His love is patient

I've been working on completing the Love Dare for the past six months.  Yes, yes I know its supposed to be completed in 40 day, but that's not the worst part...I haven't been able to get past day one.

Basically Day 1's dare is not to say anything negative to you spouse.  Yeah, I know, I know but I am using this as a learning tool for all of my relationships and boy is it hard.  Technically the dare says, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."  I can do that.  Sure, I can bite my lip but my head is spinning with not so nice things to say, so I don't feel like I can move past day one until I get my head as well as my mouth under control.

Recently I was reminded of something that I had heard from Him many months ago.  I don't remember the scripture but it was basically that a women can change a man's heart by her quiet actions.  He told me to be quiet and continue to walk in His ways.  That was a time of much tongue biting and still today I hold my tongue when I could certainly say something ugly, the problem is the people around me are not changing and as the days pass I continue to struggle with my thoughts.

I lied...I have gotten past day one many months ago. I actually got to day 10 but when I was doing all that I thought I was supposed to do and I didn't get anything in reciprocation, I all but gave up.  So when I decided to start again I was determined to do it right so hopefully there would be results this time, but as I reflect I don't think that is what the Love Dare is about.

Funny the last line of the first chapter says, "The Love Dare journey is a process, and the first thing you must resolve to posses is patience.  Think of it as a marathon, not a sprint.  But it's a race worth running."

A marathon is a long way.  It's 26.2 miles and when you train for a marathon you never actually go that far until the day of the race.  You don't know if you can actually make it the entire way.  You set out with a lofty goal, you might have a time that you are shooting for but it's your determination that pulls you through. 

As someone that aspires to one day be called a runner, I know that motivation is a big factor in getting to that point when you can call yourself an athlete.  You can find all kinds of excuses to sit on the couch and watch TV or spend your entire day on Facebook.  Right now you roast the moment you step outside and thinking about running in that kind of heat really messes with your head, but you will never get anywhere if you don't make that first step.

Motivation means all kinds of things to different people, but motivation comes from the inside.  Runners rarely run so that people will praise them or for recognition.  They run because it gives them a feeling that only running can give.  They see positive changes in themselves and in turn it makes them feel better about themselves.

I know I wrote about my motivation during my weight loss.  The other day I saw that very picture and had to smile because I didn't look that way any more.  I've even seen pictures of me from years before and am still very proud of how far I have come, but my motivation came from the inside.  Yes, the comments about my shrinking were great, but not as great as I felt each time I passed what I considered a milestone.

So then what is my motivation for the Love Dare and why am I stuck on Day 1? Well I can tell you why I'm stuck on Day 1...fear.  I am afraid of what might happen in my relationships as I continue on the journey.  It's a fear of loss and gain.  I'm afraid to lose someone else and I am afraid to let my guard down and let someone in.  I have my moments of course.  One day I might be feeling very brave and open the door to my heart and other days I am scared and I cling to the few that I cherish. Fear is holding me back from taking that first step.

It's funny because fear is the only thing that stand between me and running.  As someone that knows something about anatomy and the functionality of joints I know that movement is important to keep them healthy, but as someone with a knee that makes terrible noise when I climb the stairs, I'm scared that I might make it worse.  The doctor says I can run, the physical therapist says I can run.  I can walk faster then most people who jog can run and I don't have any problems but that fear of the unknown keeps me from putting that kick in my step and turning from a fitness walker into a runner. 

I read this in my devotional the other day:

You will never be in control of your life circumstances, but you can relax and trust in My control.  Instead of striving for a predictable, safe lifestyle, seek to know Me in a greater depth and breadth.  I long to make your life a glorious adventure but you must stop clinging to old ways.  I am always doing something new within My beloved ones.  Be on the lookout for all that I have prepared for you. 

 I was struck by that entire passage but the part that stuck out was, "I long to make your life a glorious adventure but you must stop clinging to old ways."  I can't go on an adventure full of fear.  Fear keeps you from experiencing life.  Fear keeps you from taking that leap of faith into the great unknown.  I must, as someone once told me, "Participate don't anticipate."  Stop worrying about the outcome and focus on the present.  Make my motivation internal and not external. 
 

Follow me on my 40 day journey as I work through the Love Dare.  I can't promise that I will post everyday but I will post several times a week.  My hope is that as I reflect on each day's dare I will come closer to His heart and I will, "Be on the lookout for all that I have prepared for you."

 

His love

My posts in this blog are usually about relationships, but more specifically they are about my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  The title isn't "Moments with Him" on accident, but today I was praying and thinking about other people's relationships with Him.  Generally speaking people there are three types of relationships with Him.  Your on fire for Him, you know Him and you don't know Him.  I think in most people's lives we have fallen under all of those categories at least once in our lives and not always in the order that would be the most obvious.

I know that in my life I have wavered in my relationship with Him and even for a while I ignored what I knew and forgot about Him.  I was convinced at one point in my life that I was so faulty and worthless, there was no way He loved me because He was the one that made me.  So I put 12 years of parochial school teachings out of my mind and went on my marry way.

The problem with relationships is that people have baggage from other relationships that hinder the new relationship and that is especially true about people's relationship with Him.  I know from my own personal experience that its very easy to imagine that He has or will abandoned you when it seems that everyone else has or that its easy to think that just because someone was vengeful or hurt you that He will too and its especially easy to believe that because other people judge you He will too.

In a recent post I talked about baggage, and how carrying two many suitcases through the airport is quite a hassle, but deciding what to bring and what to leave at home is a tough decision.  What are the important lessons we bring with us from each past relationship and what hurts are best left in the past.  I don't know if I can answer that question because I certainly don't leave much behind but as we learn about anyone, but especially our Heavenly Father our walls start to break down.

At least for me, there is a specific moment that I remember the walls coming down.  I don't know the exact date but I remember that I had all these conditions about going back to church after years of being away.  I remember the conversation I had with Him about all the things that needed to happen before I would stay in church.  I don't know if I would have called that a prayer but it was definitely a contract.  If these specific things happened, then I promised to immerse myself in church life and get back on the right track.

I thought I would jump from place to place waiting for all the signs and wonders that I was looking for.  I was sure that it would take many months of Sundays for the planets to align, the weather to be perfect and my heart to be in the right place to receive, but it didn't.  In fact it happened so fast that my head literally spun.  He had met all my conditions all at the same time and that's when I knew that He was listening and He knew better then I did about what I needed.

Last night at church I saw a young man that looked like he had the same experience I did.  Here he was just a long for some fun with some other people his age, and his whole life change in just a moment.  I remember the chill bumps and the warm fuzzy feeling I had at that moment.  In fact He still uses that feeling to remind me that He is at work in my life.  It was a sense of complete calmness, something that most of us never feel in our busy, stressful lives.  I felt held, comforted and at peace and of course I cried.  They were happy and sad tears all at the same time and they were happy and sad for all the same reasons.

That young man from last night had those same tears.  He realized that he was worthy of His love, not because he was perfect but because he wasn't.  He now knew that all the anger he had in his heart wasn't enough to make Him be angry at him and he had figured out that nothing he had ever done was bad enough for Him to not love him.  The planets had aligned for him just as unexpectedly as when they did for me.

Don't wait for aligning planets or signs and wonders before you look back up towards heaven.  If your carrying a lot of baggage, just start this new relationship like any other relationship.  Meet with Him and learn what He is all about.  That would be the first step in any relationship, right?  You would probably go to coffee because its to hard to escape during dinner and over coffee you would chat.  Maybe that's simplifying things but I think you get the point.  Just don't wait to do it, do it today.

The favor He shows

Last night I had a dream about my theme song, then the verse of the day was one that I have written about several times.

 "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done." Philippians 4:6 NLT

I have talked a lot about worrying.  I think I worry more then most people. I tried giving up worrying because it simply doesn't do any good and really all it does is make me sick but like all of us I worry.

I thought for a while that maybe I have more to worry about then most people, but the more I get to know other people the more I find out that worry runs rampant in our society.  Our worry makes other people rich.  In fact there are specific medications for people with chronic worrying problems.  Millions of dollars of research money has gone into finding that specific neurotransmitter that is triggered when we worry. Doctors see thousands of patients a year with ulcers and headaches and muscle tension all due to chronic worrying but the Bible specifically says not to do it.  In fact it gives us specific instructions on what to do instead of worrying and that is to pray, yet people will pay top dollar to get a few minutes of relief.

Why is it so difficult to follow the Bible's instructions?  The instructions are pretty straight forward: Pray.

I know first hand how great and effective prayer is but I also know first hand how scary it is to turn something over to Him. 

"Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh or a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey."

 I have been nursing a bum knee.  It hurts and the rehabilitation to fix the issue is painful as well. When I was at the Doctor the other day, he looked at me and told me there was no quick fix to my knee problem but the one thing I certainly didn't expect was more pain during rehab.  I mean it already hurts, why would I want to endure more pain to make it better?  So I have two choices...I can choose to not do anything and continue with the chronic pain or I can endure a few weeks of more pain and quite possibly not have any more pain.  It seems like an obvious choice, but its a very difficult one to make.  

Pain like time is relative.  The chronic pain in my knee is pretty minimal if you compare it to the birth of my first child or my ruptured disk but it keeps me from doing the things that I enjoy and eventually it might keep me from doing much of anything when the arthritis sets in.  The pain during rehab is minimal compared to those things as well but compared to the initial pain its really quite terrible.  I need to retrain the muscles of my upper and lower leg.  I need to stretch some and strengthen others.  I have to wear a neoprene brace in the middle of the summer to hold my knee cap in place while the muscles tighten around it.

But yes, I chose to go through rehab to hopefully fix the issue and I continue to turn things over to Him each time I feel worry coming on.  Some people might think I am pretty crazy to endure more pain to fix something minor but when you choose to turn your worries over to Him your pain is usually short lived.

Rehab is all about taking two steps forward and one step back and turning worries over to Him is the same.  We turn it over and move in the right direction but then slowly we let the worry creep back in and we have taken a step backwards, but prayer is pretty powerful.  When we continue to pray about our worries our thinking starts to change from our problems to His power. 

I love the verse that talks about how He takes care of the lilies and the birds, so why wouldn't He take care of us.  He knows the number of hairs on your head, He formed you in your mother's womb, He knew His plans for you before you were born.

"But we never can prove the delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey."

I think that is my favorite verse of the song.  When we choose to endure a little more pain and turn things over He gets the chance to prove His love for us.  When we choose to trust and obey, He pours out His joy.  Sure we can take the easy way out.  I could choose to take an anti-inflammatory everyday for the rest of my life but that might rob me of my future, I might never be able to run. But choosing to hold out for better things is always worth the additional discomfort.   

 

His marks

I wrote a few weeks ago, a post entitled His Glory.  In that post I used the phrases, "Don't put a comma where He has put a period. and Don't put a period where He has put a comma."  As we all know punctuation changes the meaning of the sentence that they are added to.  Just like any good story, your story has punctuation added here and there.  My story has been "interrupted" by commas and periods and several times entire chapters have ended suddenly, but punctuation happens, without it we wouldn't know the meaning of chapters in our lives.  A good grammar teacher will tell you that run on sentences are confusing and sometimes nonsensical.  Punctuation is important, it helps us make sense of what is happening around us and to us.

Now I can say all that but I know that most punctuation hurts.  Actually to be blunt "it sucks". Very rarely are we looking for that period, so when it happens we are in a state of shock.  We feel like our hearts have been ripped out of our chests.  We, if only for a moment, lose hope.  We are often angry and even the best of us, might look to seek vengeance.  But as the days pass and we start to recover from our initial shock, we start to realize that it really might be for the best.  We are still not exactly sure what to do, but we start walking forward.  Putting one foot in front of the other.  We sometimes have to remind ourselves to breathe but our heart keeps beating and we keep going.

"So now what?",that was a question I asked myself many times during my journey.  I'm walking forward, but "Now what?" My advice is to keep walking.  Eventually you will know why that period came when it did, but you won't know if you don't keep walking.

So that's what I did I kept walking.  I walked and I walked wondering what would be around the next corner.  Sometimes I walked in circles and other times I walked right to the edge.  I often thought about turning back and sometimes I stomped around loudly but I kept walking.

What's great about walking is that you get to connect with new people who appear on your path.  If you were to sit still, you'd never know who or what was waiting for you around the bend.  I know I mentioned how important your "great cloud of witnesses" were in His Race, but when people enter into our lives, it might just be time to put away our sadness and celebrate.

As the pages of our story turn, people appear and reappear on each page and like I've said before even those that stay only for a moment really can make an impact, but it's those that stay with us with each turn of events that really make the greatest impression.  Old friends that might have been gone during some chapters of our lives may appear when we least expect it.  New friends that have their own story to tell may walk along with us for a while and those that have seen us through for years continue to walk beside us.

I think one of the hardest parts about changes in our lives is that we start comparing our past lives with our future lives.  We compare new people to old people and sometime our hurts are so deep that we don't even give others a chance.  We are sure because someone did something to us that other people will do as well.    We begin to insert periods in our lives and in the lives of others.

I know, we do it to protect ourselves and like you I am guilty of comparing the new and the old but I read this quote the other day, that gave me a different perspective.  "No one ever flew forward in life, looking backward. Therefore, the scars are just a reminder of where you have been, not where you are today."  We can't walk forward, while looking backward.  We can't be always anticipating the next punctuation mark.  

I know I've talked a lot about commas and periods, but don't forget about the question mark and the exclamation mark.  Again the same sentence ending in those two punctuation marks mean something totally different.  What if instead of stopping the beginning of a new relationship with a period, we inserted a question mark?  Question marks could mean proceed with caution. Or even better yet we inserted an exclamation mark, now instead of anticipating hurt we are anticipating excitement!


Remember the most important period in our lives was His Son's death, but the greatest punctuation mark was the exclamation after...He is risen!

Him the burden bearer

Have you ever been awestruck by someone or something?  Something that someone did or said or in awe of something that you saw or experiences? Have you ever heard the phrase, "If its to good to be true then it probably is."  Ever thought those two things at the same time?  Its like magic; magic is great but its certainly not real or true and most certainly I am in awe of the magician, someone that can fool me into believing that something or someone has disappeared but maybe magic is a bad example, let me see if I can explain...

We are often struck by people in our lives, whether for good or for bad, people make impressions in our lives.  People can certainly be too good to be true, the question is when do we stop worrying about when we might find out about that less then stellar attribute?  Granted all people have both good and not so good qualities.  We try to focus on the positive and look past the negative but when you've been hurt time and time again it starts getting harder to not be looking out for the negative.

Going on vacation means a lot of planning, if your like me I tend to pack several days ahead because I know that I will forget something important.  I know that there are stores where I am going but I really don't want two of something so I fret and plan and make lists of what I need to bring when I go somewhere.  The problem with packing simply everything you might need is that your luggage get very heavy and burdensome. 

I used to be a light packer, I went to Pakistan with one backpack and a normal size carry one.  You can't just go out to a store in Pakistan and purchase something like you can in the States, but I trusted in my instincts as to what I needed to bring and what I could leave behind.  

Luggage restrictions on flights have gotten pretty tough, and unless you want to pay to fly those other bags you better try to figure out how to only bring a carry one. Its the same with your relationship baggage, you have to figure out what is necessary and unnecessary to bring with you from place to place.  We all think all of our hurts and broken pieces of our hearts are important enough to carry with us, but just like that extra bag they can really cost you when you travel.

So what to do with relationship baggage? Any baggage, relational or not, is expensive.  You've put your sweat and tears into your relationship and its difficult to just walk away from it, so what are you willing to bring with you?

As a really bad example, let's think about when it might be appropriate to bring a hair dryer with you on vacation. Yes, we all must have great hair each day, everyday but don't most hotels have hair dryers in their rooms?  Yes, there are things that we have learned from each and every relationship but don't we owe it to the next person to give them a chance to prove that we might actually need that hair dryer.   However there are somethings, like my flat iron that I just can't do without.  Things like my autonomy, my self-worth and my self-awareness.  I've been known to loose my luggage from time to time, so I always carry those things in my carry-on.

Not that I am an expert on anything and especially relationships but here is what I know...your baggage is important to you, its who you are and what you are. But sometimes you might need to just let our hair dry naturally.  Your baggage just might be holding you back from something really great.  Sometimes the best times are when your hair is messy and frizzy.

So the next time you are tempted to drag that heavy suitcase through the airport, make a list of things that you just might be able to turn over to Him.  Its amazing how much of your burden He can bear.  When you turn things over to Him, He shoulders the burden and you don't have to lug it around anymore.  Its really great when you can skip and run instead of dragging your troubles around behind you.

His lessons

I've been on a quest for the past several years to lose quite a bit of weight, like more then 100 lbs, and just the other day I realized that I weighed less them my goal weight and had dropped another dress size, so to celebrate my achievement I thought I would share the journey with you.

I really don't know when it was exactly, but I remember the day I decided to do something about my weight issue.  Really if you ask people around me, they would have never considered me overweight but I simply didn't feel good about myself and as I sat at the table eating my second large helping I decided that it was time to "Stop the madness!"

Losing a small child is a pretty big undertaking.  Breaking an addiction to food is like overcoming any addiction  but maybe even harder because you have to eat to survive and food is everywhere.  When I think of breaking an addiction to drugs or alcohol, it would seem the first step is to simply not buy it or go places that you might be exposed to it, you can't do that with food.  Well I guess you can in a sense, you can choose what you buy but you can't just not buy it or avoid places that it might be served.  Temptation is everywhere, food is on every corner.  The urge to eat is primal, its not something you can just ignore.  So at least in my opinion changing your eating habits is much harder then breaking other habits.  And yes, there are withdrawal symptoms and again because of the availability of food in the world they are much harder to overcome. 

Losing large amounts of weight is a lot like having faith in Him.  I wasn't keen to my theme song when all this began but the theme of Trust and Obey would ring true even while changing your eating habits.  You really have to do a lot of soul searching when trying to discover what your triggers are and you really have to have faith that even though you are not seeing the results you were looking for, you are still doing what it right.

Believe me I could have given up long ago, especially when it took almost a year to loose 40 lbs.  In fact the results were so slow coming I stopped weighing myself and just had faith that I was loosing the weight.  I mean 40lbs in a year is less then 1lb a week, most "diets" say you can loose 3lbs a week easily.  In fact I looked at one "diet" that promised 15lbs in a week.  Just as an aside, loosing that much weight that fast is dangerous and probably a lot of hype, the slower you loose the weight, the more likely you will be to keep it off, but less then 1lb a week was really painful, but just like when you are believing in Him for something you just have to keep on keeping on, so that's what I did.

The weight took so long to come off because it really took me that long to really get my eating under control.  Instead of "going on a diet", I was changing my eating habits and habits that had been developed over 30+ years take a while to change.  I knew that this would have to be a lifestyle change not just something to do to drop a few pounds and really because I was still eating and not starving myself it wasn't as painful as you would think.

When you go on a "diet" the change is so severe that your body goes into shock.  You feel deprived all the time and all you want to do is eat what you can't have.  When you change your eating habits you learn that you still get to eat the stuff that you love and you never feel deprived.  When you grown in Him, you learn that just because you've given up something you find that there are better things in store. 

As I shrunk I learned a lot about myself, I learned that when faced with adversity I was able to overcome.  There is no magic secret to loosing weight, it is a long hard road.  If I only needed to loose a few pounds it would have been different, but I literally lost a small middle schooler, you don't do that over night.  Adversity did come, when faced with the choice to feed my feelings or exercise, the chocolate ice cream in the freezer was really hard to ignore.  And although I didn't always ignore it, I was able to find other ways to nurse my sadness and with my love affair of anything chocolate that was a major accomplishment.

There's no magic secret to living either.  Sure there are times that you cave to the chocolate ice cream and there are other times when you walk to the freezer, open the door and before you reach in you say to yourself, "not today".  We all have moments in our lives that need to be fed, but always turning to food is a recipe for disaster.  At the time, the support I needed wasn't available but I did try to look to the heavens for the support I needed.  Setting out on this road I knew I would need lots of help and I found that praying, when faced with a decision between that scrumptious chocolate ice cream or a walk around the block, really seemed to help.  Probably because for one short moment I took my mind of the ice cream's deliciousness, but whatever the reason changing my thinking seemed to be easier when I looked heavenward.

As my attitude and eating habits started to become permanent the weight finally started falling off faster.   After the initial 40 lbs in the first year the next 60 lbs came off within a few short months.  I had lost 5 pants sizes and 100 lbs and I was so busy feeling better about myself that I didn't even really know that those last 60 lbs were gone.  Like I said I stopped weighing myself so it wasn't until I made a trip to the doctor that I really knew what I had done.

The day that I walked into the "skinny girl's store" and put on a pair of pants in a size I had never been was quite a memorable day.  I took those pants home and sized them up to some pants that I was wearing just a year and a half earlier, and I almost cried.  I remember letting out a little victory squeal in the dressing room when those pants zipped up without any problem.  I had dreamed of shopping in that store for a long time and it was finally a reality,

I think with most things motivation is key.  You have to have a goal in mind or a purpose to really encourage you as you push forward.  My goal was to feel better about myself and to not be so concerned when I had my picture taken. For many months I looked at the last picture I allowed to be taken of me.  I remember it well and I remember how terrible it made me feel when I looked at it.  But like I said, I was pretty happy when the first 40 lbs came off, I was impressed with myself and my accomplishment.

If I didn't lose any more weight I would have been fine, but the next 60 lbs just kind of fell off because my eating habits had permanently changed.  I had set a goal for my weight loss and I was so close after that year and a half, but again I was feeling so good about myself, I really didn't care if those last few pounds ever came off.  I was in a size I had never been, my BMI was in normal range, I felt better physically, and emotionally and most of all I wasn't as worried about having my picture taken.

Just as a disclaimer, I am not suggesting that people can't be happy when their BMI is high, but I wasn't so I choose to do something about it, and it is something you have to choose to do for yourself, for whatever reason it is, you have to do it for yourself,  Don't do it for your husband or wife or significant other, do it because you want to.  It's always easier to do something you want to do because your success in solely in your hands.

One thing I learned was never allow yourself to feel deprived.  There is nothing wrong with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream in your latte, the key is moderation.  Oh and my favorite tidbit of knowledge, dark chocolate is actually pretty good for you and if I'm not mistaken there are less calories in dark chocolate then milk chocolate, just don't forget that a serving size is two squares and not the entire bar.   

Well now its been another year and finally those last few pounds have come off and another dress size is gone.  I have literally lost the equivalent of another person.  I actually enjoy shopping for clothes and I love looking at my profile in the mirror but the lessons I have learned over the past few years will be a permanent reminder of how far I have come.  Yes there are still more lessons to be learned but because I know that I can be successful in what I put my mind to, hopefully the lessons won't be so hard fought.

His race

When your traveling down life's path there are some people that are always looking out for you.  The Bible calls them "Your great cloud of witnesses."  Some maybe older but most will be wiser because they have already run the race or at least are further ahead then you are.

 Hebrews 1:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us...

 I'd love to be able to run, but a bad knee keeps me from attempting it.  If I could run I don't think I would be considered a real runner because I would really only run for the fun of it and to enjoy the beautiful mornings or evenings, but in a way we are running a race in life.  No I'm not talking about the rat race, I'm talking about the marathon that we call life.

I don't know many people who run marathons but the faces on those runners when they finish tell me that the last few miles were the hardest.  Yes, they are happy they finished but they've had to endure a lot of pain to make it to mile 26.  I've watched races where the runners have passed out as soon as they cross the finish line because they simply don't have anything left to give.  I've seen runners fall and get back up with blood running down their legs, because it's so important that they finish and finish well.

I've never run a marathon or a 5k but I have been part of the spectators and I've seen men and women who were about to give up run a little harder when they hear the cheers of those that are watching.  Something about having people cheer you on really motivates you to do better.  Our "great cloud of witnesses" do that for us.  They are the ones that bring us water, while we are running our race.  They cheer for us when we are doing well and they encourage us when we are struggling. They are the ones that come a long side of us and help to carry us through to the finish line. 

In this marathon, we call life, we need our cloud of witnesses to cheer us on because just like an actual marathon you start to wear out as you get closer to the finish.  You start off well, keeping pace with the other runners but as you continue to run your legs start to give out on you, your body starts to turn on you and your mind starts reminding you of your weaknesses.  You start to doubt your ability to finish, your legs start to tremble underneath you and your body starts to scream.  That's when those people along the sidelines become so important.  They remind you that they have run before you and they know what is going on inside of you, but they finished, you can too.

No doubt I have had my cloud of witnesses cheering me on over the last several months.  They have brought me water, figuratively and metaphorically.  They've helped to carry me when I had no more strength and they have reminded me that finishing and finishing well is important.  I'm far from the finish line but I will finish and I will finish well because of the encouragement from my cloud of witnesses. 

I've come a long way in a short time, but sometimes you just have to decide that enough is enough and step into the light.  Sure there will be more battles to be fought, but with your "great cloud of witnesses" at the ready, the battles seem to be fewer and farther between.