Why RUNNING?

This is very disconjointed, so please bear with me...these are things that I NEED to get down, but do not have the time to heavily edit.

In an effort to hold myself even more accountable, I wanted to put this here:
Wednesday I ran/walked to the post office with the kids. GraceAnne ran with me and the babies were in the bike trailer.
Yesterday I biked for about 20 minutes in the evening and then walked a couple blocks to cool down.
Each morning I stretch with GraceAnne and Violet and since we're doing school upstairs there have been lots of upstairs/downstairs trips with the kids.

I'd like to add situps and pushups to this regimen and I'd really like to get up consistently early enough to run before Allan goes to work. But for now, I am doing some type of cardio every day.

So...I was riding my bike yesterday and I had some questions running through my mind. Primarily, "Why am I doing this?" See, it's not exactly fun for me. I don't get done sweating and breathing heavy and think, "that was a blast, I love the rush!" I'm just not that girl. So I was talking to God and trying to figure out just *what* is compelling me toward this. The answer came in the form of a memory of a post I made on FB. I wrote, "Look, Paw, the outside matches the inside...all hurty everywhere!" Since I am admittedly out of shape, every muscle in my legs hurt. My teeth/mouth hurt because I began wearing my invisalign trays again since my teeth were starting to look bad again. My head hurts because of hormones, I guess??? My back hurts because I haul a 22lb 8-month-old around everywhere. And obviously my soul is aching. So I thought about that and I made these connections:

I knew some "cutters" in high school. They all said that it was a release because of 2 things: either they wanted to be sure they could still feel something other than mental anguish or it gave them a release...like hurting on the outside somehow makes the inside hurt less. While I don't think I'm being destructive, I see a very big correlation here. I am enjoying aching everywhere because it reminds me I'm still human and to hurt is to be alive. Sure...sounds like a morbid 16 year old, but it is what it is right now.

I am currently in the process of learning to grieve. Any other time in my life that I've been hurting I've reached out and tried to help other people and it soothed me except that I had nothing left for myself at the end of the day. Which obviously leads to depression in a very big way. I've battled depression before and I know this beast, so I know that avoiding it by hiding my own hurts in lieu of others' hurts is not going to do anything but prolong this process. Since I am sitting here in my pit, I feel the need to flee from it, because this is how I've always dealt with my pain. Since I'm not allowing myself to flee mentally, (and this goes both ways, I will fully live in my moment of pain, but I also fully live in a moment of joy. I'm trying to ride this coaster good or bad) I will flee physically. But as my wonderful friend Mary said on her running blog...I'm also running face first into the Lord. Which leads to my next reason:

I can't do this alone. On my own power I cannot handle the death of my baby and on my own power I cannot become a person who is good at and enjoys running. I don't have it in me. I've always been a much more sensitive person and while Allan can and does pick himself up by the bootstraps and move on, I am just not that girl, either. I need a little while to figure out which way is up before I move. I run to remind myself that God can help me through anything and He WILL help me through this grief. He's sitting here with me, crying and holding me and He's out there running and cheering me on.

The biggest reason I'm running, though, has to do with something my dear friend/cousin-in-law Gayle said on my training post..."I can think of 100 things I'd rather do than run." And she is SO right. Gayle is a true inspiration, (look for her blog on my sidebar...The White House) She is always doing something in the yard, with the kids, in the kitchen. I am not sure she ever takes a moment to rest and based on the things I know she hauls around that amazing yard, I know she's no weakling and no stranger to hard work. I pondered that for a couple days after she said it because Lord knows I've got plenty around here that could be spruced up, decluttered, or whatever. Outside I've got beds desperately waiting for me to take bottoms off and fix the soil up for fall planting next month. But I cannot do these things to help me through this. WHY???

Because I need to do something that has no tangible/visible results whatsoever. Running is not going to give me a rockstar body. Running isn't going to turn this belly flub into a 6-pack of abs. Running doesn't produce anything that could be considered productive. But I need that because my body is not producing anything right now. I've got nothing in me that desires to produce anything but my baby and that can't happen, so I'm not going to seek production in other areas, either. (Please don't get me wrong...I am still doing dishes and laundry and cooking and taking care of my children...I'm just not seeking out physical activity that produces fruit)

So what exactly does that mean? Well, when we run we have faith that our bodies will grow stronger--our lungs should expand so that we can breathe easier, our circulation should increase, causing more oxygen to be delivered to parts of our bodies that may have been lacking prior. It's supposed to make our hearts healthier, (and I could SURE use some of that right now! Figuratively speaking...) We don't really *see* any of that, we just have faith that it is true. Technically I could become a runner and run 7 miles a day and be in the best shape of my life but die of a heart attack at 40. We just take it on faith that we will be better off for doing it.

And so it is with allowing God to lead me through this pain. I don't see any tangible changes right now. I still break down in the middle of the day. I almost started crying five times at WalMart last night--for no real reason. I'm still torturing my poor family with my random sobbing and my random anger and my random unwillingness to move at all. After all, it's only been 3 weeks. BUT...I have faith that if I am willing to keep meeting my Lord in this pit, He will continue to sit here with me. If I keep opening up His word, He will continue speaking to me. If I keep moving through the days, He will keep giving me some grace and one day-maybe not even soon-He will take me by the hand and turn me into a girl who desires to run after Him and He will show me exactly how He will turn these ashes into beauty.

Lord I long for that day. But I thank Him for giving me the time to feel these things that are so very human. I am grateful that it is okay with Him if I choose to feel my way out of this hurt. I am grateful that I can torture my body into being a better image of myself...inside to the outside...physically and spiritually.

That's all I got for now...this post may change a lot, but I want to again say thank you to all of you who read this and love me anyway. ;)