Failure? Or just a different direction?

I had three major goals this year regarding my running....

1. run/walk 1,000 miles
2. run/walk Dam to Dam 20K
3. run/walk the DM full marathon

This week I realized none of these goals are going to come to fruition and I have been feeling like a failure. I was just lying in bed thinking, praying, processing and I remembered something Gabe, our youth pastor, said in youth group one night, or maybe it was just in conversation. Anyway, I digress. The point is, he said something that made me realize that the goals that I have set out might not be goals GOD wants me to accomplish.

When I think about these goals I see they are full of pride. Not that I don't give God the glory and praise when He enables me to accomplish these things, but my main reason for doing them was because I wanted to do them. I wanted the glory. I wanted the praise. I wanted people to look at all I had done and say "ooh" and "aah".

Here it is, over 1/2 way through the year and none of these goals are going to get accomplished. My main reason for my physical goals is that I want to be healthy and be able to live life in a way that honors God. However, God has shown me some things... a lot of things... things that have been brought to the surface that were brushed under the rug for far too many years. Thanks to some wonderful friends I realized tonight not accomplishing these things does not make me a failure. I've still done a lot more than I would have had I sat on the couch every day. I still ran a 5K, I still have plans for another 5K and a 10K and 1/2 marathon. MORE IMPORTANTLY though, I am taking time to be the pupa. No, not the pupil... the pupa... I'm kind of curled up in a cocoon right now and God is peeling away layers. It is painful, it hurts, it's hard, truth be told... it sucks. As another great friend told me, the process is all in God's hands - in His timing. I don't know how long it will take. I don't know how much more pain I will have to endure. I don't know a lot, but I know God is in control. I know I have His Spirit in me and that HE will give me the strength to get through somehow. Goals can be good... but they need to be for the right reason. Someday I may run another marathon. For now I have one goal... I want to be a woman after God's own heart... for in the end, that is what truly matters.

Fighting the good fight,

Sherri