In-between

For those of you who have been following this blog for awhile, are my friends or just read to creep me, thanks for yesterday! Every now and then I snap! God is well aware of it and has dealt with me about it. I'm good and ready for something different to talk about today! In other words, it's safe to read on, you won't get anything on you! Maybe.

• Preacher man is heading home as I write. 
• The American Idol final party was fun times! Made even better that Philip Phillips won! Called that one! 
• Baby birds are starting to fly into the window, shutting blinds down some.
• Went for a run today and didn't die!

Found something interesting today and thought about it for awhile. I want to share it with you. Carl Jung said, If you get rid of the pain before you have answered its questions, you get rid of the self along with it. We all have to walk through pain. In this day and age, we are so over medicated for everything that we are popping a pill and watching as we float down the preverbal river. Why are we doing that? For me as a runner, when I feel pain, something is wrong and I need to check it out. I need to stop, survey, assess the situation and do what needs to be done. If I pop a pill to get rid of the pain, is it really gone? But I have changed, I have gotten rid of part of myself, the self that can learn from the pain.


We are so afraid to be in pain! When I pulled my hip flexor, I knew pain! A pain I couldn't get to in order to make it feel better. I remember when I played co-ed softball, I was a hell-of-a third baseman! Could use my body and glove to stop almost anything that came at me. Running though, I'm in it for the long haul, not the fast finish! WHEN I made it to first base, I was always so surprised! Preacher man use to call me Little Wheels, cuz I look like those charters that move their legs real fast, but never get anywhere. Anyway, I never wanted to go to second base. I didn't have the faith in my ability to get me there safely.


How often does this happen in our faith journey? We get safely to first and don't want to step out and run to second. We're safe and happy right where we are. To step out might cause us pain, or we could get thrown out! Yet, faith happens in the in-betweens, the interruptions, the thresholds, the pain. You've let go of one thing and haven't yet latched onto the other.


This is where Preacher man and I are living right now. This is also where some of my friends find themselves, in the in-between. If you aren't there right now, some pain or personal loss, even humiliation, will come across your path sooner or later. Will you justify staying on first base? Do you see what a surrender it is to step out there and head towards second? Only God can lead you on that path! If it's up to us, we are staying on first!


We need to, heck, we must listen to the questions that pain offers us. Then we can move through the pain, into truth and onto second base, with more faith that we left home with!