It’s hard for me to believe three weeks ago I was running a marathon. My body is pretty well recovered and I’ve moved on to yard work, gardening, short runs and bike rides. In many ways things have returned to normal.
But the marathon stays with me. In the past few days I realized the lessons and formation of these months of running were not over with the final exam of the race, and a grade of passing with a finishers medal. Like any great class, there is a lifetime of growing into these new ideas and applying the lessons.
The one that stays with me these days is the truth about pain. We humans do a lot to avoid pain. Everything from mindless over eating, to watching television, drugs, alcohol, working too much, sleeping or surrounding ourselves with noise and distraction. I understand this. Who wants to deal with pain? Who wants to go looking for it?
Endurance running, training really, for anything is all about pain. It’s all about being in pain and pushing past it. It’s finding a new threshold of what you can endure and reaching for a goal that lies beyond it. In my case, it was a finish line 6.2 miles beyond the worst pain I have ever experienced.
In the days since the marathon there have been left over loose ends, difficult situations, challenging relationships and questions of wrong and right that have nothing to do with running. Painful and messy problems and questions that just keep bubbling to the surface. The real marathon final exam.
Here is my answer. Pain is an inevitable part of life, whether we choose it, or it chooses us. It is uncomfortable and unpleasant and at times unbearable. When pain makes itself known, the easy answer is to run from it, or try to ignore it but pain always catches up, and eventually consumes us. The longer we ignore it or try to avoid it the more it takes over our actions.
I don’t want to be a person that lives with a fear of pain dictating my choices. I don’t want to live in pain either, but sometimes we just have to. I know now not only can I survive pain, I can find moments of grace in the midst of it. Perhaps when we are in the most pain, we are most aware of the smallest things that help us through it. A friend who listens, a well-timed cup of water, someone who will cheer for you by name. Pain, if we accept it as part of our journey and something we are conditioned to handle, won’t consume us. But first we need to accept it. We need to accept that it will test us; force us to be vulnerable, accept our limitations and to ask for and receive help.
My final answer to this marathon exam is pain is often far worse in our imagination and fear then it ever is in our reality. We are conditioned to handle so much. These painful, messy real life issues that have come up during this marathon don’t have a visible finish line right now. There are still difficult choices and unpleasant realities. I accept this pain is part of the process. I know now that I will endure it. I will find the moments of grace that carry me to the other side of the pain, a finish line of a life recovered and joy and celebration in growth. Pain is part of the journey. Only we can decide if it will have the final answer.
17 May 2010
06 May 2010
Life Beyond the Soreness
It’s been almost two weeks since the marathon. The soreness is only a memory and regular, post-marathon life has resumed in full force. There’s been work to catch up on, and to-do lists to handle. The novelty of talking about it has worn off. It’s as if the “been there, done that” mentality has set in. That’s how it’s supposed to be. It was a few hours and a few months of my life. They are over. Time to move on.
But when that soreness fades, one can find herself with a lot of questions. What’s next? Where do I go from here? There is an abundance of free time and no need to carbo-load or hydrate or even run. And yet, I’m just not ready to move right into another challenge. There’s a lot of wandering around and wondering. Now that I have crossed through that open gate and changed, how do I live? How do I continue to honor the experience and the person I have become through it?
I think these questions will stay with me for a while. But I have discovered something in the days beyond the marathon, amidst all the questions and aimless wandering through each day.
It started with my first, post-marathon run on Sunday afternoon. It was rainy, a dismal day. The timing tag was still on my shoes. I left it there and trudged out the door without enthusiasm for three miles. I had no expectations of this run, so I just let my body carry me through the familiar motions. It was just another routine run.
But something had changed. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s different since this race for the past week or so. It’s not confidence. I don’t have feelings of “I can take on the world, I have run a marathon (though I have joked in that manner to friends.)” The feeling is more like peace.
Yesterday morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw an indigo bunting sitting on the grass below my bird feeder. I gasped when I saw it. They are tiny, smaller than a sparrow but the brightest blue in creation. This tiny bird has a way of commanding attention with its spectacular color. I have only seen one at one other time in my life. The fact that it was hanging out in my yard felt like a small miracle. I watched it for an hour, flying back and forth, perching on the telephone wire and eating at the feeder.
Watching that indigo bunting I realized what changed is my faith. We never can tell when God will grab us, and invite us on a new journey. Grace happens in our routines, in every day moments. Like the bright blue indigo bunting it streaks across our vision and leaves us to stand there, staring with mouths agape at the splendor of holiness.
The post-marathon peace is a trust in God, and a trust in those invitations. I’ve realized my faith no longer needs answers or reasons. Just as I can’t control the indigo bunting in my yard, I can’t control when God will show up and invite me to something crazy, even painful. Something like a marathon. I am now open to those invitations and trust that they will come. Those three-mile runs that lead us to marathons and the indigo buntings that invite us to sit still with the questions and to remember that God will find us where we are, and invite us to deeper holiness. There is a sense of peace in knowing that, and knowing that all I have to do is say “yes.”
But when that soreness fades, one can find herself with a lot of questions. What’s next? Where do I go from here? There is an abundance of free time and no need to carbo-load or hydrate or even run. And yet, I’m just not ready to move right into another challenge. There’s a lot of wandering around and wondering. Now that I have crossed through that open gate and changed, how do I live? How do I continue to honor the experience and the person I have become through it?
I think these questions will stay with me for a while. But I have discovered something in the days beyond the marathon, amidst all the questions and aimless wandering through each day.
It started with my first, post-marathon run on Sunday afternoon. It was rainy, a dismal day. The timing tag was still on my shoes. I left it there and trudged out the door without enthusiasm for three miles. I had no expectations of this run, so I just let my body carry me through the familiar motions. It was just another routine run.
But something had changed. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s different since this race for the past week or so. It’s not confidence. I don’t have feelings of “I can take on the world, I have run a marathon (though I have joked in that manner to friends.)” The feeling is more like peace.
Yesterday morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw an indigo bunting sitting on the grass below my bird feeder. I gasped when I saw it. They are tiny, smaller than a sparrow but the brightest blue in creation. This tiny bird has a way of commanding attention with its spectacular color. I have only seen one at one other time in my life. The fact that it was hanging out in my yard felt like a small miracle. I watched it for an hour, flying back and forth, perching on the telephone wire and eating at the feeder.
Watching that indigo bunting I realized what changed is my faith. We never can tell when God will grab us, and invite us on a new journey. Grace happens in our routines, in every day moments. Like the bright blue indigo bunting it streaks across our vision and leaves us to stand there, staring with mouths agape at the splendor of holiness.
The post-marathon peace is a trust in God, and a trust in those invitations. I’ve realized my faith no longer needs answers or reasons. Just as I can’t control the indigo bunting in my yard, I can’t control when God will show up and invite me to something crazy, even painful. Something like a marathon. I am now open to those invitations and trust that they will come. Those three-mile runs that lead us to marathons and the indigo buntings that invite us to sit still with the questions and to remember that God will find us where we are, and invite us to deeper holiness. There is a sense of peace in knowing that, and knowing that all I have to do is say “yes.”
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