More Surprises

I was talking with Marcia last night and I realized that as I go through this faith journey, I seem to have more and more surprises happening. I don't know that my life is all that different, but I seem to be able to discern God's presence much more than I have in the past.

So, Monday -- I got an opportunity to ride my bike right after school. I didn't pay attention to the fact that it was only slightly above freezing (35 degrees) and that there was actually a windchill. Fortunately I did put on warm clothes and I was comfortable. As I was riding I started feeling really good. I mean really good. No, I mean really really really good -- as in, this is why I exercise feeling good. And I was reminded in that moment of the three Ironman races that I have done. I remember a coach once telling me, "In Ironman racing, you need to manage those highs and lows. You can't let the highs get too high or the lows too low. Otherwise you may not be able to finish." And as I reflected on those words said to me long ago, I realized that in the marathon of life this is also true. I tend to a person of extremes -- I'm either really good or really bad, with little room in the middle. As I make the journey on the road towards recovery I'm seeing that I need to learn to do what I've done with my racing life -- manage the highs and lows. Find a middle way that is comfortable to live in. Believe me, I'd much rather be up all the time. But the reality is that I don't think my body was made to do that. What was really special to me about this surprise is how God spoke to me through the language of triathlon. It's a language that I understand very well and it made sense to me. I'm learning that God loves to use those things that are important to us to teach us more about life.

Tuesday seems to always be a day full of just strange things. Last week while I was at Barnes and Noble, I felt a strong urge to purchase a book called Feel. I don't often buy books at B&N because my brother owns a bookstore so I can get what I need through him. I am also a huge fan of the libary and at any given time have 20-30 books checked out. But for some reason I knew that I needed to buy this book. Then I went to my group meeting and at the meeting one of the women started talking about how she was just starting to "feel" again and was very uncomfortable with the process of learning how to feel and learning to deal with the feelings. All at once I knew that I had bought the book for her.

So this week I went to B&N looking for a surprise. Well, not really . . . I actually went to buy the book Strength Finders (more on this later), but decided to go back to the aisle where I knew I had to buy a book so I could revisit that feeling. I must confess that I was kind of hoping to have the same experience. I was browsing through the books, sort of looking for a title that I had found at Northwestern Bookstore two weeks ago and a women asked me what was on my hand. Eariler in the day one of my Somali students put a henna design on my hand and so I explained to this stranger about the markings on my hand. Well, this seemed to open the door for conversation and she started asking me about what I was looking for. I couldn't remember the book title, the author, or much about the subject so I just kind of tried to mumble something. Really I wasn't looking for anything. I didn't want to tell her that I was waiting to hear the voice of God.

Then she asked me if I had read the book Captivated and I replied that I had heard of it, but never read it. Now the truth is that I never planned on reading this book. I tend to shy away from the popular books every one reads and instead look for things that are more on the edge (I've never read the Purpose Driven Life and have no plans to read it in the future. ) At this point I was ready to end the conversation with this woman and was pleased to see her take off. But she came back 10 seconds later with a book, Captivated in her hands. She put in my hands and said, "Here, I think you need to read this." And then she disappeared. I mean she really disappeared. I know I saw her walk off, but she walked off so fast that I was amazed. She had been so chatty that I would have expected her to tell me why I needed to read this book. And so, the bizarreness of this exchange means that I now have the book Captivated and plan to read it this week. Maybe this was nothing, but in the context of my life at the moment, I am listening carefully to the voices around me. God has not brought people into my life by accident and I believe that I can and should learn from those who speak to me. Do I dare go to B&N again next week????