IN REAL LIFE

Running Your Own Race

Hello, ladies! I love it when I'm working on a project, like our series on living the life that truly is life, and the perfect thing just appears to help illustrate it. I know you've all had that happen, and it has to be a God-thing, right? This is what God showed me on Saturday:

If you remember from Friday's post,, my grandniece Madison was here visiting with her three small brothers because their dad was running in the Music City Marathon. Saturday morning, about two hours after the race actually started, Madison and I and her mom and the little boys (ages 3, 2, and 7 months) found a spot where we could see our runner going one way at mile 17 and coming back at mile 26, leaving only .2 of a mile to the finish line.

I've been to marathons before. My husband ran two back in the 1980's, and I ran a half marathon in 1983. But this time was different. For some reason I felt a connection with people as they passed us on the way to completing one of the most demanding athletic feats the human body can accomplish. I was so aware that every person had a story, a different reason for attempting this thing that to some people may seem pretty pointless (if not totally insane!) Yet I don't think any of them knew they were teaching so many lessons --

    *Those who trotted past us first, far ahead of the pack, were lean and strong and had barely broken a sweat, even in the 80 degree heat. Hours of training and miles of boredom preceded those fabulous finishes, and those runners were a stunning reminder that if you're going to win the prize, sacrifice and self-discipline and sometimes even pain are required of you.

    *Behind them, others passed with faces set in determination, their form still solid but with sweat pouring, water bottles discarded, calf muscles so tight they hurt ME! Those runners weren't in it to win. They had personal goals to meet, I felt, and I couldn't help guessing what they might be. Maybe, "I've never finished anything I've started but I'm going to finish this." Or "My marriage fell apart but I'm still strong." Or perhaps like the famous Olympic runner Eric Liddell, "When I run, I feel God's pleasure." As I watched them I remembered how important it is to mark our spiritual progress in concrete ways.

    *Still other runners were obviously barely holding it together when they reached mile 26. We saw limping. Grimacing. Tear-filled eyes. Jaws set in anguish. Some in that group were moving relatively fine but had clearly "hit the wall" at some point and were groping for mental stamina. My heart went out to those folks. Maybe they hadn't trained wisely or hydrated sufficiently. Maybe they'd been so pumped at the start of the race they'd shot out too fast and burned themselves out. Or perhaps the brutal course (the Nashville event is known for its grueling hills) had taken its toll on their positive outlook. Even with the finish line just around the next turn, they looked despairing, and yet on they ran. It came to me that it is far worse to give up than it is to work through the obstacles, even if your finish is ragged.

    *And then there were the walkers. They had obviously run  most of the way or they wouldn't have gotten that far that soon, but they just couldn't do it any more. Maybe  they were saving that last bit of energy for the finish line where they had loved ones waiting. I realized, though, that there was no shame in walking that last mile. The point is to keep moving forward.

    * The people I loved the most were the encouragers. Many runners who had apparently lost hope before that final cruel hill were accompanied by someone running alongside, someone who could have finished sooner but refused to leave the struggler. I heard them say things like --

        "Look, you have, like, nothing left to go. You can do this."

        "Look at you, you're making it."

        "Stay focused. I'm right here with you."

    Those bedraggled runners would have dropped out if not for those fellow athletes who sacrificed their own times to help. It was never more  clear to me that we are not in this race alone. Ever.

    * My ultimate favorite part was cheering everyone on. Everyone. I stood at the curb with Madison and sometimes Whit and Dow (who you can see here waiting for Daddy to run by) and shouted encouragement. Slowly others joined us, until we had a tenth of a mile of people calling out, "You look great!" "Good job!" "You've got this!" Some runners didn't seem to hear us. Few made eye contact. But many of them lifted their heads or smiled or picked up speed or kicked it out for that final push. We could visibly see the results of our positive reinforcement. I don't think that lesson requires analysis . . .

    We left our post when "Daddy" ran by with a great time of four hours, 34 minutes (even the winner came in at a modest 2 hours, 38 minutes -- the hills and the heat slowed everyone down). But I kind of wanted to stay until the last of the 5,000 who started the full marathon had made it to mile 26, and I was relieved to hear the cheering continue behind me, which just goes to show that it's not all on any one of us. We're simply asked to do what we can when we're put there to do it.     

In fact, that was what all the runners, and all of us, have in common. Each is running the race that is set before us (sound familiar?), whether it's to win, to qualify for the next leg of our journey, or merely to celebrate. In the Music City Marathon, every runner was nurturing a side of the self. Each made the time to train. Each paid attention to what was needed to reach the goal. All those poeple had jobs or school or both. Many had family responsibilities (I heard a lot of "Go, Mom!" and "Way to go, Dad!") So what I'm thinking is that if we're called to run a race or write poety or create  pottery or start a Bible study group or spend an hour a day alone with God, in addition to everything else that fills our lives, we can --

        *make the sacrifice

        * mark our progress

        * overcome the obstacles and keep moving

        * accept help

        * listen for encouragement from unexpected sources

    Most of the things you've said you'd like to develop in yourselves don't require anything close to what marathon runners have to do. So what's stopping you from carving out the time to go for it? What do you say we all set a goal in our comments over the next few days?  They don't have to be huge. They can be as simple as calling it a day thirty minutes earlier at night so you can read for pleasure, or getting up 15 minutes earlier to pack yourself a fabulous lunch, or giving up texting for a week to see if you can have more actual conversations. 

If an example would help, I'm giving up watching re-runs of N.C.I.S. so I can pursue my love of reading biographies, just because I like to be inspired by other people's lives. 

Let's hear it, ladies. I'll be running beside you, saying, "You can so do this!"

In God for the world,

Nancy Rue 

Having a Grown-up Moment

Good morning, ladies! My grandniece Madison is here with me, visiting from Atlanta, and we have retreated to my office for a grown-up moment. Yeah, Madison has three little brothers, ages 3, 2, and 7 months. It's wild upstairs! So we thought we'd slip away and co-blog for y'all today.

 

Since we're talking about trying to make time to live the life that truly is life, we're going to go with what Madison's life is like right now. She's 13, almost 14, and is in the eighth grade. Okay, so here we go with the interview.

    Nancy: Tell us what fills up your life, Madison.

 

    Madison: Brothers. They're constantly getting what they want, like, their needs have to be met, which means I'm constantly helping with them. I don't have a lot of time to hang out with my friends and have alone time, pretty much.

    Nancy: So . . . how's that working out for ya?

 

    Madison: I"ve gotten used to it so it's not that bad any more but I have my moments when I'm over-tired and they're getting on my nerves. Then I send myself to my room!

    Nancy: Right now I hear somebody pitching a fit upstairs. Is that a normal occurence?

    Madison: Yes. And that gets on my nerves.

    Nancy: So, how's school?

    Madison: Good. Different from Birminghma where I used to live, but it's good. The people are different -- their parents let them do more stuff, they don't care what their kids do, where in Mountainbrook the parents wouldn't let them do most stuff, or they had to know  who was going and where they were going to be and what else was going on. In Atlanta, the parents say, "Okay, bye." My parents still do what they did in Mountainbrook, and I'm glad.

    Nancy: What's your church life like? 

    Madison: Right now we're going to a church that my dad is being sponsored by because he's starting a church in Atlanta. I like it because I have a lot of friends there. It feels really spiritual to me -- we have a thing called King's Kids and there are about 37 of us and 35 of us are going to Mexico this summer for a mission trip. We're going to an orphanage. We have this program that we do in English at our sponsor church every three months (This Sunday is one of those) , and we're doing it in Spanish in Mexico. We actually learning to sing the songs in Spanish. We'll be down there a week -- I'm excited about it.

    Nancy: What's your relationship with God like?

    Madison: I pray nightly and at school we're doing the SATs and before we start we all pray -- my friends. We say a blessing at lunch and these two Jewish kids say it with us. I read a chapter in the Bible every night and use a 365 day devotional book, which I'm three years into!

    Nancy: What's your biggest life challenge?

    Madison: I guess learning that everything is not about me. Before the boys were born it was just me and my older stepsister so I got most of the attention. But then when the boys came, they got all the attention and it's been hard to realize that I'm not the only person in the house. I'm learning how to deal with it, which makes me a better person (even though I don't like it!)

    Nancy: What's one thing you'd like to say to your fellow teens here on In Real Life?

    Madison: I'm having a blast visiting here in Tennessee for the weekend. Hanging out with family -- Aunt Nancy, Uncle Jimmy, Guiness and Geneveve, who are currently on my bed (the dogs, not Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jimmy!)

We've gotta go because the natives are getting restless upstairs. We're off to the park to meet Baby Maeryn and her mom for climbing and squealing and picnicking. Chances are, it won't be all about us, right Madison?

Madison: Ya think?

 

Have a great weekend, ladies. And thanks for all yoru coments since yesterday. More! More!

 

In God, for the world --

 

Nancy Rue

THE LIFE THAT REALLY IS LIFE

Hello, Ladies! I'm having a latte with you this mid morning. I didn't make the one in the picture, mind you. That's one of Crystal's. I've never been able to pull off anything quite that lovely. Nor can I usually wait long enough to do artwork before I just start sipping. It's a good thing I CAN make lattes at home, (albeit plain ones) because I am fasting from buying lattes in coffee shops for a year. Normally I get one every Wednesday, every Sunday after church, and one every time I get through security at an airport, but for a year I'm sacrificing those and physically putting that money in a special place. Next April I will use it to pay my way to a five-day version of the two-year Academy  For Spiritual Formation I just completed. I've put away over thirty dollars already. One of our presenters at the last session, a delicious nun who taught me so much, said that when we make a sacrifice, we need to make sure that it makes a difference in some way. I've discovered even in this short time since last Sunday when I began that it's far more meaningful this way than to simply say, "I am not going to buy lattes." Trust me, that would only make me cranky!

That small lesson is only one of the multitude of things I learned in my two years at the Academy, many of which I've shared with you already. You'll be hearing more, because it absolutely changed me more into my true self. I talked about it some in my adult blog today, which I think is totally appropriate for you, so if you'd like to read it, just click here or Google The Nudge blog by Nancy Rue. It's called "Nudged by Nuns".

But what I want to talk about here today is something I mentioned to you even before I left, and that is the verse from I Timothy 6:19

    "Take hold of the life that really is life."

You did a beautiful job with this, and I want to recognize that:

MELODY: "Having a relationship with a church where you can be encouraged and taught and challenged . . . is so important. It's a huge part of the life that truly is life."

MIMI: "It makes me think of all the things that I fill my life with that I guess aren't really life . . . the things I thought I enjoyed but I actually don't. It also makes me want to fill my time with life, real life. I also think of things I've said no to because I'm too busy. What if I could actually have time to help that person out or to volunteer or take a walk outside and pray or have a devo every morning before school?"

LEXI: "I think it means to live a good, wholesome, Christian life. Don't fill your life with things that are just temporary. Instead focus on what God has in store for you and set your mind on eternal, everlasting things. The things of this world won't give us true joy, but God will."

NICOLE: "Today my friend and I had a wonderful time together. I think that these things are part of true life. The moments when you know that you know that Christ is there."

BETHAN echoed Nicole -- "All the little awesome things and moments and memories that kind of all meld together to form life as a complete thing. Instead of dividing it into 'sections'."

Nicole's suggestion to share those moments took hold, and my inbox when I returned was full of delicious, Christ-filled morsels. Everything from a bird-lover's group to failed attempts at Rice Krispie treats.  As RACHEL put it, you shared your "little thread moments of the big quilt that makes up our lives." An uncanny reconnection with God. Shared jokes without words. All nighters with friends. One day that makes up for a whole week of darkness. Surfing and on-line quizzes.

Here's one of mine, no words necessary:

What do you say we go even deeper with this? We've been talking about the many sides of ourselves that we tend to neglect because of all our have-tos, and I hope you're continuing to try to pay attention to those and nurture them, even in these small ways. The next step, I think, is to look at those have-tos and work with them a little. Here's what I suggest:

    (1) Make a list of all the things that crowd your life and make it hard for you to rest, enjoy, reach out. Be specific. Not just "school" but "the amount of time I have to spend on algebra just to get by." Not simply "activities" but "four dance classes a week, youth group, choir." Not merely, "social life" but "Facebook, texting friends, refereeing arguments between my other friends, stressing over the fact that no boy ever looks at me." The more detailed your list, the more effective the next step will be.

(2) Cross off anything that, now that you think of it, you can let go of. Mine would be watching reruns of NCIS that I could recite in my sleep, Twitter (which I've given up as of today), and checking my emails at stoplights (I mean, really, am I THAT important?)

(3) Look at what's left and see which ones you can think of as the God-offered riches of your life, rather than things that overwhelm you. For me, blogging takes a lot of time, but how rich that time is as I get to know you and we share these moments of our lives. I'm often too tired to cook dinner at the end of the day, but when my husband and I sit down together to share a salmon filet, it's like a little piece of heaven. There are some things that will never seem rich to us -- cleaning toilets and scooping out the litter box, for example. We are not, after all, Pollyanna.  Poop is poop, right? But what if you thought, "I feel like I'm totally drowning in homework, but really, I'm becoming more intelligent, I'm going to be able to make a difference in this world because I'm educated." 

     Pray your way through the above as you go. My experience has been that God really gets in there and makes the divine presence known when I'm making a genuine attempt to 'take hold of the life that really is life.' I seldom hear the still small voice when I'm numbing myself with NCIS Special Agent Gibbs or trying to think of a tweet so my publisher will be happy with me for getting my name out there. But it's very clear when I say, "I want to embrace real life, my Lord God. Is this thing that I'm doing part of that?" 

You are part of the life that is true life, my young friends. Thank you for hanging together when I'm away. Thank you, on behalf of the world my generation will soon be turning over to you, for being intentional about who you are in Christ. I can't wait to read what you post.

In God for the world,

Nancy Rue   

THANKS FOR BEING SO PATIENT

Good morning, Ladies. You are (hopefully) still fast asleep as I write this, as all normal people should be at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday! I'm off for my final week at the Academy for Spiritual Formation later this morning, and I just wanted to drop you a quick post. I hope you know how much you all mean to me, even during the times when I'm recovering from a root canal, finishing a book, going off to speak -- and don't post for a week at a time. I think about you, pray for you, and collect things I want to share with you. The thing is, I always want my posts for you to be meaningful, you know, and that takes a block of time. I only have a small one this morning, since I have to leave for the airport in a few hours, and Baby Maeryn is sitting on my lap watching me type (she did NOT sleep in this morning! She and her Mommy spent the night with us last night), and I haven't put those last few items in my suitcase. I guess I'm attending to all those many sides of myself, just as you are. But I did want to share this with you that I came across in my quiet time. I never noticed it before in all my study of Timothy. It's from I Timothy 6:19 --

"Take hold of the life that really is life."

I'm kind of thinking that's enough to carry us through until Monday the 23rd. Agreed? Please feel free to comment on what "the life that really is life" means to you.

 

I love you, my friends.

 

Blessings,

Nancy Rue 

       

Speaking of Stress!

Good morning, Ladies. This will be brief because I just got home from a two hour dental procedure, part two of a whole thing where they . . well, no I'm not going to go into detail. It will literally set your teeth on edge. All that to say, I'm going to baby myself today. (long nap -- ice bag -- another long nap). Tomorrow we'll get back to showing the many sides of ourselves, which I think we're all looking forward to.

In response to our first step, which is dealing with our no-time-stressed-out life situations, Melody sent in this pic entitled "Stress Picture". Kind of says it all, doesn't it? But only for the moment. We're going to untie that knot, and then we have some amazing discoveries ahead, ladies. Let me just sleep off the pain and we'll get to it.

Still -- I can't go to sleep without sharing this. You wanted to see Baby Maeryn on Easter, right? I hope yours was a joyous as hers.

Blessings,

       Nancy Rue

NEW TOPIC AND OTHER PLANS

Good morning, Ladies! Hey, listen, thanks for your votes on our next topic. Fifteen of you weighed in and came up with the following line-up for future posts. By the way, Maeryn wanted to call and tell you herself -- she LOVES the phone -- but her version sounds like "ooh-de-wah -- bye bye -- ga ga doo -- daddy -- ma-ma-ma-ma all gone . . " You get the idea. So here it is from ME:

 Your first choice was frustration over not being able to nurture some very important sides of yourself, which we need to pay attention to now so habits of balance and rhythm will become second nature in the future (when life gets even more crowded, if that's even possible) We'll spend time on that one first. It's actually something I'm  constantly working on myself so we'll do it together.

    Letting go of the past came in second so we'll do that one right after "sides of ourselves". Using social media without losing ourselves was a close third, so that will be our focus following "letting the past be the  past."

    All of this planning (I love planning!) makes me think about a spring blog retreat. I'm looking at my calendar and seeing that my weekends until June are literally booked and yours probably are too at this time of year. So what do you think about an early summer one, maybe just the night of June 22 (a Friday) since your summer weekends are probably full of vacations and outdoor entertainment. What do you think? Then we'll do a full fall retreat NOVEMBER 16, 17, and 18? To sweeten that prospect, there is going to be a Facebook FanPage Party sometime soon, complete with  Scavenger Hunt. I know not all of you are on Facebook, but  it's an option for those who are.

Okay, on to our topic!

I think for most of us the challenge is not figuring out what sides of ourselves we'd like to nurture more. We proved that in our last post, yes? We are a veritable chandelier of prisms.

The challenge is TIME. 

When can we do these lovely things for ourselves when we have school, homework, activities that are going to help us get into college (and which we enjoy when we're not stressed out about them), jobs (from chores and babysitting to those 20 hours a week at Chik-Fil-A), church responsibilities, family stuff, and a social life?

We could do the old exercise where you keep track of how you spend your time every fifteen minutes for a week and then look at where you might be wasting it, blah, blah, blah. I've tried that and frankly, it takes too much TIME! On the rare occasions when I've actually completed it, I've ended up looking at it and realizing I'm not WASTING any time. Most of the time, I'm even multi-tasking -- answering business calls while I delete junk email, making the bed while I'm brushing my teeth, filing my nails while I'm waiting for the tea water to boil. Besides, a little "time-wasting" can save your sanity. When my brain is deep-fat fried at the end of the day, vegging in front of a couple of re-runs of NCIS keeps me from flushing the cat down the toilet because he's eating the daisies out of the flower arrangment.

Yet the thing is that we reponsible human beings always make time for the things we think are really important. I could also have you look at all you do and cross off five things that don't really have to be done. If you're like me (and I suspect you are) you'd have a hard time finding something that could be eliminated without somebody saying, "Uh, hello, what happened to you tutoring the fourth graders in math every Wednesday?"  Honestly, if you said to them, "I gave that up so I could take a weekly hike by myself," can't you just see the eyebrows raising? That's where we get the idea that taking time for ourselves is selfish.

In my experience (and I've had to do this many times) the first thing we have to do is have a genuine shift in feeling. We have to believe that taking the time and using the energy to nurture neglected sides of ourselves is not only important, it's absolutely essential -- and it's even Biblical. That's what our first set of exercises is for. 

Over the next few days -- let's say between now and Monday the 9th -- see if you can do the following. Any time you want to check in here with observations and conclusions, feel free. You don't have to wait   til Monday. And, of course, as always you can run things past each other, discuss them, all that. You're so good at the rules now I don't even have to remind you what they are.

Okay, here we go:

    (1) Read I Samuel 16:14-23. At the risk of sounding like a Sunday school lesson, what side of himself did David nurture that wasn't necessarily part of his job description as a shepherd? Does that speak to you in any way? Are there any other Biblical figures who pursued parts of themselves that they didn't "have to"?   Martha's sister Mary comes to mind. In fact, doesn't Jesus actually say something about that to Martha?  Just wondering if that has anything to do with what we're talking about.

(2) Observe yourself when you're tired from all the stuff you have to do and stressed out because you can't get it all done and cranky because there's no time for just being you. Come up with a description or email me a picture to post. Here's mine:

    (3) Write a brief definition of selfishness, using a specific example (or several). Like this:

                Selfish is pretending you didn't realize that was the last Oreo or that you're asleep so you don't have to answer one more little  sister question, or volunteering to sit at the kids' table so you don't get saddled with stone deaf great-aunt Gertie.

We'll regroup Monday. I think there's going to be a lot to talk about!

 

Blessings, my friends,

 

Nancy Rue