"Laziness" *OR* "Old Wineskins"

Beleive it or not, this blog started out as a place for me to chronical my running. Actually, it started as a place for me to post reviews of energy products marketed to runners. Circa 2012, about the time my first marriage was crumbling, I needed something to direct my energies toward so I wouldn't go insane. It was at this time that I started training for my first marathon.

Marathon training is hard, ya'll. And the sad part is, I didn't even know how to train. I figured that, if I just made myself run longer and longer distances, I'd eventually get into "marathon shape", which I didn't even pin a solid definition to other than, 'The ablility to finish a marathon without dying'. 

In case we've never met, I (like most men, I think) have a bad habit of thinking I'm an expert on anything I have at least a passable knowledge about. If I can swing a wrapping paper tube around in what I think looks like a component impression of a sword, I'm instantly an Olympic-caliber fencer. And running was something, at that time, I thought I had down to a science. So clearly I needed no special research on how to run a marathon. 

What commenced was the most misersable 5 hours, 13 minutes, and 39 seconds of my life.

I was in much more misery than my expression implies. Also, I had a lot more hair. 

Fast forward more than a year. Undaunted, I signed up for my second marathon. Clearly, when I had trained for the first marathon, I had simply not used my "non-training" routine intensely enough! So I continued with the same actions, in the same way I had used them before (admittedly with more frequency) and expected a different outcome. I didn't once bother to consider that the correct approach to marathoning wasn't in the ammount I trained, but in the methods I was using. 

My second marathon, I ran in 5 hours and 12 minutes. My "more intensive training" had shaved a whopping 1 minute and 39 seconds from my time. 

That simply would not do! After all, I had developed a goal to one day qualify for the Boston Marathon. Clearly, something about my training would have to change. But, like the proverbial fly that beats its head against a window until it smashes its brains to jell-o, I continued my old training plan of "run more". 

The following year, I managed to shave 20 minutes off my marathon time, when I finished the same marathon in 4'52". 

While I was very proud of that time, I still had a big problem. In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon in my age group (the 34-39 age group), I would have to finish a Boston qualifying marathon in 3 hours and 5 minutes. Which meant that I still, somehow, needed to shave more than an hour and forty-five minutes from my marathon time. 

Which seems impossible. At least, it seemed impossible with the way I was training. 

Humans are creatures of habit. I get that. We're animals that hate change, and resist it with everything in us. Psychologists have written long articles about why this is, but I think the short answer is because changing a behavior is difficult and takes effort, and none of us want to beleive that we are flawed enough that our methods actually need changing. We want to beleive that we're experts and have the best way to do things already mastered. 

Simply put, we are a lazy species. Me, chiefly among them. 

This revelation about myself was a long time coming when it came to running, but I'm glad to say that it's application to other areas of my life was much more forthcoming. When my first marriage fell apart, I pretty quickly saw that I wasn't, contrary to my own beleif, an expert when it came to relationships. Though she and I had been in a relationship for five years, I actually had NO IDEA what entailed in being a husband. I may have understood the role of "boyfriend", but the role of "husband" completely escaped me. 

Withing the last few years, I stepped in a new role, one that another version of Graham would have assumed he was already a master of withouth even the slighest experience: the role of Dad. Thankfully, Old Graham was long gone, and new, willing-to-admit-that-he-doesn't-have-it-all-together Graham was willing to learn. I had to rethink the ways I used my energy, my time, and my finances. Suddenly, my life was no longer about me and the things I wanted. And I'll admit, it was very difficult to break out of those selfish mindsets.

But, even though it was difficult, it was GOOD.  

And that's perhaps the trap that we, as people, find ourself in when it comes to change. We assume that because it's difficult, or requires a lot of time or energy, that it can't be GOOD. But that often is the exact opposite, in the examples we read in Scripture: God doesn't do extreme GOOD in the lives of people who aren't willing to do something DIFFICULT. 

I'm running my 5th marathon this fall (I won't even go into the time of my 4th marathon, because there were other extenuating circumstances which made that time esepecially terrible). But this time, I'm following a training plan. I've been a subscriber of Runner's World magazine for many years, and I figured it was time I started taking the advice of experts as seriously as I took the advice of the little voices in my head that told me I already knew everything. 

The training plan is hard. I ran over 16 miles on Sunday. My feet hurt so badly that even standing to sing hymns in church was a task. But just because the run was HARD doesn't mean it wasn't GOOD. Because it was very good. 

The more I think about this analogy, the more I realize how it applies to so many different areas of my life. Which is good, because it means I am always learning and never accepting that I've "arrived" in any facet of my life. But it also stinks, because the lazy part of me that resists change desperatly wants to climb into the metaphorical bed inside my mind and pull the covers over its head. 

I'm about to enter my 10th year teaching, and some of my methods and activities have become stagnant with time. It's time to rethink many of them. 

My Bible study and prayer life are slipping. It's probably time I looked for a new approach to studying the Word, and changed the way I pray or the things I pray about. 

It's easy to dilude yourself into believing that just because you've done something for a long time you should be considered an 'expert' (or, in my case, the beleif that mere passable knowledge in a topic makes you an expert). It's a different thing entirely, and a much better thing, to accept that maybe the old methods you've cemented in your head need reconsidered. I firmly believe that laziness is part of the human condition, and that sloth is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. 

There's no rest for the weary, it seems. But that's not a bad thing. I've got a classroom that hasn't been touched since May, a former guest bedroom that's halfway through a transition into a nursery, and six weeks left in a marathon training plan that will hopefully get me one step closer to qualifying for Boston. It's only appropriate that my thoughts about these things change with them. After all, wasn't it Jesus who said we can't put new wine into old wineskins?  

"Outnumbered" OR "Blessed Beyond Measure"

If you're a regular follower of this blog, then you know that me and Hillary are officially expecting our third child (our first child together) in October. In case you haven't heard that story, feel free to check out the post previous to this one. It was quite a journey to make it to this point.

Even though the big secret was revealed to the whole world, there was still another secret that far fewer people were privy to:

Boy or Girl? 

Only a select few people knew. Not even Hillary and I; we arranged with Hillary's doctor to seal the identity of the gender in an envelope, which we delivered to Hillary's mother, Teresa, and Hillary's brother's girlfriend, Mohini. The two of them had volunteered to throw us a gender reveal party as soon as they heard we had a baby on the way. 

It was almost a month between the big Facebook pregnancy reveal and the gender reveal party. And in that time, Hillary researched (and practiced) every old wives' tale she could find about determining the baby's gender.  

What she considered the most important tell was the baby's heartbeat. Using a home fetal doppler, she found (and still finds) the baby's heartbeat at least once a day. According to the doppler, the baby has a heart rate of around 150 bpm. And, according to whatever nebulous place on the internet where one finds such information, a heart rate that slow indicated a boy. 

Hillary was also incredibly nauseous for the entire first trimester. And, according to a friend of ours who experienced the same symptoms, those are symptoms of being pregnant with a boy (the friend in question had, appropriate to her theory, given birth to a boy). 

When the gender reveal party finally arrived, Hillary and I were treated to an amazing surprise: a volcano. 

We were to pour baking soda into the volcano, and watch as lava streamed out the top. The color of the lava would indicate the baby's gender. 

Volcanos are messy, so we took it outside. And there, in our front yard, we saw it. 

PINK lava. 

Honesty time. And yes, I realize that's pretty much all the time with me, especially when I post my thoughts and exercises and whatever else on the internet for all to read. But time to lay out the truth like a fitted sheet. Because that's the thing with the truth: it looks easy, but most of the time it's corners have elastic in them and you can't get them around the mattress without someone's help. 

I was a little disappointed. 

Don't get me wrong; I am absolutely thrilled that me and Hillary are going to bring this little girl into the world. I consider myself the luckiest man in the world (eat your heart out, Lou Gehrig), that I not only get to raise this child of mine, but the two beautiful, wonderful girls that God decided to bring into my life. And I could not ask for a more supportive, hard-working, and loving woman to call my wife through it all. 

But, even so... I sort of wanted a son. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  

Maybe it's something hard-wired into the DNA of a man, to want a smaller version of you running around behind you, learning all the things you learned, from you, watching him grow and wondering what kind of man he's going to be. And, of course, there's the patriarchal desire to continue passing your name to your descendants. As if I was a Game of Thrones character looking to extend my family bloodline. 

By that evening, when all our friends had gone home and Hillary and I had put our two current girls to bed, the shock of seeing the pink lava had worn off. And I'd had time to consider what I'd been telling people for weeks, who'd been asking the ubiquitous question, "What do you want your baby to be?" 

"Healthy," I'd said. 

And, by God, I am sticking by it. 

This child is the child that Hillary and I prayed for, the one we'd spend month after month trying for, mourning for, and placing all our hopes and dreams in. After losing the pregnancy in October (see last blog post), all we wanted was a happy, healthy baby together. The way I look at it, God has a lot more experience in choosing the perfect children for their parents, and I haven't heard an instance yet of Him getting it wrong. She is our child, our gift from God, exactly as He has intended her. The gender He's picked is good enough for Him, so it's certainly good enough for me. 

Last weekend, Hillary and I got to attended two weddings on the same day; one in the early afternoon, and one in the evening, one-hundred-and-fifty miles apart. It made for a lot of driving, but we got to see our beautiful girls drop flower petals just before a bride made the walk to meet her groom. 

No, really, I'm not crying. There's just something in my eye. 

And then, as I gradually stretched the truth of the matter around my mattress of life, I began to realize  the full weight of what it meant to have the unparalleled honor of being a father to three daughters. 

One day, I will be the guy walking a girl down the aisle to meet her groom. 

And I'm going to get to do it three times. 

There are going to be, at fewest, six prom dresses these girls are going to be fitted for, which I'm going to object to because of the (in my eyes) scandalous amount of skin they show, but for which I'll eventually give in at the girls' insistence, because I'm their dad and I'm already wrapped around their little fingers. 

Boys galore are going to be brought to our house, and I'm going to feel like almost all of them are not good enough for my girls. I'm going to ruthlessly create lists of all the qualities I don't like in them, but I'm going to keep (most of them) to myself because I want to trust their judgment. And besides, everyone knows telling a teenage girl she CAN'T date a certain boy only makes her want to date him even more. 

I'm also going to learn how to disassemble a gun on the kitchen table, clean it, and meticulously reassemble it. Just in case. 

There are going to be sleep-overs, make-overs, tea parties, wrestling matches, games of tag and hide-and-seek and video game marathons, sword fights and scary stories and campfires and s'mores. And it's all because God decided to bless me with three little girls. 

Yes, I'm hopelessly outnumbered. But this is exactly how God intended it. So I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Seeing how grown-up Faith and Zoe already are, and how fast they're growing up, I barely held it together as the wedding progressed. And as much as I can't wait for our new baby to arrive, I want to revel in this magical time of not knowing, of simply wondering and waiting and hoping. 

Oh, and if you're wondering, the baby is completely healthy. 

See you in October, Elliot Katherine Smith.