Month: March 2019

Deployment

On By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Tonight is a deployment night.  They happen once a month at our house.  My husband is the Director, interim, for now, of a small IT department for a local county superintendent of schools office.  They have “sprints”.  At the end of the “sprint” they deploy.  What that really means to me is that he is awake half the night making sure all the software is doing what is should be doing and when necessary and when possible fixing it when it isn’t doing what it should be doing.  There’s this little dinging sound that rings every time someone is updating on this app called Slack.  Most of the time the dings aren’t for him but a lot of times they are, they annoy me.

I don’t really like deployment nights but in all fairness I suppose neither do the people in his department doing the deploying.  He has been in this position now for a little over a month and its been really fun to watch him grow into the leader I’ve always known he was.  He is a really good leader.  He is steady and sure.  He really takes the time to think through problems and find good solutions.  The former director took a job in Texas and when he left, recommended that they make my husband interim Director and that they should hire that position from within this time.  My husband applied for this job twice, even though he was told both times that he wouldn’t be hired.  They were looking for someone with experience running a software department.  He never gave up though and stayed positive.  He went to those interviews, gave it his best shot and stayed true to his work ethic even after they did eventually hire someone from the outside.

He has shared his vision for the department with me.  He wants to create a place where best practices are followed and where they can have local students intern to get on the job training and mentoring.  He has great ideas for creating a positive atmosphere where people know their jobs help to contribute to the education of local kids.  He wants people in his department to know they matter, they are important and they make a difference in the life of kids.  I am a teacher and so I think that is a totally great and awesome goal.

I’m really proud of him.  He is extremely smart but he is humble.  Have you ever been around a person who was smart but knew they were smart or could do something amazing but they knew they could do those amazing things?  That person is not my husband.  My husband is kind and good, the kind of good that is really really hard to find these days.  He is fair and he is honest.  He is trustworthy.  When they interview out for the job again, he will apply, if they hire him this time, I know, he will make a great Director of Application, Development and Support. He is such a great leader in our family.  He is always trying to be better to do better.  God gave Him the gift of a strategic mind.  He loves board games, especially strategy games and running an IT software department is a lot like a strategy game.  God has been preparing him for this moment his whole life, I’m sure of it, it’s funny how sometimes you actually get to see all the pieces fit together.

So today I guess I am thankful after all for deployments, because they let me sit and think about and remember all the wonderful reasons that after almost 24 years of marriage and almost 26 years together, there is no one else I would rather spend my time and my life with….I am so very grateful for him everyday and I thank my heavenly Father for my husband every single day.

I’m also thankful for Laina’s track coach.  We have a great time out at practices.  She encourages parents to run and take the time to exercise while their kids are practicing. So far its been a good experience.  It was a beautiful evening to walk around a track.

For my wonderful husband and for track…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Hills!

On By runnergirl02In running, Thankfulness, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My daughter joined a track club last month. She has been enjoying the workouts. So far I like her coach. She’s positive and encouraging. She encourages the parents to do the workouts too and so we did our first hill workout in about two years tonight. Hill repeats. Up the hill, down the hill, repeat. I think we were supposed to do it six times but we only managed five, which I felt good about. I was injured for a long time and I’ve actually been afraid to run hills because I was worried about my knee but the knee feels great and I feel great knowing I was able to push myself. We met some other parents tonight who also live in our town and so that was fun too!

I have always loved how encouraging and supportive the running community is. I wanted that atmosphere for our daughter. Running is more about personal goals, being the best you can be in practice and races. I LOVE Running! Tonight I remembered how much I really loved this sport and why:-)

To top it all off, it was a beautiful spring night. Green and flowers as far as the eye could see. Just more of, WOW, Everything is a gift from God moments. It was a great way to end a Monday.

Today for Running, Hills and Beautiful spring evenings…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Here’s a picture of the sunset at the park where we ran tonight!

Everything

On By runnergirl02In Biblical Reflections, Lent, Thankfulness, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today at mass our pastor Father John gave his homily, if  I’m honest I don’t really remember most of the homily, probably because I thought it would be about the transfiguration, which was the Gospel today, but that wasn’t his focus.  I thought we’d get a homily about how we can all change.  Instead, as part of his homily, I heard, “Everything is a Gift from God.  Everything.”  That phrase caught my attention because just the other day I was listening to Alistar Begg, he’s a pastor whose sermons we listen to, almost daily.  He’s not Catholic, in fact, I’m pretty sure he thinks Catholicism is bunk but you know it’s fine by me, we all have our flaws, Ha!

Seriously, Alistar was giving a sermon this week where he was talking about just being grateful for waking up in the morning and looking out the window and seeing a blue sky.  It was the same message I heard today from Father John.

When bad things happen its hard to see things as gifts.  We had a sad accident happen this weekend.  As we were returning home from work Friday we drove into our garage like we always do but we didn’t see our neighbors cat.  Sadly, after all was said and done, it didn’t turn out well.  Laina and I cried ourselves to sleep.  I encouraged her to paint a picture of  him the next day so she could have a memory and we printed out a nice picture we had taken of him a few months earlier.  We wrote a card asking for forgiveness from our neighbor and took it over the next day.  The wife is very sweet and very forgiving.  I don’t know that I would be that forgiving but it wasn’t her cat.  It was the childhood cat of her husband, who we actually haven’t seen since Friday night so I’m not real sure he’s quite ready to forgive us and I can’t say I blame him.

I was so upset at one point I told my husband he had ruined our entire weekend.  Totally unfair and untrue.  I prayed that morning that our neighbors would forgive us and then I called my mom, who else would I call?  I cried and told her what happened and as moms often do she helped put it all in perspective for me and I felt better after I talked to her.  Funny how at 47 years old I still want to have my mom make it all ok.

Anyway, such a sad start to our weekend but when I heard Father John this morning it forced me to look at the weekend as a whole and realize that lots of good things happened too.  The weather was amazing, beautiful blue sky for miles, warm, not too hot.  I went to a bridal shower for my cousin.  Very happy for him.  I guess I went to the bridal shower of his fiance but I’ve considered her my cousin for a long time already, such as it is.  We had a fun St. Patrick’s Day breakfast with our family and friends.  We ate corned beef and cabbage or tri-tip and potatoes, if you preferred, with Irish Soda Bread and other yummy side dishes here and there.  We ended our weekend by taking a drive down Sky Harbor Road.  If you live in our valley then you know that one of the very best things is our foothills in the spring.  Absolutely incredible any spring but with so much rain this year it is a total feast for the eyes!  Sky Harbor Road winds around one of our local lakes and leads up to a hiking trail.  It was just spectacular, so beautiful, I didn’t want to leave.  The amazing thing is it is only like 25 minutes from our house, if that, I love where we live in CA.  We can be at any of a number of amazing places in less than an hour and if we want to see the ocean, its’ just a little over a two hour drive.  If we want to be in a big city we are less than 3 or 4 hours away, depending on if we go south or north.  We almost never want to be in a big city.  I don’t think I will ever get my daughter to go back to San Francisco, she was not impressed when we went in January.

I’m off track.  My point was behind all these wonderful things was an ache in my heart for the pain we caused our neighbor and it hasn’t gone away.  I’m old enough to know it will lessen over time but I’m also old enough to know it will never go away.  I hope they forgive us.  They are nice people and it would be nice to get to know them better.  It was a reminder that we should know them better, that whole Love Your Neighbors thing.   It was a reminder that things aren’t permanent and in the matter of less than a second, everything can be changed.

Everything is a gift from God.  Beautiful things are gifts from God and sad and painful things are gifts from God too.  They both are designed to remind us that we are His.  Forgiveness is His greatest gift.  We can’t earn that, we can only accept that we have it.  It’s called Grace.  We can’t force others to forgive us when we’ve wronged them.  We can only ask for it, the important part there is we need to ask.  The second most important part is to forgive ourselves. We are useless when we wallow in self-pity.  We can not “Glorify God by Our Life” when we wallow in self.

We are His creation and He calls out to us, sometimes the call is painful and heart crushing but sometimes, like this afternoon the call is beautiful and heart filling.

I’ve seen deep sadness and brokenness in my own life turned to joy immeasurable, you’d think I’d learned this lesson by now.  Obviously not.  God’s mercies are never ending and His faithfulness is always true.  Our names are carved into the palm of His hands, carved. I am overwhelmed by this truth.

What a crazy weekend.  Lows and highs.

For everything God sends to me good and bad…I Give Thanks!

KOR

Here’s a picture of our foothills.  They are amazing.

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Lent

On By runnergirl02In UncategorizedLeave a comment

So it’s been Lent for about a week now. Yes, I guess today makes it one official week. Growing up Catholic we always celebrated Lent. I think its kinda cool how other evangelical churches are starting to practice the self-discipline of Lenten sacrifice. My husband said Lent was a foreign concept to him growing up Protestant. When we were first dating he gave up meat with me and I think his family just thought it was the dumbest thing ever, at least that is the vibe I remember getting. When our daughter was 3 or 4 she gave up potato chips and we were out somewhere with his mother and I reminded her she had given up chips. His mom gave me an eye roll. I understand Lent can be a foreign concept to some people and that’s all right. Just because someone else doesn’t understand something I do isn’t really a good reason to stop doing it. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to believe educating people about why we love God is probably better than rolling our eyes back at them or writing them off. Actually, if you are a Christian, God made it pretty clear you are supposed to share Him with others through loving them, though that can be incredibly difficult at times.

During Lent, if you are Roman Catholic, which I am, we practice, 40 days of , Almsgiving, Sacrifice and Prayer. It’s a discipline designed to have us pause and consider the incredible gift God gave to us in His son Jesus, who loved us so much, He paid the ultimate price for our sins, instead of us. Some people think you can earn your way into heaven by being really good or trying to be. Some people think they don’t need God’s grace, either because they don’t believe in God or because they think just being a good person is “good enough”. The bible is pretty clear both those views are wrong. I’m not a relativist. I don’t believe that some things are true for me but not for others. I believe that Truth exists and you find that truth in the person of Jesus Christ. I believe all people can find truth in Jesus. Back to Lent.

We always practice giving something up but its not so we can get into heaven and it’s not because we are afraid of being punished if we don’t. It is to practice the discipline of self-control. Self-Control is a fruit of the spirit and you can make your self-control stronger by practicing it. Really, lets be honest, who couldn’t use a little more self-control? I know I can! Lent is a great time to practice this gift of the Holy Spirit. So, yes, we usually give up a food item or something we actually enjoy because it helps remind us that these next 40 days are different, they are special. God set them aside for us to remember Him in a special way.

We practice prayer together as a family, sometimes we will say a daily rosary, although we have’t started that yet but we do enjoy attending the Stations of the Cross, which I highly recommend, even if you aren’t Catholic, they are a beautiful prayer, a beautiful way to remember God’s gift and sacrifice. Almsgiving. We try to pay more attention than we might usually to those around us who could use our services somehow, maybe its a visit or a meal, time is really a valuable gift to give to others, so we try to be more open to opportunities during this time and opportunities never fail to show up, whether its visiting an elderly friend or taking a meal to a friend who just had surgery or whatever presents itself.

We also read more. We picked a book to read by Mathew Kelly, The Biggest Lie in Christianity. So far we like it and it has a daily video we watch that goes along with the book.

I really look forward to Lent every year. It’s an opportunity to slow down and really consider how I’m living my life, if my priority is always God or if I just try to squeeze Him in here and there to the bits of my life that I have left for Him. If I’m honest, its more the later.

So that’s Lent in our household. If you don’t practice the discipline of Lent, I encourage you to learn more about it and try it. It’s not about giving up chocolate, its’ about what the giving up represents. It’s not some “hokey religious practice” devoid of any place in a modern world.

Practicing Lent doesn’t make you a “religious” or a “spiritual” person. In fact, I really don’t like it when someone calls me religious or spiritual. It’s become a derogatory description lately. Like I’m somehow less of a person because I NEED a God no one can see or touch.  Maybe believing in a God that no one can see or touch, makes me more than one dimensional? If this life is all you are living for, maybe you are the one with the lack of vision and not me? Just a thought…

Practicing lent makes you a person who believes God can do a work in you when you focus on Him and the grace and mercy He has shown us in the gift that IS, not was, but IS His son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. I encourage you to get to know Him, 47 years and I’m still learning about Him everyday, his mercies and grace amaze me everyday.

Today, for Lent…I Give Thanks!

Praised Be Jesus Christ…Now and Forever!

KOR