Today I had the joy of getting to run with Ava. Christmas break happens to interrupt the short indoor track season (I'm not complaining), and her coach prescribes various runs for their days off. I have missed running with her -let's face it, I've missed running with anyone- and when she agreed to join me I was more than excited. I can't say that she felt the same. She joined me begrudgingly, complaining that I generally push too fast and run boring routes. I contended that I rarely have a running buddy so my legs don't know what else to do except wear themselves out and that I'm tired of trying to come up with exciting places to run. Despite the complaints and my secret hurt feelings, the fourteen-year-old and the forty-year-old stepped off into the cold and committed to sixty minutes. It felt strange, as the majority of our interactions feel these days, as I began to realize that I wasn't so much taking her on my run; she was tolerating me on hers. When did this happen?
At one point during our run I glanced sideways expecting my little girl to be next to me. Instead, I saw a young lady running in step with me. I paid attention to her footfall; were we running the same cadence? I watched her arms, she holds one of her hands the same way I do. As the minutes turned into miles, I realized I was out of runner's wisdom to share (notice your hip extension, dig into the hill, drive your knees forward); she already knows it all. What took me about twenty-five years to learn, she's learned through being enveloped in a nourishing running environment -a team- in less than two years.
How was it that I was now running with the teenager I wished I would have been?
As we turned left to head down a steep gravel path into the woods, I lamented wasted days in high school and college, literally. I actually enjoyed running, but the lure of parties, popularity, and pride drew me away from putting in miles on the gravel road we lived on in Nebraska where I went to high school or the windy sidewalks of Brookings, South Dakota, where I went to college. I found myself wanting to join a team for cross country or track only to quit once fear and self-consciousness would overwhelm. The truth was, it was easier to disappear at a party or hide in a haze of substances than it was to be held accountable to work hard physically and mentally on a team. I vacillated between what I knew was good for me and what I thought I was good for, never believing I belonged in either camp.
After my parents' messy divorce, my mom promptly remarried a man whose culture was unlike anything my sister and brother and I had ever been exposed to. We were thrust into an unfamiliar and unstable world in the tender preteen years where identity development is just beginning to take hold. In short, I had no idea who I was or where I fit in, and it was easiest simply to refrain from trying too hard, in order that I wouldn't get hurt.
All of this changed when God took hold of my heart and my identity and called me his own. Slowly, counterfeit gods fell by the wayside as I learned who I was in Christ. Instead of bowing to the false hope that I was more likable if I wasn't sober, I discovered being sober illuminated the unshakeable hope I had in Christ Jesus (1 Pet 1:13), that he loved me at my darkest and offered me peace through his finished work on the cross (Rom 5:1,8). And instead of running away from the possibility of losing a race, I began to steward my body for a different purpose (1 Cor 6:19-20). Running became a joy, an intentional way to glorify God through the humble practices of working, resting, recovering, and rejoicing, even in the seasons of injury and sidelining.
It may very well be that my days where I can run with my girl are numbered. I know it will hurt when that day comes, probably physically as well as emotionally. But I also know that I'm running an entirely different race from the one I used to run in vain. And the prize at the finish line is worth every mile (1 Cor 9:24-25).