Week 2 Day 3

I just got back from my Week 2 Day 3 workout on a treadmill at our local recreation center. Since I began, my brisk walk and walking throughout the workouts has been at 3.5 miles per hour. Today, I did my brisk walk and walking throughout at 3.7 miles per hour. I felt I needed to increase my speed. When it came to running the first week, I was running at 5.0 miles per hour. On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, I was running at 5.1 miles per hour. Today I ran at 5.2 miles per hour. Just increasing my speed a little at a time feels rewarding. I feel sufficiently challenged at this point. Next week after a 5 minute brisk walk, I will be jogging 90 seconds then walking 90 seconds then jogging 3 minutes then walking 3 minutes. I will do this for 2 repetitions. I will cool down enough to make it a 30 minute total work-out. I am curious to see how this will go.

Today I listened to a sermon podcast on prayer and was reminded that our prayers do have great impact and that the Lord's Prayer is a model for how we should pray (see Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4). God hears our prayers. Though God may not always answer them as we would like, God's wisdom is greater than our own and eventually we may see the bigger picture of what God is trying to accomplish. Prayer makes our relationship with God stronger and allows us to be at peace with whatever may unfold.

Several months ago we began Sunday Morning Prayer each Sunday at 10:00 am. Sometimes there are two of us and sometimes there are 5 or 6 of us. We pray for ourselves and those closest to us. We pray for our community and our world. We pray for the Church in all places. We pray for our local church. We pray for those who come through the doors of the church that day, including the preacher and the liturgist. We pray requests that do not fit into any category at all. Through the prayer time, God is near and listens. Through the prayer time, we are growing closer together as the Body of Christ as we pray. Through the prayer time, we are growing closer to God.

Through this journey of jogging/walking, I feel that God is near, urging me 0n this journey to better health. I sense this journey leading me to a more disciplined life. I had a few tough episodes in my life this week that I felt I was able to handle with grace (mostly) because of the increased discipline in my life. The discipline has allowed me to have a sense of grace and peace I did not expect. I know that this next week is going to be a busy one and glad to be journeying with God through it all.

May you find a sense of grace and peace with God as you journey. May we continue on this journey together....