Pray for Courage or My Song Will be Left Unsung?

 The day before Labor Day , will mark one year since my bad bike wreck.  During that year I have only been on a road bike once for about a mile.  Seems I left something back there on that road:  my courage.  The thought of riding on the road again makes me quite anxious.  it was a long and painful journey to recovery. 

Yeah sure, I know the rah-rah and all the dialogue regarding this issue like, "All we have to fear is fear itself."  The Bible is full of "fear nots" that I skim on by.  Maybe now I have a better understanding of the fears other people, but it doesn't resolve my own.

Some braver day I will have to do what John Blaise said to do on that Ironman video:  "Face your fears and live your dreams."  As I approach 80 years of age, most of my athletic dreams involve a road bike to some extent.  Sure, I know, the memory of all the pain must be dealt with or part of life will go unlived.  I don't have the time left to be weak of heart, to leave my song left unsung.  

Perhaps my first real road ride could be planned for the day before    Labor Day, the one-year anniversary of that bad wreck. Maybe that day can be as much a beginning as it was an ending.  I'll pray about that.  I'll pray for courage.

The Whisper Seems to Say

 Every fiber of reason in me tells me let this go.  And I have prayed fervently about this and finished with "Nevertheless let thy will be done."  Surely His will is for reason to prevail.  "God is not the author of confusion."  However, I am confused.  So, who is writing this script; me or God?  Even when not thinking about doing Ironman Texas, the possibility creeps into my thoughts like a siren song.   I don't get it.    I am not terribly motivated to do Ironman Texas anymore.  There are all kinds of good things I have planned to do during that time, that seem good and satisfying.  Why do these haunting thoughts continue to disturb my peace?  

The thought that keeps coming up is to do a "Give it to God" training campaign.  That is, despite being 80 years old, haven't ridden the road bike outside in almost a year, haven't ran farther than 4 miles in the past six months, having a perpetual "train wreck" of a left knee, despite all this and more, the whisper seems to say to go on, sign up and just let God handle this entirely.  Give it to God. 

The whisper seems to say this:  "You are right.  It is a mega-longshot, pretty much an impossibility. You are pretty well done before you start. So why not give up to begin with and give the outcome to God.  Go on! Step out in faith. Let God carry you until He says enough.    You could chronicle it for those whose interest might be peaked, who might be inspired and moved closer by what God can do with little or nothing.  The worst that can happen is that you wear yourself out and fail for God."

And I think:  wouldn't it be better to pour yourself out and fail for God than to succeed for yourself?  Now I am scared as well as confused.