Trip or grip

We all struggle with something, that which is visible to others, or that which is hidden from view but very real.  

 

We can learn from the stories of others, not just how they coped but how they pressed on and lived through the hard stuff.  This summer, I read the memoir of the beloved children's author Beverly Cleary who passed away this past spring at the ripe old age of 104.  She did not just make up stories for kids.  She lived a very real story of her own.

"Make adversity work for you," she wrote in her 1995 memoir My Own Two Feet.  Beverly's life had not been easy.  Having lived through two pandemics, the Great Depression, two world wars, and a host of other personal troubles and mishaps, she approached difficulty with a great deal of creativity.  When hardship arrived, she did not just make the best of it.  She threw herself into it.  When the only job she could find was an assistant librarian in a small town, she learned as much as she could about children's literature, not realizing at the time that this very narrow and humbling experience--not what she would have chosen-- would set her up to eventually become a writer herself.  We know her best as the writer of children's books, her characters including Ramona, Henry Huggins and a mischievous mouse on a motorcycle. Her first book was not published until she was 54 years old.  More than 90 million of her books have been sold. 

Yesterday, as I ran a local trail through the woods, I dreaded the famed Farrell Road section, a sharp hill studded with massive roots strategically placed in the last sweaty mile, seemingly to trip me up.  I have been this way many times before.  And then as I was struggling up this path which I could not avoid, I realized that the meandering roots actually looked like a staircase.  Not to trip me up, but to give me a grip.  I could see this "affliction" differently and navigate it with a fresh vision.  The roots gave me traction. 

The first time I came upon this treacherous stairway of roots, I was dismayed.  But each time I run this hilly route, each time I encounter this hard place, it no longer defeats me, but it strengthens me for yet another challenge. 

"...maybe that's the real secret weapon:  believing that you have another gear," states PhD physicist and runner Alex Hutchinson in his book Endure:  Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.

And maybe the real secret weapon is knowing it is not in me, but God.  We keep on discovering new dimensions of strength for our journey.  Not mind over matter, but His strength over mine, letting endurance have its perfect work, equipping us for the road ahead, wherever that may be, whatever it entails for our souls, and the story of His faithfulness that God gives us.

How do I approach this hard situation differently?

Blessed are those whose strength is in You,

     in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

As they go through the Valley of Baca

     they make it a place of springs...

They go from strength to strength...

                             Psalm 84. 5-7

More than that,

we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

and hope does not put us to shame,

because God's love has been

poured into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit 

who has been given to us.

                    Romans 5. 3-5 

 

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters,

when you meet trials of various kinds,

for you know that the testing of your faith

                     produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect,

that you may be perfect and complete,

              lacking in nothing.

                            James 1. 2-4