kelly's back, hurray!

I have another guest post by the wonderful Kelly Bollman.
I'm not going to say much more, because it will start to sound trite - but Kelly really is wonderful.
I love this post for many reasons, but mostly because she really lives this out. Enjoy, friends and get excited to see much more of Kelly Bollman around naptime diaries. And here is a picture of her & her beautiful kiddos.
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Last Saturday, I went for a jog with two of my favorite people, Jessi (yeah! Naptime Dairies Jessi) and her sister, my BF, Katie. Really, the running part wasn’t the hook – at all. Any given activity which involved listening and talking and being with these two had me there. If Jessi had said, “Want to scrub my bathtub with me and Katie on Saturday?” Answer would have been “Yes and yes!” But running was the plan.


You guys know about Jessi, the runner. She just finished her first half marathon. Katie, the much more athletic than me, dancer, had been faithfully training for the Bridge Run in Charleston. I… uh well, I had jumped on the trampoline with my kids a few times a week, maybe. Jessi mentioned jogging for a “few miles.” Few miles to a non-runner sounds like a FEEEWWW MIIIIILESSSSSSS. (eek.) But there’s this stubborn girl in me. She’s a lot of me, actually, and she kinda likes a challenge.


So. I drank up some water. Strapped on a borrowed pair of tennies, got a bit nervous-excited, fed off of the adrenaline of just being with my girls, and followed Jessi’s lead. We were off! At a startling speed of 1 mile every 12 minutes. Whoosh! We trotted and talked. I mostly listened. Not because I’m a good listener, but because I couldn’t breathe and talk well at the same time, even at our not-so-crushing speed. And kept on jogging. One mile, not bad. And still going… arms trying to sort of dangle in a way that didn’t put too much tension in my shoulders… trying to do what Jess said… looking at the canal and the other people. Squinting to see the next ¼ mile marker, hoping that it was maybe even the ½ mile marker and I’d just somehow overlooked another one. Their legs kept moving, so mine did too. Another mile, done. Huh. 2 miles without stopping. Yay us. Felt every bit of the 86 degree mid-day heat. Wished for shade. Not much to be found. Got excited about every breeze. Listened to my friends, dabbed at the sweat dripping down my on-fire-face. 


Their legs kept moving, so mine did too.  


And then at 2.5 miles, we arrived at the wonderful bathroom hut, complete with water fountain. Thankful for both! Legs felt flimsy. My hip flexers were like, “Whoa, you used us way more than ever… ouch!” Quick break. Stretch. And head back the way we came. That next mile felt like a long one. “Keep going, (hufffff, puffff) they are… keep going,” I told myself, and because their legs kept moving, mine did too for another mile. 3.5 so far. Whatda ya know!? We walked some, jogged some for the rest of the way. And talked. And at the end of it, our bodies had moved 5 miles, and jogged about 4 of those. And I was so glad.  


Why this jog tale matters, “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” (1 Timothy 4:8):  


1) TOGETHER It immediately occurred to me that never ever ever, would I have gone further than 1 ½ miles max without walking unless my girls had been with me. TOGETHER was crucial.  


2) Some challenges NEED A LEADER Of course we always need God-Almighty’s leadership and Lordship. 
But He also gifts us leaders with flesh. The kind that can walk and talk and show us how to do this thing in a way that us beginners, go “ohhhh… maybe I can do that.” Us churchy people call them “mentors” or say “he/she is discipling me.” Call it what you will; we need them. God sends them on purpose; He’s been sending them out all along. It’s part of His plan, doing life together. Both were leading me down this hard (hard for me) path. I knew I could trust Jessi’s advice. I needed to know she’d done this before and had gone even farther.


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Right now I’m on a long life jog, marathon-style. I’m praying for reconciliation with my ex-husband and the father of my precious children. There’s about a trillion things I don’t ENJOY about this jog. But I know that A) I’ve been called by my God down this road. B) There are some precious, precious people in my life that are running along side me, and because they don’t stop believing, praying, and even fasting for this miracle, I keep going. And C) of these people, I have leaders, those that have more wisdom, who have prayed for something crazy before. Like heroes of the faith: like Abraham. A man, human, just like us, who believed and acted in obedience without any proof other than God’s own Word, that there would be any reward. Like Paul, who just kept running a race. A race that was pure craziness, without absolute faith in heaven. I’ve discovered that the Lord can redeem a stubborn, non-jogger who is prone to a hard, wandering heart, and make her look a little something like a woman, choosing perseverance, in spite of herself. What has He called you to do? That you’re just tired of. It seems too hard, doesn’t it? Come on, sweet girl. You can do it. Grab a partner and a leader for your path. 
Strap on those shoes and start moving those feet. 
You’ll never regret it.