Where Did I Get This Discipline

This what it looked like outside the running store when I arrived at 5:00 this morning.  Yes, that is 5:00 a.m.  I then proceeded to run for 2 hours and 52 minutes.  If I wasn't there myself, I wouldn't believe.

I am not really a disciplined person.  I'm okay for the short term - like I could always cram for exams and stay on a diet for a week.  But this type of discipline has sneaked up on me. How did I get from a 3 time alarm snoozer to this?  

First I must admit that I married discipline.  His name is Jim and he was the answer to my years of prayers asking God for discipline.

  Once I married him, my finances and my profession found discipline almost immediately.  I married in May, and by November I had traded my pop corn stand business ,which barely broke even, for an accounting job that had the highest salary I'd had to date.  When I got married, I had a $300 balance on my credit card which I thought was very reasonable but my husband was appalled.  Years later he would continue to refer to the debt he inherited, not mentioning his much larger college loans I inherited, but I regress.

This was marital discipline, and I am very thankful for it, but I was still very undisciplined in my own personal habits.  Late night was a family ritual when I was growing up, and I enjoyed being a night owl.  I was energized at night and got all kinds of things done after 10:00 pm, but it did make getting up for work the next morning very difficult - thus the 3 snooze alarm.

But somewhere in the last 28 years, I have acquired my own personal discipline.  Maybe working and having a boss aided in this, as well as having 2 children who depended on me for their food, safety and sleep. Although, I must admit they are both night owls.  I trained them well.

So responsibility helped, but it had to be more than that.  I mean all kinds of adults have jobs and that discipline does not translate to training for marathons.  Where did I get this abnormal sense of discipline that gets me up at ungodly hours on the weekends and keeps me to a running schedule for which I get no money or grade.

This post has gone on way to long, so I will solve the mystery next post.

Trying the disciplined life,
TVW