I typically use my blog as a platform to get a bit artsy, and share some poetry. However, I wanted to use my blog to share a bit of my journey over the last year. The struggles, the lessons in hopes you will join me in the next immediate step of my journey.
I am currently packing to head up to UC Davis tomorrow with the track team to compete at the Big West Conference Track and Field Championships. I will be running the 10k on Friday evening. (And hush hush maybe also the 5k Saturday afternoon.) After the last year it seems crazy to me that I am packing to go race! In the last year I have struggled through two stress-reactions in the same left femur, numerous illnesses (including getting sick the day after I ran pain free for the first time in three months) and set-back after set-back.
When I arrived at UCR I envisioned season after season of All-Conference performances, which would lead to numerous individual conference championships, and some All-Americans along the way. It has been anything but that. A year back or so my dad asked if he thought my purpose at UCR was perhaps to grow spiritually more then it was to run fast. I insisted I thought God put me here to race well, but time has made clear that my time at UCR has never been about breaking records and all about God shaping me for what's next in my life. By sharing a few songs that have really shaped my meditation in the last year I hope to share a bit of my journey.
+Finish what He Started- Steven Curtis Chapman
I heard this song for the first time right after my stress reaction in my femur had been diagnosed for a second time. I was one week away from going to race indoor track and race for the first time in about 9 months. I was in the midst of a massive training block and was in the best shape of my life. Then my leg begun to hurt and within a week I couldn't run at all. I felt like months of work were stolen from me. As I heard this song in church I wept, and yelled back at the worship team that this song wasn't true. I felt like I was working toward finishing what I had started and then it was gone. It is easy to believe the words in this song when things are going well. But to truly believe God is going to weave every thread together when the threads are disintegrating is almost painful. I have listened to this song nearly everyday for the last six months as I learn to daily trust the Lord. God will finish what he started, I just need to realize it may not be what I thought we were starting (its always better!) and the journey to finishing is going to be unclear to me. All I can do is daily trust the One who is guiding the journey.
I have discovered in the last year that when you are truly desperate to hear the Lord he often speaks. The last bit has been a time of desperation, and every time I cried out I heard from the Lord. It is sad to me, that it often takes us being shaken to become desperate to hear the Lord. I want to be desperate to hear from the Lord in seasons of plenty and seasons of drought. This last season has been one of drought. I wake up desperate for the touch of God to make it through the day. And every time I have asked God has touched me. Last week I was on the track for the first time since January, working through my first time really running fast in months. It was extremely painful, my body was not use to running fast, and I was in considerable pain trying to click off K's on the track. I finished the workout nearly in tears, my body was broken, and my heart was heavy. I didn't want to go race the 10k if it was going to be nothing but pain, and feeling absolutely defeated, I heard the Lord speak to me right on the track. I head him say, "Give me your brokenness, I can carry it all for you." My personal desert song today is: take it all, carry all my brokenness!
This song is the victory I am praying for this weekend! The last year has been very much about letting go of the victories, letting go of the racing and giving the results to God either way. God has created me to compete, my moments of deepest personal communion I have had with God have all been while I am competing. At times actually racing, or at other times training while I compete with myself, or my watch. Unfortunately I often manipulate this desire to compete and let it become god. Much of this season has been spent wrestling through my desire to make my gifts my gods. My trust of my body, of my ability to train and race, have been stripped away, as I have learned to truly trust what I should have been trusting all along and that's the One who gave me the gifts. As I pack I feel like I am entering this race in ruins. The training, the time on the track, and the preparations are simply not there. But I am not stepping on the track on Friday night to race for a time or a podium spot, I am stepping on the track to enter the Throne room of God. Doing what God has created me to do, race, I want to take that opportunity to bow down and look toward the Cross as my failure is lost! I am stepping on the track in faith believing that ruins have been brought to life!
I need your help! The last few weeks I have been drawn to the story of Jericho. I have spent some time studying it, and really feel as though my 25 laps around the track are like the laps around the city of Jericho. My prayers for the last week have been that as I race lap after lap the Lord would tear down the walls of this Jericho season. That the walls of this dessert season would be destroyed. But I need some trumpets! Just as the Israelites blew trumpets everyday as they marched around the city, I ask that you would join me in spirit Friday night and pray that the Walls would come down. I would love all the prayer and support I could get.
As I step on the track Friday night (8:35 pm to be exact) my goal is not to win, but to offer my Heart completely to the One who gave it ALL.
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