Morning Run in July

Last Friday I had the best run I've ever had in my life.  Not my fastest time.  But my absolute most favorite run ever.  I've been running for about 3 years consistently now.  But over the past year I've been better about making the time to run while traveling.  We camped in OH, MI, IL, and MO and I ran every other day.  But the delight of the show happened unsuspectingly  early Friday morning, when I thought I was just going to run down a country road and ended up on a greenway that led from the campground to the park.  It was an absolute dream.  I got back and could not contain the experience, so I wrote it down:

The fresh scent of damp morning woods
Birds calling -- wild and sweet
like the flowers
pushing up from ground to sky

stretching strong and astute 

Bursting with green stems and colored

with pride towards their Creator

The sunlight, breaking through clouds
 as the rabbits munch,
the deer graze
The meadow beats and rests, laid out

between gently rolling hills

I run right into it, round the corner, inhaling

the cool summer air - so clean, so new.

And I am met with all of them,

together at once:

SUN, SKY, MEADOW, MOUNTAIN,

FOG, WILD FLOWERS, TALL GRASSES, TREES,

and GLORY!

I cannot hold back.  My arms burst 

open wide, in praise!

All this for me?  All five miles?

I can see, hear, feel, smell, breathe, and 

believe it’s all happening - then for a

moment I inhale and exhale and become

one with it.

That close.

I am more than just running through it. 

I have become a part of the canvas,

the artwork that beats and rests and

stretches and sings.

I bring it into me and release it.

I am held within it and freed by it.

I am OF the beauty, 

crying out, “God, You have made me for this!

You have made this for me!

And ALL of Your works are wonderful!

I know this even more fully now.”