Sunday Rundown

Today was supposed to be another early wake up call, as we usually meet a group of friends to run at 6 a.m. Sunday mornings. Apparently we had a little miscommunication as to who was setting the alarm for said wake up call and Daniel woke up at 6:02. He immediately jumped out of bed and texted the guys to let them know he would be there in 10 minutes (we live 10 minutes away). Well I am just not quite that speedy, so I opted to stay in bed for a little extra snoozing.

We headed to church after he got home. This morning was the kick-off of the summer series on Ephesians and it started off great!

One of the reasons that I wanted to start blogging is to foster an environment of continual learning in my life. I have always enjoyed learning new things and I want to continuously improve the knowledge that I do have. I read once that the most successful people are those who constantly go out of their comfort zone by welcoming new challenges and new risks, constantly discovering new subjects, making this a daily practice in their lives and pushing themselves beyond their current limits. I want my blog to be a summation of the things that I am doing and learning each day.

As part of this process, I plan to summarize my notes from church and small group here, not only to reinforce the initial learning process, but also to serve as a reference to look back on later. Here are a few of my takeaways from the service today:

• Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul to the church of Ephesus to display the scope of God’s eternal plan for all of humanity. The first three chapters focus on what Christians should believe, and unfold the glorious riches of God’s grace through Christ Jesus. The last three chapters explain the implications of God’s grace for the church, individuals and families and commands us to stand with the armor of God against Satan.
• The first chapter, which we discussed today, is meant to be an encouraging reminder of what God has done for us, while the remainder of the book will instruct us as to what we can do to live in the will of God.
• Christians are saints in Christ. Sainthood is gifted to us because of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice. This is what we refer to when we talk about substitutionary atonement. Jesus lived a perfect life and died in the place of sinners as our substitute so that our death sentence was nullified and instead we have the identity of a saint. This doesn’t mean that we will not sin, but sin is an occasional activity because of our humanly flesh. It is not our identity.
• We have blessings in Christ. We are “in Christ” because the Holy Spirit resides within us. We are holy and blameless before God. We have been adopted as a child of God. He gave His only child so that we could be His children. We have an eternal inheritance. The Spirit of God is the down payment now on our eternal future. The Holy Spirit brings things into our lives now that are a foretaste of our inheritance.

After church, Daniel and I headed to Publix for our weekly grocery shopping. We like to do our shopping together when possible. In the spirit of learning, I decided to try something new … I bought ingredients to make food. I think some of you refer to this as “cooking.” You just think I am joking. My first experiment is going to be trying to recreate the Publix quinoa salad that is available in the deli section. I usually buy a couple of these salads each week. They are SO good, but can be a little pricey, typically ranging somewhere from $4 to $5 a piece. Being the dork accountant that I am, I am interested to see how the price per serving is going to compare when I make it on my own. I bought all of the ingredients below for $22.21 (not including sales tax). I will let y’all know how the experiment turns out and post my recipe if it goes well.

I went for a run later and Daniel was nice enough go with me and bike beside me while I ran, since he had already run that morning. We did an easy 8 miles. I try my best to avoid running alone. Thankfully I have a very supportive husband and a wonderful group of training buddies and friends to go with me and I have access to a treadmill if not. On the rare occasion that I do go by myself, I am always armed with mace and usually take my cell phone as well.

We met some friends for dinner at Sunset Pointe at Fly Creek Marina. This was our first time eating here and it was everything we hoped it would be and more! The location and atmosphere are unbeatable and the food was fabulous.

We had a wonderful time catching up. Carol is my original running buddy and our families have been friends for years. I will never forget going to her house in college to do my laundry and hearing her talk about how she ran 10 miles every Saturday morning. She was such an inspiration and has continued to be a huge part of my running story over the years, even though at the time I thought she was absolutely insane! My how the times have changed.

I hope everyone had a nice relaxing weekend like we did!