Eight and a half weeks of bed rest complete. Six and a half weeks remain. At the doctor last Thursday I received more good news: my cervix is totally closed again, I can sit up for four hours a day, and I can go to church every week! Just to know I have the option to sit up feels like a new freedom.

Sunday marked 30 weeks in this pregnancy, which means I only have about 10 more weeks until I’m holding the baby in my arms. I’ve been so focused on getting through each day that I’ve hardly thought about the end of this journey. It had seemed so far away, but now feels like its right around the corner. I think as the end of this race draws near it is even harder to be disciplined.

Over the weekend Jeff ran the Go Ruck Challenge. As a team, the 28 people who signed up loaded their backpacks with 40 pounds of bricks and water, and set off at 1am to do whatever their leader told them. Twelve hours and 20 miles later they completed their journey. Push ups, sit ups, carrying each other, in and out of Lake Michigan, up and down hills, crawling, crab walking, and more. They were exhausted and sore, but they finished the race and they did it together.

The journey of faith is hard to complete on your own. It’s so much better to have other believers surrounding you, encouraging you, facing challenges with you. I went to church Sunday for the first time in 9 weeks. I had tears in my eyes just walking in. Even though we didn’t see people we know, it was encouraging to know all the people around us are also walking in faith following Christ.

I think church is such a special place to come together with other believers and worship the Lord. We can lean on each other to finish the race.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2