“Point us toward the running shoes, please.”
There is a special kind of humility that comes from asking a college-aged shoe salesman if the Nike you’re holding is indeed intended for running, and not one of the dozens of other specialty shoes crammed into her department.
After we confirmed the box in our hands held honest-to-goodness running shoes, my sixth grader and I made our purchase and walked across the parking lot, toward a future of better health, athletic achievement, and whatever other things runners are always chasing.
Starting strong
This is our family’s first season of junior high cross country, and we started off strong.
What followed was weeks of unprecedented heat and choking clouds of dust rising around our daughter as other runners ran past her. For a few days, her team practiced before the sun came up to steer clear of the oppressive afternoons. She struggled not to slow to a walking pace during her races. She was discouraged and tired. She said more than once that she wanted to quit.
A kind mom told me after practice one day that, as long as Lucy was still enjoying the running, it would all work out. At the look on my face, she added, “And … it’s good to know we can do hard things.”
It’s a refrain we’ve kept up during these weeks of running. You can do hard things. We can do hard things. As we have encouraged her to keep going, it has dawned on me that she’s not always getting a sterling example from me. I don’t often choose to do hard things. I like easy things, things that carry a near-guarantee of success.
This is why I don’t run, I’ve thought a few times.
Still, again and again, the Lord has been gracious. We’ve made running a nightly matter of prayer.
“Give us stamina, Lord, and help us walk less tomorrow than we did today. Thank you for our coaches, for our teammates. Thank you for proving that you are strong when we are weak. Thank you for the opportunity to run.”
In 10 years, probably fewer, Lucy is unlikely to remember much about her sixth grade cross country season. (Unless she is training for the Olympics.) But by then, she will have had hundreds of reasons to pray those prayers over all kinds of circumstances in her life. I will too.
— Show me how to find my strength in you, Lord, as I struggle with this particular issue in my work or in my family.
— Thank you for the teammates you’ve given me in my home, at my school, in my church.
— Give me stamina for the road ahead. Remind me it is good to do hard things.
I’m always hesitant to apply Scriptures about strength to whatever I’m going through, because I know the hardest parts of my regular life don’t compare to what most biblical heroes faced on an average day. In broader context, though, many of those passages point to truths about God’s character that apply just as surely now as they did centuries ago.
“Do you not know? Have you not heard?” Isaiah asks. “Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never grows faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding.
“He gives strength to the weary and strengthens the powerless. Youths may faint and grow weary and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary they will walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:28-31).
Encouragement for runners
That’s a passage for runners. Real ones, and the rest of us too, as we navigate a path that is often unpredictable from turn to turn. Those who trust in the Lord.
So far, our daughter has finished every race she’s started. That’s become our standard. Keep running, finish the race.
We’re now in view of the end of this inaugural season, and she has shaved a little off her initial time. We’re proud of that, but prouder still that she has done a hard thing. That she will continue to learn that those who trust in the Lord will — ultimately — run and not grow weary.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This article was originally published by Illinois Baptist. To read more articles like this on Illinois Baptists, visit illinoisbaptist.org.
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