Where do you go when things get tough?

Where do you go when things get hard? Do you run away physically when it gets tough? Do you walk away from the task and leave the goal unreached because it is too difficult? Do you pray, sing, and recite scripture to distract yourself from the discomfort? Do you press forward, crying as you go simply from exhaustion and pain? Do you remove yourself mentally? Do you simply try to ignore the struggle?

As a Type-A person I tend to compartmentalize everything in my life. Everything is placed into a little box in my mind that just perfectly fits it. Each one is kept by itself, not allowed to touch or to mingle with any of the other areas. This is my attempt to maintain control in my life. But we do not actually have control in our lives, we are not meant to. And if we really stop to consider the ramifications and responsibilities we realize that we really do not want to be in control of our lives. Yet, somehow, I always seem to forget that I do not actually want control and I set to work ‘spring cleaning’ and putting everything away into its little box. But we cannot separate everything in life. Life is a glorious mosaic of the mental, the emotional, the spiritual, and the physical. It is a glorious mixing of all of these that comes out in a beautiful collaboration. As a compartmentalizing Type-A person, I often forget how interconnected every area of my life and self is, until I am doing something so difficult that I must tap into every area of my life and use all of them in synchronization to reach the goal placed before me.

This fall has offered me a new experience at college: running with the Cross Country team. I have never been an athlete, never in my life participated in a competitive sport. But due to a conglomeration of influences and events I joined the team this year. In only two weeks time it has proved to be one of the most difficult things I have ever participated in as well as one of the most rewarding. I had heard that running was a mental game. I was warned that, when it comes down to it in a race, as Coach High said at our athletics retreat, “your mind makes the decision that you can’t keep going and you can’t finish and your mind decides that you’re going to make it and you’re going to finish.” I did not realize how true this was until I actually began to run.

When the workouts get tough and the races are more than my body says it can accomplish, it comes down to my mind and my heart to get me through. On the tour this summer I had a clear purpose and reason to press on. I knew that my ride was not for myself. I knew there were people halfway across the world, people I may never meet in my life but who are part of the family of God, that would be impacted and blessed by my efforts. But what keeps you going in everyday life? What images run through your head that keep you moving forward?

In these last two weeks, the first two weeks of being back on campus and of running Cross Country, I have discovered that one of the biggest things that keeps me going is my tour this summer. When I was running my first hills workout at 5:30 in the morning my body began to say it was finished and could not continue. I know that it is not the context of the verse, but what comes to my mind is the end of Matthew 26:41 (and Mark 14:38) that says “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Our bodies are weak and lazy. They tell us they cannot, they tell us they are sore and tired, they tell us to take the easy way and not to try so hard. But we will never accomplish the things we were meant to if we only listen to our flesh. We will never live life the way we were meant to and thrive in our existence if we give in to our weak, lazy bodies.

At our athletics retreat Coach High explained thriving in this way. “Thriving means doing everything that you are capable of, living to your greatest abilities and potential. Thriving does not happen because you are another year older. It is something you work at, something you practice and work towards.” It takes work to be what God has called us to be and our bodies do not like that work. It comes down to our minds and our hearts.

So where does your mind go when your body wants to give up? For me it has been going back to my tour. As I run hills at 5:30 in the morning I replay my tour in my head. Images of houses we passed, towns we rode through, and scenery we stopped to marvel at flash through my mind. Memories of flat tires, blanket forts, and picnics in the van roll past on repeat. I laugh to myself about inside jokes we developed, stupid mistakes we made, and how many times we got lost. I remember the glories of reaching summits, of racing sunsets, and of flying down the backsides of mountains. We had our first race this last Thursday. It was a small, hardly competitive event with a single other college. It was the first Cross Country race of my life and I hope it will be the hardest. We ran in a nastily humid 95 degrees. Everyone was dragging and running slow. It was the fastest and hardest 5K I have run up to this point in my life (which isn’t really saying that much, but still). We had three laps around the course. About halfway through the second last my body said it was finished but my mind and heart were not ready to quit. I began to relive my tour in my head, pulling out memories of every mountain we climbed, every headwind we rode against, and every inch of road construction we had to navigate. I pulled out images of the Milwaukee roads, more potholes than asphalt, with heavy traffic and debris, and I thanked the Lord I was running on a clean, grass, course. I saw teammates walking up mountains with me because I was too weak to ride them. And my mind jumped to a conversation that me and several other Cross Country runners had with Dr. Watson, one of our professors here at North Central, our first week back on campus. He was amazed at our running and dedication in getting up so early to go do something so hard. “When you are up at 5 in the morning running,” he told us, “I want you to remember that there is a faculty who admires what you are doing.” And I heard in my head Coach Trey’s voice as we did our excruciating core workout in the atrium. “When you’re in the last mile of a race you will look back at this and remember that you’ve worked too hard to give up on that race.” And so I slowly kept running.

As I neared the end I had three lengths of a field to run: across and around one backstop, across and around a second backstop, and then across to the finish line. As I counted the times in my head I told myself “It’s just three more peaks of the Appalachians.” And so I began to climb. But this time, unlike my tour, I did not have to stop and walk. I pushed through and ran the entire distance, reaching the finish line to the voices of my teammates, my coaches, and those of the other college we ran with. There was no logical reason for me to push my body and finish that race except that I could. I had started and refused to leave something undone if I was able to complete it. I had coaches and teammates praying me through, waiting to see me cross that finish line. I biked three mountain ranges this summer. I cycled over 3,000 miles. There is no reason that I cannot run the races before me. They promise to be hard. They promise to hurt. They promise to stretch me and to push me far beyond the limits I have placed for myself. But that is why we are placed on this earth. To be pushed far beyond what we can do so that we can show the world what God can do. “Everything in life that is worth having is worth working for,” Coach High told us. “Life, like sports, is not meant to be easy. The point of a sport is to continually be pushing yourself and always getting better. When it no longer feels hard you are no longer getting better. You have plateaued and are no longer growing. Life was not meant to be comfortable and easy.”