One year ago.

It's a quiet Sunday, which I am insanely thankful for since it has been a really long week.  The day has been filled with coffee, cleaning, all windows in the house open, lounging, and more coffee.  I've also had lots of uninterrupted thinking time which led to reminiscing about this past year.

October 9, 2010....I have finished my first ultra marathon.   The New River 50k in Fries, Va.  I can still remember how I felt crossing that finish line - I remember starting to cry (surprise surprise) as I did.  I was so proud of myself.  I also remember going to dinner with sweet Laura and I couldn't even eat my dinner since I had been eating all day while running and how hard we laughed about how long it took me to get up out of my seat after said dinner.  I remember driving home and wanting to be around the people I loved because I felt so empowered.  I said I was going to do something and I worked hard and I did it.

It's crazy to me how much happens in a year.  How I can look back and think how fast a year actually goes by.  And how much life happens in that time.  Goals are accomplished, new ones are made, new people come into your life, you become a year older, close friends become closer friends, the Lord breaks you yet again, people are gone from your life, babies are born and people get married.  So many things change.  Life changes.  But looking back on the past year, the main thing I am reminded of is this - the Lord is good.  He has been so good to me.

"I'm not who I was when I took my first step/

And I'm clinging to the promise that you're not through with me yet..."  

- Bethany Dillon

There has been joy, so much joy.  And there has been pain.  I've taken steps backwards.  I've taken leaps forward.  The Lord is growing me.  I am not a finished product and am understanding more and more that I won't be until the day He brings me home.  So until then I will rejoice in the joy and the pain.  Knowing that this time next year I will be an even better version of me is pretty exciting.  What am I going to accomplish this year?  How is the Lord going to grow me this next year?  Everything in me wants to answer with "please be gentle, please be gentle."  But then again, He wasn't gentle this year so why would I ask for that?  If being grown gently means smaller or slower growth, then I'll pass.  We'll see how I feel about that sentence in 2012.

And this Saturday I will run my first 5k since my ankle surgery.  50k to 5k in a year.  Seems a little backwards, but then again sometimes I think we need to be drawn back to grow forward.