life changing talks around a camp fire

This past weekend we had our young adult camping trip. It was fun, encouraging and very relaxing. It was exactly what I needed.

We had some good, deep conversations about faith and about our personal spiritual growth. We were vulnerable to share some of our struggles with the group around the fire there were several things that the group had in common.

Just about everyone in the group is too busy. I say it's because our priorities are mixed up (they don't match our values) and that Satan uses our schedule against us...

We decided to craft out some time to be together as a group (small group). We also have some just "fun" sporadic things taking place--a few as soon as this next weekend.

Several people in the group reported that they need direction and guidance and with that others are struggling with loneliness...

We decided to call at least two people in the group per week and with that will set up some accountability/prayer partners.

We talked about lots of other things. For church on Sunday morning I shared from Mark 2 where the friends carry the paralytic man to see Jesus by cutting a hole in the roof. I expressed the importance of having friends who have faith--no where does the scripture record that the paralyzed man had faith yet his sins were forgiven AND has was able to get up and walk. Friends are important. We need each other.

It was a good weekend. I'm looking forward to our small group tomorrow night.

Running in the rain?

I haven't written in a while because the past month has been crazy (a real shocker, I know). We had to let an employee go so for the past month I have been handling all the finances for our building in addition to everything else. It's been...tiring.

I have, for the most part, kept up with running.

Until last week when I came 8 miles short and ran on the treadmill twice instead of outside where I need to be running.

This morning I started out determined to keep up with the mileage.

But it started to rain.

So I ran 6 miles on the treadmill. The problem is that it's supposed to be storming in the morning every day this week so I have to decided whether I am going to run on the treadmill, in the rain in the dark, or move the run to later in the day (which never works out well for me). It's already extremely dark in the wee hours of the morning so the cloudy skies aren't much of a help.

I am determined to stay focused with this half marathon goal.