i can run
a poem.
“I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.”-Romans 7:15
This year, I’m doing a misogi. A challenge where I have a 50% chance of succeeding.
In fact, at this point, I feel my chances are likely less than 50%. My misogi is to run a marathon. If you’ve read any of my posts about my first triathlon, you may think that a marathon would be a piece of cake for me.
Wrong.
Running is my weakest of the three disciplines. There’s nothing I enjoy about it, and this time around my miles are averaging around 11 minutes per mile.
But a year ago someone told me they thought God would encounter me while running, and that has unfortunately been true. So I run. Running has felt impossibly hard in this season, but in it, God has shown me plenty about weakness and perseverance and rest and pain. I have found myself understanding my human nature in such a tangible way.
I can safely say that I have never woken up excited to spend the next two hours huffing and puffing through the heat. I have never caught myself running involuntarily or accidentally going too far. And though it’s hard and requires intentionality, there has never been a day I have regretted it.
Yet there have been many times when I’ve unintentionally overeaten, slipped into watching too much YouTube or wasted a morning in prayer answering text messages. I always regretted it. And yet it is so easy to do.
Why is it that it is so easy to do the things I don’t want to do and yet so hard to do that which is beneficial?
I don’t know. What I do know is that the last 9 months of this challenge have shown me something else at the same time. I can get up sick and jet lagged and manage to run 17 miles that day. I can run hours on end when just a few months ago, finishing 1 mile was a struggle. I can get up at 6 AM and do something I dread. I can run.
And it brought me to writing this poem.
I can run.
i’m great at running
but not for marathons
I can run from
the ones i love most
stubborn and headstrong
in the opposite of connection.
i can run from destiny
trying for a different hand
when i know all along
i’m destined for beautiful feet.
i can run from what’s good for me
the conversations with my coach
and the calories to keep me going.
i run from rest
pushing my heart over the edge
before i eat my daily bread
my body not caught up
with my soul.
i run from Him
on days I miss Him most
the one who gives me the breath
to take the next stride
loves the hell out of my flesh
and causes me to finish well.
but i cannot seem to run a marathon
or train for it anyway
my discipline complains as it
drains.
if only
i saw it as grace
i’m perfectly good at running
but not, it seems
for the race that matters most.
but if i can run
away
i can run
back
i can run the race
the question comes
will i?
For the One,
