I’m Back…Did You Miss Me?

Hello handful of friends,

I can’t believe it has already been almost a month since my last post and I’m ashamed to say my lack of discipline and perseverance is starting to show quite brightly on this blog…elements of a great father and leader of a family? I think not. Okay, I’ll admit it…I’m a work in progress.

All that being said, here’s what I’ve been up to since my last post:

 I am happy to say that I was able to complete the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon in less than 4 1/2 hours by the grace of God and am looking forward to my next one in which I plan to RUN the entire race instead of walk so much of the last 10 miles. I am very happy to have finished and I truly can’t thank enought my wife and friends and family who were there to support me the entire way.

Since then, I’ve gotten back to work (I took a week off before the race), my legs are back under me and I was able to get back on the road on Monday with a very satisfying run. I’m telling you, this excercise stuff is like really cheap drugs! It gives you a great high and allows me a great chance to connect with God in prayer.

Speaking of which I heard an excellent talk yesterday by Fr. Kyle Schnippel on prayer and how each of us prays in a different way, yet there is something almost scientific about prayer in that it should always include certain elements: recognizing the majesty of God (praise), recognizing the goodness of God (thanksgiving), recognizing the loyalty of God and our loyalty to Him (examination, repentence), recognizing our need for God (intercession/asking God for the things we need). I have often thought of myself as a horrible prayer…perhaps I haven’t found the type of prayer that fits me. Hmmm…something to chew on.

 

Support Good Habits: Help a Worthy Cause

Not much to say today except for a plug for me and a worthy cause.

You may remember a certain article I wrote a couple weeks back about Folding Underwear in which I mentioned training for a marathon. Well, it seems I’m not the only one training for a marathon (who knew?!) and some of these people are actually training and running these marathons to raise awareness about some cause or another (again, am I the only one in a bubble about these things?). Well, it turns out that my job title as Associate Vocation Director and the fact that I was training for a marathon made a young woman in Cleveland make a connection and ask if I could join her Marathon team. After reading a little bit about it, I couldn’t help but say, “YES!”

Suport Good Habits is a group of young women (read their stories here)  who have been accepted into a religious order, the Franciscan Sisters TOR of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother to be exact, but cannot join until their debt has been erased. So, this group has joined up with Run for Nuns (which is a group started by seminarians in Pennsylvania two years ago) to create a team that will be running the Cleveland Marathon. Of course, the difficulty for me is that I am already registered for teh Flying Pig Marathon here in Cincinnati only two weeks before this. So, I’ll be running solo for the cause.

So, now the point of the post: I need your help! I want to raise at least $1000 for the young ladies at Support Good Habits, a meager drop in the bucket when considering the extent of college debt that one can rack up over the years, so here is what I ask of you:

1. Prayer! Let’s storm heaven for these young ladies (and say a few for me, that I can finish this thing on their behalf) and all others who have found themselves in a similar predicament. And don’t forget to take to prayer how much you may being called to give.
2. Donations – go to their website and make a donation in my name or send a check to this address:

Support Good Habits

Attn: Run For Nuns

24 Adalbert Street

Berea, Ohio 44017

3. Buy a tshirt and come out to cheer me on throughout the course. As I said, I’ll be alone out there, so any support you can give me along the way will be very much appreciated! Of course, if you can’t make it out, your prayers will be very much appreciated.

I thank you in advance for all your prayers and support. I know that it means a great deal to these young women and it means a great deal to the Church to have such powerful witnesses of complete trust in God’s providence. Let us be willing to do the work of the Lord.

Finally, please send me your prayer requests as well (just comment below). I will be sure to bring them with me and offer up my pain and struggles throughout the run for these intentions.