Dispatches

Dispatches! Dispatches! IT’S DISPATCHES DAY!

Sorry. I’ve been running of the mornings for the last couple of days and I’ve noticed a strange side effect: it magnifies my morning person tendencies and makes me a little hyper. But not annoying. You wouldn’t say that. Not you.

OK, then. You’re dead to me.

Or just mostly dead. Because I’m still writing this week’s “Dispatches” and I’m still expecting you to read it. (And I’m also expecting you to overlook the fact that grammatically speaking, that last sentence should have included a comma. But I’m not going back to fix it. Just deal.)

OK, enough idle chatter. Let’s get on with the show!

• Like I said, I’m trying a little experiment in which I run in the mornings and come into work a little later than I have been. We have flex time, so shifting my start time 30 to 45 minutes really isn’t that big of a deal. So, the last two mornings, I’ve hit the pavement of my condo complex before 6 a.m. and gotten a 2 mile run in. I’m hoping to move up to 2.5 mile runs next week. So far, so good. One thing I have learned is that the loop in my complex (running that early, I’m a little scared of going somewhere by myself and running so I just run the loop in the complex) is not exactly flat. There are grades. Yesterday, I thought one was particularly evil so I decided to run the other direction today. . . the inclines going the other direction are just as evil or maybe even more so! I do think I’ll probably alternate the directions I run just to make myself use different muscles.

• I think American Idol and I are breaking up. I really liked it the last few seasons, but this year the contestants are just bleh. As my friend Buddy says, it’s karaoke with great lighting. I’ll finish the season because I said I’d blog it here on “Unfinished Business,” but don’t expect it next year!

• This week I was thinking about some stuff and realized that one of the lies about myself that I’ve bought into is that I’m not worth very much which has fed into a fear that sooner or later, most people will find something better and move on. I don’t mean my family necessarily; I expect them to always love me. I mean friends. I worry about being left behind, forgotten, abandoned. I think some of this comes from a flawed understanding of my worth and a long history of trying to find my worth in meeting other peoples’ expectations instead of knowing simply that I am a child of God who is loved by the King and realizing that’s enough.

• It’s actually funny that I would have to deal with the fear of abandonment/flawed understanding of worth this week AND have a moment in which I truly understood my worth in Christ. I was just thinking about something as I was cooking or putting away the dishes one night and the thought that popped into my head was “And you deserve better than that.” I quickly followed that with thoughts of “Oh, now don’t start thinking too highly of myself.” Then, a still small voice whispered that I shouldn’t negate that thought. That I do have worth. That I do deserve better than that. And I embraced that truth. It’s just fitting that a few days later, I was wrestling with the same issue. Kind of the way life goes, isn’t it?

• I’ve got a chance to go see the Cardinals play in St. Louis in a couple of weeks. I’m still working through the logistics of it and if it’s possible. I kept feeling like I had something on that date but had nothing written on my calendar. Come to find out, it’s the weekend of a seminar thing at church I’ve been invited to. I hadn’t decided yet (or prayed about) if I should go to that seminar, but now I’m in a quandry. Plus, I had already mentioned the possibility to my parents and they’re all excited. My overactive sense of guilt for possibly missing a church activity has kicked in, and I don’t know what to do!

• This weekend, I need to cook something to post on my blog next week for Cooking Tuesdays. Any suggestions? Anything you want to eat? I’ll cook for you if you’ll come help me eat whatever it is I make. 🙂

That’s it for today. Have a happy Thursday! I have nowhere I have to be tonight, so I’m pondering putting on my pajamas and 6 p.m. and lounging around my house. For reals.