I\u2019ll be honest, I didn\u2019t run today. In fact, I haven\u2019t run in over a week. But I can still ramble like nobody\u2019s business. Now, I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s still an audience out there, but RRG is willing to talk to anyone who is willing to listen.
\nIf you\u2019ve been on this journey with me since the beginning 5+ years ago, or even if you joined the ride somewhere along the way, you know that this has been a sounding board for my struggles. And of those there have been many.
\nIt\u2019s funny, isn\u2019t it, how when you are in the midst of a trial and you can\u2019t see the way out, you definitely can\u2019t see the purpose for the struggle. You might remind yourself of Kanye\u2019s lyrics occasionally, \u201cN-now th-that that don\u2019t kill me, can only make me stronger\u2026\u201d and you might even convince yourself those words are true, but you certainly don\u2019t know what the \u201cstronger\u201d is going to look like or why it\u2019s necessary.
\nAs I was driving home today after work, it occurred to me that tonight is the last night I will be alone in my house. My beau has been gradually moving his stuff in here, but he\u2019s back in Shrewsbury for one more week. Tomorrow night the kids come back from their dad\u2019s. On Wednesday, my brother, sister in law, niece and nephew, and my mom, will arrive for the weekend festivities. On Friday, my nieces fly in and the Kirksville crew will make the drive down. As of Saturday, this will be an even fuller version of \u201cour house\u201d.
\nSo, what does one do on their last night of solitude? Well, I stopped at the library to drop off some books, I went into Barnes and Noble to pick up a birthday present for my almost teenager, I hit up Gold\u2019s Gym for a workout and I went to counseling. Exciting stuff, right? And now, here I sit, with the remnants of my organic frozen pizza and the last of the bottle of wine I was working on over the weekend and I\u2019m contemplating the events of the last 7-ish years.
\nAs I prepare to turn the page on this chapter, I think about all that I accomplished. I learned how to be a home owner, I learned to be a single parent, I became an Ironman, I went back to school, graduated with honors and became a nurse, with a real job. But tonight when I pulled into the garage, it was obvious to me that those major life events that I\u2019ve tackled, pale by comparison to the things that don\u2019t really have a label.
\nWhen I was a newly single home-owning parent, there were nights I would pull into the garage and sit in the car, sometimes for an hour or more, because I couldn\u2019t bear the thought of going into an empty house. Tonight it was clear, I\u2019m not afraid of the empty house anymore. I haven\u2019t been afraid in a long time, but when did that transition take place? When we\u2019re in it, we don\u2019t see it happening, but then one day, it\u2019s right in front of us and we realize that we made it.
\nWhen I got home, I was ready to jump out of the car and get the oven going for my pizza, but there was a song on the radio, and because I am a weirdo, I sometimes sit in the car to listen to a song to completion. This was the chorus, \u201cI have won, and I have lost, I got it right sometimes, but sometimes I did not. Life\u2019s been a journey, I\u2019ve seen joy, I\u2019ve seen regret. Oh and you have been my god through all of it.\u201d
\nAll of those nights that I was afraid of going into an empty, lonely house\u2026I was never really alone. He was always there with me. And while this chapter is closing, and I\u2019m about to embark on a new chapter, that will hold it\u2019s own set of challenges, and struggles, and trials, but also so much joy, not only do I know that I will never be alone, I know that I can look back on these past struggles and I can say I\u2019m ready for it. I made it. This is what the stronger looks like. I persevered through the hard part. Through all the hard parts. I did it. And even more importantly than that, I did it well.<\/p>\n
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:3-4<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ll be honest, I didn\u2019t run today. In fact, I haven\u2019t run in over a week. But I can still ramble like nobody\u2019s business. Now, I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s still an audience out there, but RRG is willing to talk to anyone who is willing to listen. If you\u2019ve been on this journey with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-randomthoughts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-dd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}