Bike Racing and Faith

It has been a crazy couple of weeks since I last updated. I have done a lot of running which is not really my thing, but it is what the Army wants me to do. Over the last two Saturday’s I have traveled to different sides of South Carolina to race. My first race was pretty fast from the start and I got really blown away. , but the second one I took forth place. Both of the races were on the road and a bit of a change from cross country racing. The road races are much shorter and pretty much on red line for the whole time. There is something about racing in a large group at 25 to 30 miles per hour around a ¾ mile course. There is a lot of trust among the guys racing. Trust that you keep the line you started with when going around corners; trusting someone else is a tough thing, but trusting a perfect stranger is really blind trust maybe even called faith? It may just be a coincidence that I enjoy bike racing for it’s connection to faith, but it has often crossed my mind. We put a lot of faith and trust in God even though we have never seen Him. The other guys that I race with, I never met before, but I trust in their abilities to not cause me to crash. I have never met God face to face, but I trust in His abilities to get me through my difficulties. Now this is completely separate from my own skills, because sometimes I fail.
Among other things, I have been recovering from my field experience here at Fort Jackson. Many late nights and early mornings, but overall it was a good experience and kind of fun. We have been learning a lot of our responsibilities while being in our units and it really is interesting work, but it will definitely have its days. This past week we have been learning an Army program called Family Wellness. It is all about teaching soldiers to do family better. Being a soldier is a difficult job and responsibility. With the stresses of combat mixed with the extended time away from families it can be tough. Giving the families some tools and activities to maintain some sort of normalcy is what this training is all about. So far it has been good. I pray that all is going well with those of you back home. Thank you for all your prayers and support in Joy’s difficulties. She is doing better, but still no definite diagnosis on what is going on. Still might be a long road. Just a little over a week and I will be back home. I am really looking forward to being home.