Knowing his voice and feeling his presence

Knowing his voice and feeling his presence

 I ran the first every all Navy Marathon the end of November 1984 in three hours and 54 minutes. I was so sore and stiff and could hardly walk. I couldn’t run for two weeks after that. Then I checked into BUD/s for class 133 and running wasn’t my strong suit. I caught pneumonia during Hell Week and my performance dropped off significantly. Long story short, was dropped from training for performance and I went back to Pensacola and I had to completely rehabilitate my body, I caught every ailment going around but I refused to take any anti-biotics, I just boned up and vitamins and kept working out and I started training for the all Navy Marathon again. 50 miles a week, 12 to 14 mile on Tuesday and Thursday and four to six miles on Monday and Wednesday, no running on Fridays and either a five or ten K race or intervals at the Corey Station track. The second time I ran the Blue Angel Marathon they changed the date to early January. I reapplied to BUD/s for the sixth time and November 1995 and I was declined. I had to put in a 20 mile run so I decided to do it that Friday. I headed out the back gate of NAS Pensacola, 10 miles out and 10 miles back. I ran and I cried and ran and I cried the whole way. That next Monday they had command pictures and my division Chief Mike McDonald had to come in in his blues and he wasn’t happy, he had made Master Chief but had been pulled over for DUI that weekend. I came up stairs after teaching a class and I said “It’s such a beautiful day, I think I am going to run another 20 miles!” to which Mike replied “God damn it Red!” My immediate thought was “Oh no, this guy has killed people and he is mad at me” then he finished and said “Your so Fucking motivated, we’re going to get you back into training”.

So were got a MAC flight to Washington DC and went to the Pentagon and Mike guaranteed in writing that I would make it through training. I came back and got ready for the race. I had a running partner, this redheaded ninth grader who I would always over take just at the end of every 5k or 10k race we competed in together. I figured that he would regulate my pace. Well we took off and out slit times at two miles were under six minute miles. The only hill on the race was on Palafox between Garden and Cervantes. He fell back, this was the 14 miles mark. I started to feel the wall right when I went through the front gate of NAS Pensacola for the last few miles. The road by the golf course is banks and that really effected my ankles. When I finally turned off of the golf course road, the last mile and a half was Barrancas road which went right by fort Barrancas. Every muscle and tendon in my legs felt like it were at its snapping point but I started singing “Jesus Loves me” outload as I was running and I just opened up my stride and I had this image that Christ was standing behind me as big as a mountain gently with his hand on the back of my hand on the back of my head. I just kept running and passing people along the way and then when I reached the quarter mile point which I knew because this last mile and a half of the race was along my training course I ran every day. I opened up to a full sprint singing Jesus Loves me the whole way. I passed 12 other runners the last mile of the race and I finished in three hours 14 minutes and one second. I was running again the next day.

I made IC3 in March, got excepted to BUD/s class 141 right after that and the rest I history but that feeling of Christ in my presence hasn’t left me, I don’t hear an audible voice but I know when he is speaking to me. I have been hearing a lot lately about “Finding our purpose in God and Christ”. I know he is telling me to be that mentor to young men, the ones who are striving to make their place in the world but don’t have a pattern or model to follow. Everything I am doing right now is with that purpose in mind. Just lately I am realizing that seeking his approval and recognition is all that is important.

When I first started going to Center Church I heard one of the guys at the Men’s bible study telling about their outreach group being force out of a neighborhood by the cartels. I could feel the righteous anger stirring inside of me. I wanted to round up every former Navy SEAL and Special Forces guy I could find in the Texas and clean house. But then I was reading my assignment for my college algebra class on “Argumentative writing” I also have to give a speech on a controversial topic for Toastmasters and I am choosing “The Legalization of Drugs”. The biggest objections are the morality of it but if it can pull the teeth of the cartels so neighborhood outreach groups like the one at Center Church can reach people whom they can’t now, it will solve the really cause of drug use and addiction.

That is what God’s voice is telling me now.