Imagine. Your feet touching the ground, one after the other. As your breath begins to hasten, slow drips of H2O and salt slide down your forehead. Your heart beats faster and faster, and you feel as though your mind is sorting out right from wrong. The clouds begin to clear as you splash through the deep puddles filled with mud and you feel the soft rays of sunshine against your cheeks. Ah, yes. The sweet melody of running.
Running is one of those things that I grew up dreading. In PE, I remember running the mile every week and hating every second of it. It wasn’t just the fact that we had to run, its the fact that it was always a competition and I seemed to never be quick enough.
Isn’t that how our lives feel sometimes? We run and run and run. But to no avail. We can never keep up with the world and all of its demands. I first noticed how much I enjoyed running when I was in 7th grade. I was on an indoor soccer team and we were playing our first game. I fell in love with the intensity and speed of the sport, as well as the aspect of enjoyability I hadn’t had before. From then on, I realized that running was something I could do and never get tired of. Eighth grade I decided to train for my first half marathon. I knew how hard it would be, however, I trained with some of my best friends and that made the time and pain fly by a lot faster. I realized then that the joy did not come when I was running, but afterwards. The sense of accomplishment and the feeling that you gave everything you had and more. My junior year of high school, I decided to do cross country. Now mind you, before this year I didn’t even know what cross country was. All I knew was that there was such a thing as cross country skiing.
My first year of cross country was rough to say the least. I really thought that cross country races would be like easy 5K’s you did with your family. Was I wrong. My first race, I remember running with my best friend and saying “I can’t do it, I can’t do it” as I was running. My lungs were on fire and I felt like I was going to keel over and die. That year, I had many great PR’s and accomplishments. However, I also had many tough and brutal races. I lost my grandpa towards the end of the season and the race I wanted to run for him turned out to be one of the hardest races i’ve ever ran. Not just emotionally, but physically. I lost one shoe at the start of the race and had to run the whole race through the mud, rocks, and sticks in immense pain. After that race, I remember feeling so defeated. Like nothing was going right.
Flash forward to senior year of cross country, everything changed. This season was one that taught me so many valuable life lessons and brought lifelong friendships. We accomplished greatly together, but we also went through some tough times together. Thats what made it worth it. Being together and pushing each other. I remember during every single race, I would wonder why I was doing this to myself. I would be hurting all over and I wondered what would happen if I just stopped running altogether. Every time, I would take one more step, I would take one more breath, and I would finish that race no matter how weak I felt. Because it wasn’t about me. It was about something far greater.
Wow, what a long story. However, it serves a greater purpose. Running taught me many things over the years. But one thing running has taught me that is absolutely invaluable is that we are much stronger than we think we are. When we were created, we were formed by a God of no impossibilities. How cool is that?
When I am struggling with debilitating anxiety and worry, I always remember my races. When I felt like it was over and I could give no more, I could always push past what I thought I was capable of. I truly believe this is how each and every one of us was created We think we have limitations based on what the world tells us, but we forget that our God has no limitations. On our own, we may stumble and fall. But when we cling to our true strength, we can find that our capabilities go far beyond what our mind is capable of comprehending.
God has truly shown me recently what He is capable of doing. Sometimes we get into the habit of training our minds to believe that we are incapable. In reality, we are conquerors . But that is only when we are tapping into the capable power of Jesus Christ.
I never thought I would be where I am now back in September. What I thought was impossible back then, God has shown me is possible and it will work together for good. No matter what life throws you, sometimes we just want to curl under a rock and not face the storm in front of us. We lack the courage to stand against the storm and tell it how big our amazing God is. It is only when we finally start running, one step at a time, that we are able to finish the race set before us with endurance.
“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”
Hebrews 12:1
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