Hope through the Sole of My Sneakers

Here it is world—my mind, my new blog, my life, my run. Hello and welcome!! After a few months of thinking and a little breaking from blogging, I have decided to come back with something new. I know, some of you are thinking she did this last summer. And for those of you thinking that, you're right. J But that's old news and one more project I never completed out the window. However, I promise to stay constant with this one. This is part of me… I can already feel it. It's a race I'm in to finish, and my hope, hope, hope, is you'll run along beside me.

As of today, I am a week and a half into "the real world" having graduated from college Saturday May 9^th. (That's me receiving my diploma on the right and with my best friend Cait on the left. We were both so amazingly happy that day is was ridiculous.)

 
            

Currently I'm in a new phase of life and I want to celebrate by writing! My 'Snapshots' blog is still around, but it is in permanent hibernation mode, or I guess you can say I have retired it. I can't get rid of it; after all it was my first blog-baby. But I do I feel as if I want to mark my entrance into adulthood with something a little more focused and different. I want a theme and a purpose for my writing. I want to contemplate my blog entries and craft them like essays. I long to be a professional writer and I want this to be my starting place. So here it is.
As I sit and write at one of my favorite coffee shops, Starbucks on Wabash Ave, I'm reminded of a letter I crafted about this time last summer before I left for Ireland to study. I was stressed out to the max (which is typical for me) and worried about the direction my life was heading. How I was going to get everything done and was it really the right path? In attempts to let go of the stress, and the questions, and the worry I wrote a letter to make sense of everything and to shift my focus to my trip. I reread that letter a few days ago and came across this: I'm looking at Ireland as a sabbatical (sab·bat·i·cal –noun any extended period of leave from one's customary work, esp. for rest, to acquire new skills or training, etc. -adjective bringing a period of rest.) because it is bringing a period of rest into my life. Though it is only a few short weeks, I hope to come back renewed, energized, and ready for whatever life brings at me. I hope this experience changes me and makes me even more faithful, open minded, adventurous, and laid back, but also brings more perseverance, determination, and fun into my life. I hope Ireland turns my mindset to being ready for anything and open to immediate opportunities, helps me understand I cannot always control things, banishes worry, let go of stress, challenges me, makes me take risks, and teaches me to go with the flow. I hope it renews my strength and dignity and helps me to laugh at the days to come. (Prov. 31:25)
Ireland will change me. I know this.
Little did I know just how much it would change me or what I was really asking.
When the plane lifted off on June 28^th, I was a woman with a plan—have a wonderful five week study, return home to my last semester of college, graduate early, get married, and move across the country with my new husband to start my life. Now let me say these weren't just silly girlie hopes that I wanted to encounter—this was my actual plan I was coming home too. But at the end of my trip when I stepped off of that plane onto the ground at the Chicago airport, I was a woman who no longer had any direction or plans in life and only had one mantra running through my mind. Just run. Halfway through my trip my fiancé emailed me saying he no longer wanted to get married and the news threw my world off balance. I have been an organizer and a planner for as long as I can remember—I like having things laid out and in control. Ironically enough though one of my favorite Bible verses is Jeremiah 29:11, 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' It was what helped transition me from high school into college, and one of those lines I've passed along to friends over the years for reassurance when they were struggling in life. However, sometimes I struggle with believing it myself, which is why I was a big planner my first three years of college. Even though this verse brings peace to my heart, I often found the idea of let go and let God hard to wrap my mind around. But a year ago when I wrote that letter, I had no idea letting go and letting God was what I was really asking for.
The first thing I did the night in July when I read the news was lace up my sneakers and run. I just ran. For about an hour I found myself getting lost in the little Irish suburb of Booterstown and eventually found my way to the shoreline. There I decided no matter how long it took to get through all of the pain and hurt, I was going to run. I had ideas of half marathons and marathons and even the Iron Girl triathlon spinning around in my brain for the next three weeks and when I returned home, heart broken and lost, running kept me sane.
This past year has been a journey for me and it's still a journey I'm running. I've run through mountains and valleys, through mistakes and accomplishments, on treadmills and tracks, and even on a NCAA Division I track team. I've run for friends and family, for time and for distance, for fun and for competition. I've run through happiness and pain, rain and snow, despair and grace. I've run to lose and to gain, to find strength and to re-find my faith, to clear my head and heal my heart—but always, always I've run from my soul and out of hope.
I have a passion for running—since I was a little white-blonde bare footed girl—and a slight tendency to weave my pacing and musings into my writing. Mostly because running not only clears my head and feeds my soul but inspires me. Running gives me empowerment and strength and beauty and hope that all my perseverance will lead me to a glorious destiny. Running gives me a purposeful life. It is my metaphor in life. My God tells me that I should throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles [me], and run with perseverance the raced marked out. (Hebrews 12:1). And though I slip and fall many a time during this race of life, there is a grace inside of me which keeps my pace strong and even, and hope which encourages me on when I'm beaten, broken, and tired.
And that's where the new blog comes in—From Sole to Soul is the inspiration, experiences, journeys, pain, happiness, races, joy, love, adventure, and grace I live out through my soles. Live in hope with me and join me for my run through life.

The way of love is not
a subtle argument.

The door there
is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.

How do they learn it? They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.
-Rumi