Strength In What You Don’t Know

On a Saturday a few weeks ago, I ran a half-marathon in a state park near Nashville with my daughter Kat.  Even though the race was dubbed the “Frostbite Half,” the daytime temperature was expected to reach the low 50s, perfect for a run.  But the night before, the forecast turned from delightful to dismal.  At the starting line, it was a bone-chilling 24 degrees with 20 to 30 mile per hour winds.  Not what I had in mind.   How many clothes can one wear and still be able to run?

“Set, go,”  and 640 crazy runners headed down the road.  For the first two and a half miles, people passed me like I was a lame turtle.  This is not good, I thought.  The race began with an uphill.  This also was not so good, but I thought, well, what goes up, must go down.  But the path kept an almost constant uphill climb on old rutted logging roads through a forest of ancient cedars.   At mile 6, I reached for my little Snickers, now frozen and tasteless.  I kept running, expecting any minute to see a sign verifying “the middle of nowhere.”  I couldn’t stop -- they would not have found me until three weeks later frozen by a tree.  I thought about all the times in my life when quitting was not a choice, and I HAD to keep going:  four difficult pregnancies, eight major moves as a family, and responding to cries in the night when I was running on empty.  Just keep going, I told myself then.  And I told myself now.

Just past the halfway point, my husband and one of our daughters, holding a mug of steaming coffee, jumped out of their nicely warmed car to cheer me on.  “It’s downhill the rest of the way!” my husband lied to keep me going. 

At mile 9 on an unpaved dirt road, I could hear small rocks crunching beneath my feet, hoping that it was only gravel and not pieces of my frozen toes breaking off.   The course turned onto a two lane highway, where runners now struggled single-file on a narrow shoulder, separated only by a skinny white line from cars and trucks whizzing past.  No trees blocked the wind, making it hard to even stay on the pavement at all.  I felt like I was running in place.  A few more people passed.  I no longer cared.  With one mile to go in the race, we turned back into the cedar forest, uphill to the finish. 

After inhaling a cup of  hot chocolate, I chuckled to find out I had finished second in my age category.  I was just glad to still be alive.

If I had known how bitterly cold it would be, if I had known how uphill, if I knew what I was getting into…would I have even gone there?  I doubt it.   If anything, running has taught me that there is a strength in what you don’t know.  When you are faced with adversity,  pray to God for stubbornness and plow your way through.  You may not know what is around the next bend.  But you will “keep on keeping on,” as they say in the South.  There is a strength and grace in not knowing, a blessing in our ignorance.

 

He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might He increases strength.

Even youths  shall faint and be weary,

and young men shall fall exhausted,

but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.

                                     Isaiah 40. 29-31