My Love/Hate (It Tries to Kill Me) Relationship with Running

Running is tricky business. On one hand it's a beautiful, energizing, and strengthening thing. It can make you believe new things about yourself, and it can bond people together in their common stride. And on the other hand, it's a sweaty, exhausting, ugly cry kind of thing. Sometimes I feel as though I might die, and when we run in the early evening with no breeze and the sun is burning my skin off, death is more real than one might think. Running constantly teaches me something. Maybe a small lesson or maybe something more profound, but each time I tie up those laces I come home with something I didn't have before I left.

The other night Chris and I took a run together. He pushes Nora in the jogging stroller because, let's be honest, I can hardly breathe carrying my own frame; the thought of pushing her stroller while running immediately makes me sprawl out onto the floor (imagine a person in the shape of a star fish with their face to the carpet) and never want to get up. But thankfully Chris takes one for the team, and these evening runs seem to be something we all look forward to in some capacity. We ran two nights ago, and there was a gracious breeze that accompanied us most of the way. I am typically more pleasant and pensive during runs when the weather conditions aren't trying to kill me, and I started to think about this life and suffering and hardships. Nothing too heavy.

As I ran, the breeze felt so good. It was refreshing and light and the perfect element for our run. But then I started to notice that my legs were burning. They felt stiff, and my knees ached. Breathing was taking effort, and my Pandora station rotated a commercial into my mix. Nothing like a commercial to stifle your groove, but I digress. My mind started processing the spiritual implications of what I was realizing, and I felt humble by the lesson pointed out to me. Life is sometimes hard; a lot of times it's hard. Our knees ache, our lungs burn, and all we want is to quit- to lay star fish style downward at home and refuse to engage in life. As believers in Jesus, often times suffering and the aches and pains of life can be surprising to us. They throw off our groove, and it can be a struggle to keep up the pace. But then there's that breeze. The breeze didn't make me forget the ache in my knees, it didn't make the struggle of the run itself dissipate, but it made the run more bearable. It was refreshing and sustaining when I was being asked to keep moving even when I didn't feel like it.

That's who God is in the midst of our sufferings. He's our breeze. He doesn't always alleviate the ache in our hearts or prevent life's chaos from entering into our lives, but He's with us. He sustains us during these times, and He stays with us to keep us moving and to refresh us when we simply feel like we can't take another step. We don't live in an untouchable bubble because we follow Jesus; we're going to experience life's pain and heartbreaks just like everyone else. But we have a breeze that maybe others can't feel. We have an element available to us that keeps our spirits going even when we don't feel like it.

I love running, and I hate running. I hate the days that I come home with a poor minute/mile or when I feel like I never got my second wind, but I'm never disappointed that I chose to run. I love that even on my lame runs, I come back with some sort of gain. I love that for me running isn't just about running, and I love that in life I get spiritual breezes just when my heart is achy and needs new Life breathed into me.