The way, the weather, and the road

Yesterday the Gospel referenced again the phrase used for the title of this blog, so I shamelessly plugged the blog in my homily. I really connect to this message, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. For me I need to surrender daily to this fact, that God's ways are so high above my ways, and so following his will is better for me than giving into relapse. This is in fact one of the 12 steps!

Step 11:
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. 

Sunday, of course, is a day of rest set aside to do this. It's also the day a priest works the hardest. When afternoon rolls around, I want to be comatose in my bed. Needless to say the last thing I want to be doing is working out. After I finally got up and went to dinner with my pastor before he takes off for Europe for the next few weeks, I returned to the rectory with a choice. Do I become a couch potato for the evening, or do I enjoy the beautiful weather outside?

Luckily for me it was so amazingly beautiful this weekend that I remembered wanting to chastise anyone who didn't take advantage of doing things outdoors. No, improving my conscious contact with God at the moment involved two things: 1. getting out of the house, and 2. starting my journey towards the road race I hope to enter one day.

Recently I picked up the Mapmyrun app, and found that a lot of my friends were using it. It's great because it syncs with myfitnesspal and automatically adjusts my calories burned from running outside. I tried it out the other day, but decided it was time to walk a little further and try jogging for once. I want eventually to be able to do a 5k, then a 10k, perhaps even talking marathons in the future. I knew I had to take the first step on this new way, the roadway. Jogging on the road is so much harder than the elliptical, but I'll get used to it! It was great that after my jog and logging it on mapmyrun, a college friend of mine who just completed her first half marathon gave me some encouragement. Shout out to Suzy! I got 2.34 miles in on a full stomach, just under 19 minutes a mile walking/jogging. For this big guy, I'll take it. It will definitely get easier as I lose weight, especially in the heart-rate department.

I look forward to continuing this new road to a 5k. Keep me in your prayers, and if you have some nice weather, take advantage of it! It's God's will for you to enjoy his creation!