Get Up and Run

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The Lord is always ready to heal. But He wants us to walk into the miracle/healing. But often were too afraid to get up and walk. So we miss out on the healing.
Sometimes we not only need to ask Jesus for healing, but for the faith to get up and walk into the healing He’s holding out for us.
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This is my story.
The story of how The Lord taught me to run.

All growing up, I had never really been involved in sports, of any kind really. I enjoyed biking around the neighborhood or taking my dogs on walks. But I never loved playing sports. It just wasn’t my thing.
I wasn’t made to be an athlete.
Well, that’s what I always told myself.

Come high school, we had to take PE. Oh the joys of being a freshman and having to run the mile every week.
I would. Simply because I wanted to get a good grade in the class.
But I never enjoyed it. I was always the last to finish. And I would finish so out of breath that it was ridiculous.
I wasn’t a runner.
Or at least, that’s what I always told myself.

In 2011 I hurt my knee pretty badly as I was working out. It turns out that I had torn my meniscus in my left knee, and I needed surgery to fix it. Well, I didn’t have the time to have the surgery or deal with the recovery. So I decided at that point to just take it easy and let The Lord heal me if He would. I could still exercise, but I would have to take it easy. They would have to be low-impact exercises. And some days my knee would just hurt.

At Training Camp back in July 2014, I remember Jeremy, my squad mentor, talk about some girls from one of his previous squads. They trained for a 5k while they were on their Race. And I remember thinking at that moment, “Oh, that would be cool. But I’m not a runner. And I have a bad knee. Running would be too much impact for it.”

Coming on the Race I found myself choosing ways to exercise that wouldn’t hurt my knee–going on walks, doing exercise videos, and taking the stairs when we lived in a high rise apartment.
Then I started to hear the whisper, “Get up and run.”
So I decided to start doing a training program for a 5k. Marin and I started the program in Uganda and we went through it most of the way in Rwanda. But by the end of Rwanda, my knee was hurting a lot.
So we stopped.
And I thought that was the end of the whisper. But it wasn’t.

While we were in Montenegro, I started to hear the whisper again, “Get up and run.”
And at that point, I didn’t understand. I kept asking, do You literally want me to start running? Or is this something spiritual? But I never got an answer. At least not right away.

During our debrief in Albania, Nick jokingly said, “Bekah, you should do a half marathon when you get home. So that means you should start training for it now.”
When he said that, something in my spirit clicked. I knew that The Lord was asking me to go on a journey with Him–a journey of faith trusting that He would strengthen my feeble knee, that He would be able to make me a runner.

So I found a beginner’s training schedule for a half marathon. I asked some of my teammates to join me. Acacia and Molly willingly signed up for the task. And then I actually registered for a half marathon in Albuquerque for when I get home (August 9th is the exact date). It just so happens that it fell on the exact day that my training schedule said to do the half.
The Lord had clearly been lining things up for me to run this half.

So we started training.
At first, we just walked. Then we walked and jogged.
And then, in May, I ran my first mile.
The last Sunday in May I ran my first 5k.
This past Sunday I ran 5 miles.
And this coming Sunday I’ll be running a 10k.

While I’ve been running, The Lord has been speaking to my heart. He’s been casting out lies that I’ve believed for a long time.
Lies that I’m not good enough.
Lies that I can’t do it.
Lies that I can’t run.
Lies that I’m a failure.
Lies that I’m not able.

The truth is, The Lord has taught me a lot through this journey to my first half marathon.
There have been multiple times that I’ve wanted to just stop running–because I was tired or whatever. But I’ve learned to push through. I’ve learned that sometimes I have to change my pace a little bit so that I have the energy to keep going. I may not always run as fast as other people, but I’m still running. I’m still moving forward and I’m still chasing after the finish line.

I think one of the coolest lessons is that The Lord is making me completely dependent on Him in this. Does my knee still hurt? Yes. Does it hurt a lot after one of the longer runs? Yes. But is the pain stopping me? No.
Why?
Because as I run, I can literally feel the Spirit holding my knee together. I can feel Him enter into my joint and make my ligaments, tendons, and meniscus work the way they are supposed to. I feel Him filling up my lungs with oxygen and delivering it to every part of my body to give me energy.
This is why I love running.
Because, honestly, I could NOT be doing it apart from the power of the Spirit. Every step I take, it’s all because of Him.

So when He told me to “Get up and run,” He wasn’t just saying it so I could be healthy and have a new way to exercise. He wanted to show me a new way to experience Him, to experience His goodness and His grace. He wanted to draw me deeper into His presence.

“Get up and run.”