 'it being all about me'.

Bear Bryant once admonished his players to “act like you’ve been there” when they made touchdowns.  In that same vein, I wish folks would learn how to simply say ‘good game’ with a firm handshake and then turn, walk off the field, head held high, any further self-promoting comments held captive.