Runner's High

Image found here.

Yep, I've started running again (very slowly). I decided to take a jogging class to get some exercise and overcome my fear of running. We run half an hour three times a week.

Today, I the fruits of this month-long labor have paid off. As I finished my first mile, I found that I had improved my time and my legs did not feel like Jello. And I actually felt good!!! Who would've thought? 

I am not exactly sure why a smile lit up my face as I rounded the corner of the indoor track, or why my strides grew longer and my heart swelled with happiness. I don't know why I suddenly found so much joy in that simple moment that, logically, doesn't seem like it should be pleasurable in the least. But I'm glad I did. 

Horace Everett once wrote, "The promise of living with hope and thanksgiving is born of our loving our friends and our labor." When I work hard and push myself, when I associate with people who bring out the best in me, when I produce or accomplish something great, I find that my life is full of promise and I have faith in the future. 

Orson F. Whitney said, "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven."

I certainly have "many, many long months of struggle" ahead of me. My life is not perfect by any means. But I have so much to be grateful for, including the aid of a Heavenly Father who loves me. I could not make it through a single day without Him. He is so merciful and patient and simply astounding. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for my Heavenly Father.  


And I have discovered that as I keep running the race, it truly does get easier - and if we do it correctly, it becomes a journey full of joy.