I am currenting training for a marathon. I will be running it on February 19th in Austin in honor and memory of an amazing woman, Elane Cash, and her beautiful family.
I love to run.
I love that I can run as a stress relief, for exercise, and simply enjoyment. I love the good hurt after I have pushed myself. I love the miniture escape from other responsibilities. I love that I have an excuse to listen to upbeat music as loud as I want. I love that backwards feeling of being renergized after a run. I love the sense of accomplishment it brings.
Despite my enjoyment of running, i have realized lately that
26 miles is a LONG way.
Last weekend I had to run 18 miles, it took over 3 hours and was terribly hard, at the end I was doubting wether I am capable of running 8 more.
Yesterday my long run was 14. With running, there are good days and bad days. On the good days you feel like you could run forever without breaking a sweat and on the bad days a 3 mile runs seems to be farther than the moon. At mile 4 it had started to rain but I still felt great and knew that today I wouldn't have to stop for anything because it was a good running day.
wrong.
I was running through an interesection when an elderly woman started to wave me down, I causally waved and was determined to keep moving. She was walking on the other side of the road carrying two large bags and hurrying towards me. Slightly frustrated, I stopped my music and run to speak with her. She was lost and searching for a church that I had to unfortunately inform her was 2 miles in the opposite direction that she was traveling. As she thanked me greatfully she sighed, her stature ached with exhaustion as she restarted her journey in the opposite direction.
As I continued to run, I was glad I stopped and helped her as much as I could. I mean I was at least 2 miles from home so what else could I do? I prayed for her as I went up the very long hill infront of us both. I then begun a battle within: I could turn left at the next light and continue my run as planned, after all I felt great. Or I could turn right run the few miles home, get in the car I am so blessed to have, and make sure this tired woman got to her church.
I turned right.
My conscience, or the Holy Spirit as I was so kindly reminded by a friend, won and I ran home to get my car. I started with where I met my friend and continued driving until I found her church, turns out she made it there before I drove by to give her a lift.
I learned two things from this encounter:
1) That we constantly have a choice to make, and sometimes the choices are between two good things. I had to decide between finishing my run, which I am doing with one of my best friends and in honor of her incredible mother or by stopping in the middle of my run to try to help someone who I wasnt even sure would be there when I got back. Choosing to stop in the middle of my run was the harder choice for me to make because I felt great, yet it wasn't the one that Christ wanted me to make right then. Jesus never promised us that the choices we have to make will be easy, just that they will be worth it.
2) Even when we do make the choice that Christ is leading us to make, that doesn't mean we are going to see the results we are expecting. I went home , got in my car, and drove around to give a woman a ride who was already at her destination by the time I could help. It would be easy to look at this as a waste of time and think about how I should have just kept running…yet sometimes the most important thing is not the outcome, but about the journey that takes you there. Trust that the journey is worth the fight.
