Doing Hard Things

I’m not an athlete. In fact, I’m so far from an athlete that during my 7-years as a youth pastor it was our running joke. See what I did there? In 6^thgrade I played on a basketball team with some friends from school. (Shout out to Courtney, Heather, & Amy—just in case you read this). They were all really good at pretty much all sports, but I… well, I made 1 point the entire season. They probably don’t remember it, but when that free throw bounced into the net you would have thought I made the winning shot in a Final Four game. I threw my hands up in victory and I smiled as wide as Texas. 

We all have seasons where we want to be really good at all the things we just aren’t good at. I’ve had those seasons. I’ve been jealous. I’ve been hard on myself. I’ve convinced myself I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t good at sports. But love changed me throughout the years. My friends then and my friends through college and my friends in adulthood have all loved me regardless of my ability (or lack-there-of) to perform on any sports team. For someone who is prone to measuring her value to others according to her performance, being loved regardless of that had a big impact. Somewhere along the way I twisted the running joke around to say, “Guys, it wouldn’t be fair if I was good at sports. I’d be too awesome at too many things.”

The reality is that I’m not as terrible at athletic things as you might think. I danced for a long time and I loved it. I was pretty good at it. I have a humorous memory of my good friend Courtney (extremely successful athlete) saying to me after a dance team performance, “How can you be so good at doing that and so terrible at basketball?”  It’s okay to laugh, it was funny and true.

And I’ve loved finding humor in my lack of general athleticism. One evening after a Tabor basketball game, I went out on the court with the crowd and Lydia, who was 3-years-old at the time, was trying to dribble. She threw the ball to me and I dribbled it for a little bit before tossing it back. Her mouth dropped open and she exclaimed, “Mom! I didn’t know you were a sports girl!”     I bought some sweet under armour sneakers a couple years ago and my friends could not get enough ‘sports girl’ jokes in to save their lives. It didn’t help that every time I put them on I’d send them pics and say, ‘Check out my fancy sport shoes!’ 

Everyone knew how much I loathed running and probably most exercise in general. My beloved youth sponsors even gave me this amazing shirt at my send-off party. 

And it was BIG DEAL when a couple days before I moved, my students convinced me to swim in the parent-relay at their swim meet. I still can't believe I did that. I was legit terrified of making a total fool of myself, but I'd do anything for those teenagers.

It was all funny. It still is.

I kicked off July by starting to read Don Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. I finished it some time early August and quickly realized that it had permanently marked me. I knew it for sure had when I did something a bit out of the ordinary for me. And by a bit out of the ordinaryI mean straight up crazy talk.

I signed up for a 5k race in San Antonio, Texas on October 12.

The race is a fundraiser for an awesome organization called CleftStrong. Their cause is near and dear to our hearts as we have and are still walking the cleft lip & palate journey with our son, Hezekiah. 

And one month from today, I’ll be running in the CleftStrong 5k.

I get emotional just thinking about, which probably sounds so silly to so many, but when I signed up that day (and then later roped in my best friend to do it with me) I just knew that I had to do it. You see, I think somewhere underneath all the jokes about how much I hated working out and how bad I was at sports, was a belief and a fear that I couldn’t do any of them even if I tried really hard. 

As I’ve mentioned in my recent blogs, I’m coming off a pretty hard and painful season. I’ve walked through some moments that I literally thought I could not make it another second more.  I’ve sat paralyzed on a curb, been curled up on the floor or in my bed barely able to breathe, and I’ve rocked in my favorite chair letting out cries I didn’t know I could.

And when I saw the CleftStrong 5k post on Instagram (for yet another year), I heard a whisper in my heart.   You can do hard things.

Jesus was inviting me into something and I didn’t have to understand it, I just had to obey.

So I signed up and had one goal: run the entire race without walking.

I just knew. I knew that somehow this would all be a part of my healing. I knew that I coulddo this, because I can do hard things.  For me, my source of strength is the risen Savior Jesus Christ; I often reminded students that we are clothed in his righteousness and filled with the same power that raised him from the dead so we can tackle the dark things of this life. For the first time, Jesus was asking me to rely on his sustaining power to endure something I had always been scared of trying: running.

I did a little research, found a running plan, and started my training on August 13. When my legs grew weak (which was very quickly in the beginning) and I had to work hard to keep my breathing controlled, I would say in my mind, ‘I can do hard things’ over and over and over again.

I can do hard things.

I can do hard things.

I grew a little impatient with the plan and started running longer on the long days and faster on the short days. And I had to be very disciplined to take rest days—who would have thought?! Exactly 3 weeks from the first day I started running, I ran 3.1miles (a 5k!) without. Walking. once.     

 Can I get a woot woot for this sports girl??   Yes and amen, please. 

It took me 32:50, but I did it. And in 4 weeks and 2 days I’m going to do it again, but faster. 

Six weeks ago if you’d have asked me if I would ever be a runner, I would have laughed—heck, I’m still laughing. But now I’m dreaming of days when I’ll run a 10k and a half marathon. I’m getting nuts over here, because the more I do this hard thing the more empowered I become.

I’m doing something I had convinced myself I could never do. And I’m not just doing it, I’m enjoying it. 

I get to join a community to raise awareness for craniofacial anomalies and raise funds for the support it provides, you can support my fundraising efforts here. And all the while I’m growing and getting stronger. I don’t just mean physically, though I do feel great. The more I step out in faith and push myself, the more Jesus is teaching me. The Spirit is meeting me on each run and making little deposits of faith in my spirit, small doses of God-breathed healing ointment in my heart.

I don’t know what your hard thingis. Maybe it’s budgeting, getting healthy, yelling less, going to counseling, journaling, praying more, or being still. Whatever it is, I can tell you this, friend, you can do hard things. 

When I cross the finish line on October 12 with my best friend by my side, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna weep. It’s going to be more climactic than that free-throw in 6^thgrade, because it’s about so much more than a race—somehow it represents something deeply significant in my life. And after I sob a little, I imagine that my smile will be as wide as Texas, because it feels really good to do the hard thing that an enemy voice has always told you you’d never do. 

Sisters and brothers, you can do the hard thing. I believe in you.