Closer to God

I am still recovering from my marathon.  I have felt pretty crummy ALL week.  I've had a really mild fever, a lovely rash all over my abdomen, NO appetite and have been completely exhausted (NOT prego, by the way).  I really think I have some sort of virus, and I REALLY think I had it when I ran the marathon.  It would explain everything!  Like why my body could NOT run, the entire time!

So that's the physical aspect.  Hoping to kick this bug SOON!

Mentally and emotionally, I'm doing MUCH better.  I struggled for a couple of days.  EVERYTHING made me cry (promise I'm not pregnant!  Apparently post-marathon-ness is like the first trimester!).  I kept beating myself up over and over about how that marathon went.  But I'm feeling better now.  I'm out of that hazy feeling, and almost feel like I've been lifted above it.  Let me explain.

My friend, Mike Talbot, told me after the marathon, "You are not the same Becca who toed that starting line."

I can't get that thought out of my mind.  It's SO true.  The feelings and experiences I had in those grueling 6 hours were so humbling.  I have felt a quiet closeness to God this week.  I can't get enough of the scriptures.  I feel closer to Nate.  I feel like I have more faith than ever before.  There were moments during my marathon where everything went away.  Time, material things, people, what I thought to be reality....it just vanished, and I was just briefly lifted to a higher plane, above all that.  Sure, maybe I was just delirious from the heat, but I'm going to go ahead and pretend that I wasn't.  John Groberg wrote about his experience in Tonga when the island he was on had been hit by a bad hurricane, and they waited weeks and weeks for a boat to come with food.  He explains how he begins to grow closer to God as his physical state diminishes.

"We continued to waste away physically but grow in the more important spiritual sense.  I dozed a lot and at times wasn't entirely sure where I was.  I became convinced that just as we must break the bands of the gravitational pull of this earth in order to explore the farther universe, so we must break the bands of the gravitational pull of the cares of the world before we can begin to see the realities of some of these external relationships. I learned much about who God is, what the plan of salvation is, who the Savior is, and what His part in that great plan is.  I learned something about why and how the world was created, a little about the love our Father in Heaven and Jesus have for us, and why God allows supposedly evil things to happen.  When you feel God's love and have the confidence and assurance that He is there, then other things aren't important."  -John H. Groberg, The Other Side of Heaven pg 116-117.

Such an amazing book.  Read it!

I will forever be grateful for my marathon experience.  The impression to run it and embark on that journey was real.  It was from God.  He needed me to be in that situation so He could put people in my life who I need, and most of all, so He could teach me things I wouldn't have learned any other way.  I'm so grateful for the gift of running.  My running is more than a hobby for me.  It has been an invaluable tool that God has used to teach and refine me.