God is my DJ~iPod not required...

So I ran a half marathon today, my sunrise run driving me farther than I would've dreamed that day.  A small prayer turning into a wonderful blessing.

Normally I have to listen to music at least to start but this run, it just didn't fit for some reason.  The whole reason I wanted to run with the sun that morning is to enjoy nature singing it awake.

Birds and frogs rejoicing together, crickets and insects of all sorts being the orchestra, the orange glow of the sunrising through the trees spotting the path before me, I couldn't ask for more. As I ran a bird flew down beside me, and began to race!  As we ran together I began to pass-for it is rather difficult to keep the pace of a bird (a fast bird for his size though might-I-add) he then took off in flight, and whooped me...till we meet again dear friend...later I had to run under fallen trees and never realized how the beauty of a storm outlasts it sometimes...and now know that I love running underneath tunnels of trees! It made a whole new experience out of my normal trail run.

Yet amongst all of this my mind and heart start to wonder and I pray, oh LORD, help me keep my mind, thoughts, upon you...speak to me God, guide my heart.  YOU are the reason I am out here.

As I ran my normal long distance and was finishing up, about 2 miles left I begin to pass a nature loop a friend ran with me on once, and had the strange desire to try running it also. First passing it thinking I'm crazy and totally unprepared for that kind of a distance, not to mention my already blistered feet won't be happy by the end, I brushed it off and ran on...and then turned around and went for it!  How often of a chance was I going to get to try it with the wonderful breeze and weather God had blessed me with, and the stamina to pull it off.  As I started the trail, the beauty of nature took hold and I totally lost track of myself and time.

The beauty of that trail, nature all around you, and oh how I love running alongside the creek!  Hearing the water flow and splash over the rocks as the breeze and mist from the water brushes against you.  Then running on the wooden bridge over the water with trees gracing each side of you creating a canopy. As hard as the extra miles were I couldn't even tell I had become so absorbed within my surroundings.

As the loop ended and I began the end of my run back on the trail, I had a total new focus on God and His creations all around me, and He blessed the end of my run with two birds playing right beside me!  Fluttering with each other, it was awesome.  I wouldn't have traded those extra miles for anything. That experience for anything.  That time to bond with Him for anything. Discovering myself for anything, because I realized through this run-that running in nature with my heavenly Father is the only time I feel totally and completely myself, comfortable with myself, accepting of all that God created me to be.

So on this note, here is Day 15:

I am a tree-hugging, nature girl.  An animal loving, vegetable enthusiast, garden-growing naturalist health nut...and PROUD OF IT! God has given me a unity with nature, a respect for His creations that I don't totally understand. But, if it took Him 6 days to create them all, I will spend my lifetime enjoying them.

 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Genesis 1: 28-31 KJV