It seems that I start every Sunday blog I write talking about a run with my dad, so why should today be any different? I did go for another run and this was actually my longest run ever. I managed to go a full seven kilometres without having to stop. I may have considered vomiting, my lungs may have exploded, and I may have stopped feeling my legs for the last kilometre or so, but I made it! Sadly, my father and I were unable to have any deep conversations this time as both of us were a little too focused on making sure we were still alive and breathing!
Just before we got home our beautiful, mildly dopey, and incredibly timid Boxer ran up to us. His leash was trailing behind him. My mom had taken him for a walk while we were running and it appeared that he had gotten away from her. I ran the rest of the way home while my dad took our dog and went the other direction, thinking he would meet up with my mom. Five minutes later he showed up at the house, dropped the dog off, and both of us were in my car driving. We couldn't find my mom.
Dad ran the trail she had been walking on, while I walked around yelling her name. Eventually I met up with a woman who was calling our dog's name. She informed me that my mom and our dog had been attacked by two pitbulls on their walk and that my mom was currently at the hospital. Dad and I headed over there and discovered that my mom's hands had been bitten. She had to get several stitches. We ended up having to take our dog to the vet as well, as he wasn't looking too good.
Shortly after getting home, my mom remarked, "Hmm... I get fired, I get attacked by pitbulls... maybe I'm walking in sin or something." I let out somewhat of a chuckle at this comment as my family tends to poke fun at the "prosperity gospel," and this seemed to be an attempt at humor on her end.
I mentioned in another entry that I am reading Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris. After all of our running around this morning I was able to sit for a moment outside and read. The chapter I'm on has to do with the Doctrine of Sanctification. Harris quotes Wayne Grudem who says that sanctification is "the progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives." This then got me thinking.
Crap happens. Sometimes it can be as a result of our own poor, sinful choices, and sometimes it can just happen. My mother was not sinning when she decided to take the dog for a walk this morning. She just wanted to go for a walk. She wasn't sinning when she was fired, it was simply the way events went. Regardless of why this crap happens, it can be used throughout this whole process of sanctification. God can take these events, and through them make us more and more like Him in our actual, day-to-day lives.
I don't know how I got from a run, to a pitbull attack, to singledom, to sanctification, but it happened. As Christians we are all called to this process of sanctification; we are all called to be more like Jesus. And so instead of wallowing in being single and whatever events have caused us to be in the state, we need to take the opportunity to turn to Christ, and to work with Him as He changes us.
Such is the life of a Christian single.
