RAGBRAI, the Journey.

I spent most of this last year sick. I think that my body just decided that since we had made it to a safe place that it could finally just shut down for a while. I didn't agree. I wasn't happy with my body and was remembering a promise I made to myself as a child. I decided something had to be done, and I also knew that whenever I have goals and plans for myself that when push comes to shove my plans always suffer. To really get in shape there needed to be a firm plan, a deadline, and a financial commitment. And it needed to be something that would be a sustainable lifestyle for longterm health. Since we live here in the Midwest and I have always enjoyed biking I picked RAGBRAI. I was excited about my plan. No one else was. No one else was willing to join me, either. But this was my plan and I persevered. Training was fun and challenging and at times very hard and scary. Doing long rides alone often made me sick to my stomach. I discovered that the heat just did me in every time it was in the 90's. I learned a lot about myself, my gear, and about just doing the next thing because it just has to be done. I spent a lot of time in prayer about trying to do something that was too hard for me. And God began meeting me. At the church on the top of the hill south of the Platte River, where I was able to go inside and use the bathroom, even though the landscaping guy had never been able to do that in all his years of mowing there. In the kindness of strangers filling my bottles with cold water when I had run out in the middle of nowhere. In helping me push through a hard ride I never wanted to go on anyway. I decided to wear my Gramma's shoes. She died a year and a half ago. She was a strong woman. She quit smoking and started making a really big effort to eat and live healthily when I was a kid. At the end of her life she was on Hospice care. And still getting on the treadmill with her oxygen tank regularly. If she could do that then I could do this. I was scared: of the hills, the heat, the number of miles every day, of doing this thing alone... And God kept meeting me and began to provide for me, showering me with his favor: a friend to drop me off and pick me up, getting the tent rainfly on before the first drops of rain fell, and the tent staked down before the tornado sirens started to go off, getting to exchange a water bottle later in the week even though I missed it the first night, a free freezy pop when I was hot and tired, a tailwind and root beer float when I was out of energy and couldn't finish the day on my own, a friend to teach me to pace myself and giving me a ride to the train on time, friends in camp, a worship service midweek, a day off to rest and read and learn to knit, getting to sleep in a beautiful shady spot next to a church under the cross ("we have a night light tonight", yes, Jesus has been and will be a light in the darkness.). All week long I delighted in seeing the hand of God at work on my behalf. I wondered if I have been too distracted to see it before. If so, I don't want to live my life distracted anymore. Daily, hourly, I want to depend on Jesus to help me do the hard and impossible things that life brings. And I will be continuing to pray my new prayer... "Please teach me to bend and not break when the stress of life is too much for me". And I will keep remembering to be thankful for those who have come before us, showing us how to live. Our lives are built on the backs of those who have gone before us, and I am so thankful to have been given such a solid foundation to build my life on. As I biked this week there was a song that kept running through my mind and heart:
Here there is life for me,
Life in such abundance from you,
Here there is sanctuary,
And entering through you I find your peace,
For the shepherd knows his sheep
He's the only voice they heed
So how can I be afraid?
Now that you have found my heart again
For you can warn my fears away
And I won't be alone
For you will bring me home again
Safe into the shadow of your hand.