New Challenges

Last night about midnight I did something I've never done before....I ran 3.1 miles- A 5K.  My time was slow- 51min. but I did it!  I made a goal a couple of months ago to be able to run that far by Feb. 14, but I didn't know if I could do it.  I knew I needed some kind of goal in my life to work towards, and it has been a great thing for me to stick with it and achieve it.  My goal now is to trim my time, and to stick with running.  Of course I'm starting to feel the effects already today.  That's ok, though. No pain, no gain!

I also started something new today...I have made a goal to read the Bible through this year.  I've done it once before when I was a teenager, and I've started many times since then, but never completed it.  I found a site online that gives you the guidelines and tracks your progress.  It actually displays the chapters for the day on my computer and I can read them that way.  Since I didn't start until today I'm trying to catch up.  I want to discover something new each day that I can apply to my life, or find some interesting fact from the Bible that I never knew before.
So far today I've read Genesis 1-7.  Here is my wisdom of the day:

**Just like Adam and Eve- once they disobeyed God their eyes were opened and they were ashamed.  They then had to pay for their sin.  Their lives were never the same.  I can relate. 

**Interesting verse in the story of Cain and Able:  Genesis 4:7:  "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?  But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."  Can't you just picture sin crouching outside our door ready to pounce on us and destroy our lives?  How do we "master it" to prevent that?  I imagine by letting God have control of our lives.

**In the story of Noah God destroyed the earth because of the great wickedness he saw.  Was it worse than the wickedness of the world now?  I can't imagine! 

**Random thought....All these people died when they were several hundred years old.  I wonder how wrinkled they were?  They were out in the sun all the time with no sunscreen and no Oil of Olay.

**OK..I read more today trying to catch up and I have to add a couple of thoughts.  
After the great flood God put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of his covenant to never destroy the earth that way again. In the spring of 98 I walked outside early in the morning and saw a rainbow in the sky.  I took a picture of  it because it seemed special to me- like God had sent it just for me.  That day my first child was born, and he has definitely been a reminder of God's love to me.


**LOL moment from the Bible: (literally, LOL)  Gen. 9:21  Noah drank wine from his own vineyard and passed out drunk and naked in his tent!  Even Noah wasn't perfect.....

Happy Monday!