Sunday, January 20, 2013

We're Not Perfect

I've definitely been having a theme develop in my observations and experiences over the past month or two:

WE'RE NOT PERFECT

It all started with the theme around our Christmas season messages at our church in December. It was entitled "A Misfit Christmas" as the intro to each week's sermon was the song of the Island of Misfits from the Rudolph Christmas special. We're not perfect. God's pick of Mary and Joseph was not a selection of royalty. It was two, young, imperfect people. That's who God looks for, imperfect people willing to follow him.

This theme has continued as I've been going through the Book of Genesis as I'm going to attempt to read the entire Bible this year following the plan on Our Daily Bread. Adam & Eve - took the fruit from the forbidden tree. Cain - killed his brother. Fast forward to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, .... they all were far from perfect. But, God still used them.

Bringing me to what's been going on in the news lately: Lance Armstrong - far from perfect with his finally admitting to PED use. Manti Te'o - this perfect story from the fall turned out to be not so perfect. Rewind to last year when it was found out that Coach Joe Paterno wasn't perfect.

What to make of all of this? Take the good with the bad and try to live for God each day and encourage others to do the same.

In other news, this is the first entry of the year, far from my "perfect" January of blog posts last year.

Beth is in the middle of an epic 3-day ride along the California coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

We did a 5-mile race last weekend. It's the one with the epic hill at the end. Beth PR-ed by 40-some seconds. I wasn't feeling great from about mile 1. In spite of this, I was still in decent shape to be finish around 6:00 pace as I came through mile 4 at 23:06 with only the uphill mile to go. But, the Heights Hilltopper was not in peak form and actually got passed by one runner and almost caught by another with a final mile of 7:25.

Perhaps the reason why was that I was under the weather. I didn't eat much after the race, I laid around all day and then developed a really clogged nose for Monday-Wednesday. But, the kickoff for my training for May is now underway. I'm going to run the Half Marathon at Pittsburgh to shift my goals. I was thinking about this even before the 3:00 (and 46 second) marathon in Columbus. Just something different. See how far below 6:00 pace I can go for a half marathon.

I'm working with the Running For Laptops Charity again this year. I had so many awesome people over the past few years donate on my behalf. I'd love to be a part of a special connection again this year.

Can you be part of it? If so, you can click HERE. Thank you!