Running Alterations

I love running. I am not a fantastic runner. In fact, I am horrible at it. My running is a mixture of slogging (slow jog), spurts of energy, sweat and lots of heavy breathing. I started running this past summer. I have always really wanted to be healthier, to be more fit, to lose, oh I don't know, half my body size. Sometime this summer I started to feel really unsettled. I process hurt and pain horribly and when I found out my father would need heart surgery I came a little undone. I started stressing about things that were out of my control. Relationships, my father, work, etc. In any normal situation I would eat my stress away, but for some unknown reason I decided to run. I became obsessed with it. Especially in the beginning of the school year. I had discovered this AMAZING secret. Running takes all of my physical and emotional energy. It has the power to allow me to FEEL NOTHING. It was wonderful. Anytime I started to worry, or hurt, or wanted to cry, or started to feel any emotion that was discomforting I would just run until I felt nothing. It was liberating. It was almost like a drug.
I remember feeling what was almost like a panic attack at school on bad days and all I could think was that I just needed to get home to change to run. I couldn't drive home fast enough, change quick enough, before I was bolting out the door without so much as a hello to my family. I ran sometimes twice a day, early in the morning and as soon as I got home. I would run in the rain, in the cold, in the heat. I would run until I was soaked with my own sweat, until I thought I would pass out or puke. It was great. I loved feeling nothing.
Slowly though my life returned to some sort of normal. I began to dig deeper in God's Amazing Word. I began to focus more on others instead on my self. I became busy with work and other aspects of life and no longer felt the need to run. I still ran but not as much. I started to just run for pleasure. I did several 5K's and felt awesome afterward. Completely drained... but awesome. I realized that running had started out as an outlet but had become a pleasure. I stopped listening to music and used my running time as an opportunity to talk to God and just rest in His presence.
I went running today and it made me think of all this. I ran for fun, for exercise, for time with God alone. He gave me such a peace. I was moved to tears as I saw landscape that was so green and sky so blue. I appreciated the different shades and hues. How these gorgeous trees have lighter colored under leaves and how the wind blows them to create this awesome image that no artist will ever truly capture. I yearned for a mountainside. For tall rock and just stretches of God's handiwork for miles. I yearned for more of Him. And I realized that while I was dealing with my emotions the best way I knew how, He was softly chipping away the pieces of me that were in the way of His glory. The edges and sometimes deep parts that needed to be torn off, cut away so that light could shine through. It is definitely nothing I imagined. But His plans are far beyond my imagination. His comfort is far more sustaining than I could hope for. His palette is far more deeper and richer than any other artist. His healing and restoring is stronger than any plan I can compose for myself.
I am excited about this next section of my life. What will it bring? My goal is to not try to understand but simply to listen and follow. It won't always be easy. I know I will doubt. I know I will still choose the wrong idea or action at my weakest moments. But as I begin to understand more of God I begin to understand the person He has created me to be. And that is exciting.

Prayer requests:
safety and funds for the Philippines (YEAH, IM GOING!!!)
my parents
my school and it's teachers
Real Life