Tonight I got home from the gym and felt the sudden urge to go for a run. Now if I had told any of my friends this, they probably would have checked my temperature immediately to make sure I was not sick. If you know me at all then you know I love going to the gym, but I am not a cardio bunny. I would rather spend 2 hours lifting weights than spend 10 minutes on a treadmill. So me coming home from the gym with a desire to go for a run made no sense, but I decided to do it anyway. I had about 20 minutes of daylight left, so I figured I would make it a short run and just get it over with.
A little under 2 miles in to my run, I get to this hill and immediately stop dead in my tracks. Now when I say hill, I am talking more of a slight incline but in that moment it looked like an enormous mountain to my tired legs. I proceeded to sit down at the nearest bus stop bench, knowing that all I had on me was my phone so there was no way I would be able to pay to catch the bus home. I looked around to see if there was a way for me to avoid this monstrosity of a hill in front of me, but when I realized there wasn’t I started brainstorming all the ways I could talk the bus driver into letting me ride for free. I thought about maybe trying to hitchhike the two miles home or call a friend to come get me. Trust me, I wish I was kidding as I write this but it is true; I had given up.
As I am sitting on this bench completely out of breath, dehydrated and feeling pretty defeated, I can hear the Lord clearly speaking into my aching heart. He is telling me to take a second to catch my breath, get up, get through it and trust Him through my inadequacy. It took me a second to realize that He was not talking about the run I was currently on, but He was clearly speaking to me about some pretty big mountains I have been facing since I got back from training camp almost 3 weeks ago.
In all honesty, the last few weeks have left me feeling lost, defeated and pretty hopeless. I have questioned God’s timing more than I care to admit and have felt inadequate in more ways than one. I have put on a pretty brave face on the outside to most people and have revealed the depths of my brokenness to only a select few in my life. I have looked at the mountains in front of me and done everything I could to avoid them. I have turned my trust and my hope away from God and placed it in my own abilities and current situations; hence, the hopelessness. I have tried to make a way around the tests and trials that the Lord has placed in front of me and came up with every excuse I could find to sit down and give up, just like I did at that bus stop tonight. The last few weeks have not been easy by any means, but one thing I have learned from walking with Jesus is that in our brokenness and inadequacy is where God’s power and glory will shine the brightest.
I don’t exactly know what tomorrow holds, but I know Who holds my tomorrow and that is enough for me. I am not exactly sure how long it will take me and the Lord to climb these mountains I am currently facing, but I know that He is with me every step of the way and will give me the strength I need to overcome this.
I don’t have all the answers and my heart is still hurting, but all I know now is that if God leads me to it, He will lead me through it.
I love how creative our God is… He took me on a less than desirable run tonight so that I could hear His voice clearly and He could give me a gentle nudge and the reassurance that my hurting heart needed.
