Time to Refocus // Turning This Blog Around

Friends are great.  I mean like really, really great.  The very best kinds of friends are the ones who, among other things, get you to leave your comfort zone from time to time, whether it's riding the stupid Power Tower at Cedar Point that I'd sworn off for life, meeting new people, or running when you haven't run in seventy billion years and are proportionately out of shape. For better or for worse (looking at you, 240-foot drop), I've got several friends like that, and so yesterday I grabbed my prehistoric running shoes and headed to a lake to meet one of my friends who is weirdly in love with cross country.  Like, in love enough that's it's been three years and she hasn't quit.  I know.

So, we met at the lake as planned and I got my legs to start doing something resembling a running motion.  Kind of like this, but slightly less adorable.

Running like a baby duckling apparently uses up A LOT of oxygen, because I started to do my favorite really horribly, ugly sounding running breathing about thirty seconds in.  You know, where you suck in air like you haven't breathed in a year and exhale even more forcefully, all while clearing your throat, spitting and hoping it doesn't fly back and hit you, and crying? That.  I really like talking when I run so I can try to ignore the fact that I'm running, but that just really wasn't happening yesterday, so I let Ms. Cross Country run her mouth bestow some wisdom on me.

The conversation monologue eventually found its way to blogging, something that both of us really enjoy.  She said something like "I finally posted for the first time in like two months today!" and I was able to get out something like "Yeah - inhale -I've - exhale - missed - lots of quick breaths - you!"  She went on to talk about how she had started out her blog for one reason and that what she wrote about on it now had changed  from what she originally wanted and how she wasn't sure if she should keep doing it, as well as a bunch of other stuff because I think she was sick of me trying to talk and the resulting disgusting noises and loud breathing.

All the stuff she said got me thinking, though.  I had started my blog with a vision that it doesn't really resemble at all anymore, too.  Originally, I wanted a blog where I could document how I was loving people and living recklessly for God.  God would be the big picture, and this blog would be a place for me to talk him up.  That's so not how it is right now - not in my life, not here.  The side show got a little too much attention and started taking over the main act; this place that I created to only glorify God has gotten big enough to block my view of him.  Is that a problem? Uh, yeah.  Refocus.

We ran on, stopping for a halfway point walking break and finishing near this mile marker that makes it appear as if we ran 5.25 miles, which we did not.

The sun going down had everything looking so pretty just as we finished up, so we took some pictures of lake water and sky.

And then I was unsatisfied and got fancy (THERE IS AN ANALOGY IN THIS SO PAY ATTENTION) so I made us walk down the lake coast to where the boats are docked.  I was kind of disappointed when the picture wasn't that pretty.

Ta-da. 

In a last-ditch effort to save my idea, I tilted my camera up a little bit, away from the little things on my ground and up to the huge, blue sky. 

Oh, there it is!  Much better.  Like my life, the big picture of the sky and the waves and the sunset got cluttered when I tried to do my own thing with it.  At the same time, it became significantly less beautiful.  I had to look at the big picture to get the beauty. Refocus!

Refocusing is what's going to be going on around here in the next week or so.  I'm going to do everything I can to get back to why I started, which would be to blog about what God's doing in my life.  That means that, as of next Friday, I'm going to take my blog off of Bloglovin, turn off comments, and delete my separate blog Instagram account - anything that could cause me to focus on feedback from readers instead of what God wants me to do. (The only reason I'm not doing that right now is so, if you're so inclined, you can read along some other way.  I'D BE ELATED! But I won't have any way of knowing, nothing will be held against you.)  I'm going to post, but it'll be about God and honest life stuff instead of whatever might bring in a page view or two, and it won't be allowed to get in the way of my relationship with God, because that's idolatry and we don't do that.  Reckless is going back to its roots, and I'm so excited.  This time, with a clear view.  Refocused.

Allie

P.S.  This is what I look like after I run. You're welcome.