Birth Verse

Amidst all my doubts about committing to the training necessary for the Ironman, a message of faith and hope crosses my path. One of my co-workers mentioned a web site called Birthverse. Here's the blurb from their home page...

BIRTHVERSE consists of 366 verses chosen from the 66 books of the Bible. Each verse correlates the chapter and verse with its month and day. Your birth was appointed by God and has been recorded as your birthday. Our team spent countless hours searching the Bible for the perfect verse for each day of the year. Claim your verse, study it, memorize it and share it with others. But most of all, allow God to reveal Himself to you through your BIRTHVERSE.

Here's my verse -
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:23 NIV

Lots for me to think about in the next few months.

Week in review

My previous two entries are postdated, that's how hectic the past few days have been for me, but I felt that each post was significant enough to warrant it's own space. Now, I'd like to touch on a couple of things that came about this week and fill you in on today. First, going back to the finding of the crocodile -- I have decided to name her "Faith". I am going through a period where I am questioning existence and purpose and I cannot shake a feeling of dread over where our society is headed. This is unusual for me, as I am usually an optimist. So, she sits on my desk at work where she reminds me that there's always going to be people who care and hopefully they will outnumber the people who don't care.

As if to shore up that notion, I received a phone call from a good friend yesterday and she invited me to go swimming with her today in one of the local lakes. She's one of those friends where we don't get together very often, but when we do, it's very uplifting. She was my inspiration for doing triathlons and is continuing to be my mentor. She's 11 years my senior, but she can beat me in any triathlon we do! Of course, when we made our plans yesterday, the temperature was in the nineties and it was easy to think about taking a dip in 60 degree water. I was having my doubts as I was driving to the lake this morning, though. But, with wet suits on, we jumped into the lake at 8:30. It was beautiful!! Bright blue sky, perfectly white fluffy clouds and calm waters! We enjoyed about 45 minutes in the water, now it's time to get some work done.

I plan on watching the running of the Belmont Stakes this afternoon, hoping that Big Brown will pull off a Triple Crown win. I think it would be a fitting memorial to Eight Belles, the filly who gave her all in the Kentucky Derby this year. Hopefully all horses will make it around without incident.

What *was* that?!

What an interesting commute on my bicycle today! About 5 miles into my ride, while going down a slight grade, something lying by the side of the road caught my eye. From the quick glance that I had, it appeared to be a reptile of some sort. For the record – I had not yet had any coffee! It took me a couple of hundred feet to ponder the situation and I decided it was worth going back to check it out. It was in a swampy area, at the northern end of a small lake, so while riding back to the site I convinced myself that it was possible that it was some sort of reptile. (Remember = no coffee!) As I approached, I could see that it was brownish-green, scaly with a long tail and short, crooked legs. It looked like a crocodile. But this was a 40-degree morning in upstate NY. We don’t have crocs up here. Or so I thought. The more I stood there looking at it, the more I thought it was a crocodile. But it wasn't moving. Brain says to self, 'of course he's not moving, it's too cold for him'. Self argues back, 'this is New York, we don't have crocs up here!' After about 10 seconds, I realized it *was* a crocodile. A rubber toy crocodile! For a brief second, I thought I was so stupid, then I immediately thought of Morning Dove and realized I had to pick him up and bring him with me. So he was tucked into my pocket and given a nice warm ride into work. This afternoon, he rode home tucked into my pocket so that I could get a photograph of him. He'll go back to work with me next week so he can offer encouragement to me throughout the days. I think he's awfully cute and I'll have fun keeping him at work with me. Any thoughts on names are appreciated because I'm pretty lame when it comes to naming things. The connection that blows my mind with this is that Morning Dove posted that she found a prayer CD on Thursday while on her walk with her dog, thought of me, picked it up and brought it home. We each thought of each other when we found our treasures and that has me convinced that the hand of God must have had something to do with this. Here's a photo of my new friend.....

Well, it’s about time!

I’ve never been one to attend church. I’ve never considered myself to have a connection with God or Jesus. Frankly I was mystified when people would ask for prayers if they were having a hard time with life. I had certainly never prayed for myself because I didn’t think I mattered. But that’s changing. Through Michelle’s blog, I’ve had the pleasure of reading her Aunt Dee’s blog and Morning Dove’s blog. I’ve also had the influence of two very kind co-workers whose conviction in their faith is absolutely inspiring. So here’s a neat story…

A different co-worker is battling a very debilitating disease and went in Wednesday for experimental surgery. For several days prior, there had been many discussions of prayer and hope for a successful outcome and so forth. I had mentioned to Kathy (the co-worker undergoing surgery) that I would say a prayer, but I wasn’t sure how much good it would do. On Wednesday morning I was talking with one of my more reverent co-workers and mentioned that I had said a prayer for Kathy but that I wasn’t sure if God had heard me. She said of course He did and that He had been waiting to hear from me! Those words are still reverberating through my soul and to some degree I’m still trying to make sense out of it. Now, I don’t ever see myself as attending church regularly or even reading the bible (though maybe someday…), but I think this is a good first step.