In the last month, I completed the Myrtle Beach Marathon, took the GRE, started leading my small group through the book of Romans and put an offer in on a house. Then, to add a little icing to the cake, I also threw in the Columbia Famously Hot Marathon just for kicks. You would think that, after crossing some major goals off of my list, I would feel empowered and motivated to keep pushing forward, right? Well, it seems that the more I get accomplished, the more my focus shifts to the fact that I have no one to share these accomplishments with.
I definitely am not going to let this post follow the "debbie downer" trend that it began with because, through a pretty rough week, God has revealed Himself to me in some pretty awesome ways. Yes, I am confused about some aspects of my life. Yes, I am not sure that the direction I am heading in is exactly where He wants me to end up. Yes, I feel lonely and scared sometimes of what the future holds for me in terms of a relationship. But...God is good, He is faithful, He keeps His promises and He promises that I will never be alone. He promises that he has the best planned for me and that He is working everything together for my good and His glory.
This weekend, the Truth that He is working everything together was made absolutely clear to me. I may have blinked a little last week, but my eyes have once again been opened. I'll elaborate...
To make a long story short...I have been trying to release certain feelings and attachments with a certain someone to God, so that I can be a true friend without a selfish agenda behind our friendship. Last weekend, my friend made an innocent proposition about running the marathon together, but plans never materialized. Nevertheless, I signed up for the Columbia Marathon on Thursday night after a week of letting anxiety, pride, anger and confusion rule my thoughts. Bottom line, running the marathon was a chance to spend time together without breaking my "no dating" commitment and I was disappointed that it didn't happen. The entire week I was focused on me, which makes it extremely hard to focus on Christ. I tried to read and study my Bible. I tried to go to Him in prayer, instead of talking with other people about it, but fear just seemed to consume me. I had even encouraged a lady in my small group, just a few days before, with Lamentations 3:22...and there I was allowing myself to be absolutely consumed.
I had no plan for the race, no goal in mind. I was just going to run out all of the emotions that had been building up the last few days. I started the run with a small group of guys following the 4hr 15min. pacers. The whole time I was running, I knew that to jump down from a 4:28 finish to a 4:15 finish on a much harder course (especially after not running more than a 5k since the marathon three weekends ago) was a little ambitious. I decided to just hang with this group for as long as possible. Andy and Joe were our Fleet Feet pacers. They made running look fun. They made running a marathon look easy...exhibit A
I tried to not focus on running and concentrated on listening to everyone's conversations about their next goals, their reasons for running, etc. During those conversations, someone caught my attention with the mention of completing an Ironman. Denny, a 59 year old Ironman, was running with his son, Kevin, in his first marathon...exhibit B
We all stayed together for the first lap (13 miles), but I began to slow down once we started to hit the hills for the second time. I was so happy to find that Denny and Kevin had also taken a break from the pacing group. Their encouragement to keep pushing and stay with them was absolutely inspiring. I made small talk here and there, just to keep my mind from wandering to the pain. Anytime I would start to slow down, they would continue at their steady pace and encourage me to catch back up. I never let them get too far ahead because I knew I needed their encouragement to make it through. Although I didn't have a t-shirt with my name, they made sure that each group of supporters we passed cheered for me by name as much as they cheered for them. Two complete strangers had become my biggest fans. They seemed dedicated to helping me beat my previous time.
The three of us finished the race in 4 hours and 28 minutes, 4 minutes faster than the Myrtle Beach marathon. I asked Kevin for his email address because I wanted to be able to write and thank them for being so encouraging. After the race, I was ready to let go of the feelings I had let drain me from the week before. Monday morning, I received an email from Kevin. He had some pictures he wanted to share, as well as a neat website to help me keep track of my race results. In one of the emails, Kevin mentioned that his dad, Denny, kept a blog of his training (denny.gillen.me) and that if I ever wanted to start logging my training online, they would love to follow. I sent him the link to my blog, with the disclosure that it included many aspects of my life and was not specific to training. I checked my email a few hours later and had this response from Kevin (I hope he doesn't mind me sharing a bit of it): "I read through the first couple pages of entries on your blog. It is great to see God's grace at work in your life. Sounds like a difficult year, but the growth has been tremendous. Reading this confirms the suspicions that Dad and I had, that you, too, were a believer."
This email hit me like a ton of bricks. Denny and Kevin ran with me in that race to remind me that, although I might not have someone to call my own, God has placed his people all around me to encourage me, comfort me and show me that I will never be alone. "The fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. When everything seems hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God says he would do. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said."~ adapted from The Message Romans 4:16-21
So thank you again, Denny and Kevin, for opening my eyes to see God's grace and mercy at work around me. "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." (1 Corinthians 9:24) We have already run the race and we get to live every day with the prize!
"In this season, I am learning...You're not silent or slow. If you only, give me more of You...it will always be enough. You are the prize. You are the prize." ~ lyrics from "Richly Loved" by Ashley and Travis Wright, http://wrightfamilymusic.bandcamp.com/track/richly-loved
Jesus Christ died on the cross...for me. Period. End of story, right? Wouldn't things be so much easier if everyone knew that, believed and accepted that, and saw other people as someone Christ died for, as well? Unfortunately, we live in a society that never lets people forget when they make a mistake. People's mistakes are printed in magazines, newspapers, posted on websites, social networking sites, etc. When someone messes up, it somehow becomes everyone's business.
Like most people, I have baggage. If I were to take a trip, the amount of baggage I have would probably sustain me for quite some time. When I was younger and my family would go on vacation, my dad would load all of our luggage on top of the car and we head down the road to our destination. I always used to imagined the luggage falling off the back of the car and all of our stuff being scattered across the interstate. Did I have anything in my bags that would be embarrassing for someone else to see? Would I be able to clean everything up before anyone noticed that I had packed three Eeyore sweatshirts and fifteen different colored turtlenecks?
Getting back into the dating scene after being separated was definitely a scary place. I felt like my baggage was about to burst at the seams. Not only had I made some extremely dumb decisions through college (that would definitely require some explanation), but now I had a pending divorce to add to my resume. I tried really hard to convince myself that everything from my past was no one's business. That it did not define me and I was not the same. The past should not matter and I should not have to share it with anyone. I didn't want anyone to see what I had packed away and bound so tightly because, surely, it had no chance of spilling out on the interstate.
In the last year, I have realized the need to slowly start unpacking those bags and put away the embarrassing, shameful, disappointing and guilt-ridden mistakes I made. Rehashing some of the situations and decisions I made in the past and "reliving" my journey through being lost, saved, distant and now home has brought out a lot of emotion. I don't want to have to tell the person God has planned for me the things I've done. I don't like looking back at who I used to be. Especially knowing that, unlike God, people have a hard time letting go of past mistakes and failures. People have a hard time seeing people for where they are going. Instead, they see them for the crap they are carrying with them along the way.
God knew I would fail. God knew I would make mistakes. God knew I would disappoint someone at some point (or many points) in my life. He knew all of those things and that is why he sent his only son to this earth...for me and every mistake I have ever made that has not honored and glorified Him as my Heavenly Father. Hindsight is 20/20, but I won't let looking back take my focus off of God's plan for me in the future. Instead of focusing on what was, I will focus on what is to come. I will learn from my mistakes and then look ahead. I will allow God to build my character, mold me and shape me through trials and tribulations. I won't allow hindsight to be a hindrance by beating myself up with past mistakes. I will meet someone that sees me through Godly lenses, instead of seeing me through the eyes of the world. The debt has been paid and I am made brand new each day. So I will just unpack my bags and make myself at home in the comfort of God's amazing grace and mercy.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." ~James 1:2-4
