Day 2: Learning to Run

    I have always hated running.  I joined the track team in fifth grade because it seemed like the thing to do at the time, but I found myself with lungs burning, feet stumbling, and my whole body feeling like I was going to die.  Breathing was difficult, and every fiber of my being told me that I was not meant to be a runner.  The high jump seemed like a much better option.  Or the long jump.  I was good at jumping.  Running was too hard.

    Part of me wishes I knew more about running when I was a child.  No one ever told me that learning to run is really hard, but it gets better.  I didn't know that my burning muscles and cramping sides were a normal part of learning to run.  To my childish understanding, if running didn't feel good, it just meant that I was not cut out to be a runner.  I had avoided running for years when one day my husband Brandon decided that he wanted to learn to run.  Good for him.  He bought shirts to wick away his sweat and fancy shoes to retrain the arches of his feet.  Following a "Couch to 5K" program, he went from running 30 seconds at a time, to minutes of alternated running and walking, to longer stretches of running versus walking, and finally, to a 5K run.  We saved the paper signs and safety pins that held a giant black number to his shirt when he ran in his very first 5K race.  He subscribed to a running magazine and began to monitor his caloric intake, balancing his daily diet and exercise.  His waistline shrank, and his self-confidence grew.  I stood on the sidelines with a proud-wife smile on my face.  My husband had become a runner.

    Fairly early in his running program, I joined my husband and went on a few runs with him.  I'll never forget when I, several months after giving birth to my daughter, totally peed my pants on a run several blocks away from our home.  Not just a dribble.  We're talking about a full-on peeing of the pants.  There was nothing to do but keep running.  I was so embarassed, but Brandon told me that it was fairly common for women to lose control of their bladdars while running.  I felt a little bit better after that, but I still had some really squishy shorts until we made it home.  That was not bad, however, compared to the physical discomfort of running itself.  All of my old childhood complaints resurfaced: difficulty breathing, stitched sides, leaden feet, face heating to a beet red, and the feeling that my sinuses were shriveling with dryness.  I hated it.  It was not difficult to justify just letting Brandon run while I stayed home to take care of our new baby.

    Two years later, a new friend asked me to begin running with her in the early morning.  I was extremely skeptical, but she convinced me to try the Couch to 5K program with her.  Our first run was really not bad at all.  I only ran for 30 seconds at a time, I could breathe, and I did not have an overwhelming sensation of imminent death.  Our next couple of runs were pretty good, too, but it soon became difficult to coordinate times to meet and run.  We had many excuses to put it off: the summer heat, starting work early, being too tired.  Our runs gradually petered out, and I was not too disappointed.  Though I enjoyed spending time with my friend, I did not really like waking up so early in the morning to do something so uncomfortable, especially when it was tricky to consistently schedule time to run together.  I thought I was content to let it pass, but it was too late.  I had a taste of the satisfaction that comes from successfully doing something that is difficult but beneficial.  I could not get running out of my head, but I was still not ready to set out on my own.

    When I rediscovered belief in God yesterday, I began to feel excited about the new life laid before me.  I began to think about what I could change about my daily habits to allow room for God every day.  That was when I decided that it was time to start running.  What better way to start the day than conquering one of my oldest failures and allowing a breadth of silent (relatively) undistracted time to listen to the voice of God?  Would it be difficult?  Yes.  Uncomfortable?  Yes.  Rewarding?  Yes.  And good for my body and soul.  A lot like believing in God.

    When my alarm went off at 5:50am this morning, I rolled out of bed and into my morning routine, except I pulled on Nikes and exercise clothes instead of my work gear.  Six a.m. found me briskly walking down the street in the coolness beneath the early morning sky.  I was ready to run.  But this time I went with no illusions.  It was a beginning, and it would be hard.  I prayed as I walked the first few blocks to warm up.  As I relished the beautiful weather and the peace of our quiet neighborhood, it felt good to be alive and starting something new.  Not following a specific program, I shot for a half-hour run following a familiar route my friend and I had used together.  I would run for a block or two with breath coming in measured huffs and puffs.  I tried to keep my head held high and my eyes before me.  Were my shoulders relaxed?  Was my stride too long or too short?  I did not really know, but I tried to adopt a comfortable posture as my feet slapped the pavement, carrying me toward the next intersection.  Only a couple more driveways until I could walk again...but walking was not much better than running.  As soon as my pace slowed to a walk, it seemed even harder to breathe steadily, and exhaustion would hit me like a giant hand.  Needless to say, it was not fun.  But I did it.  I ran in little chunks and walked between them to catch my breath.  Once I reached a rough halfway point, I walked the rest of the way home.

  I wish I would have had time to write my thoughts this morning right after my run, because I have already forgotten many of the specific Bible verses, snippets of songs, and phrases that coursed through my head as I ran and listened for God's voice.  But they were there.  The only one I clearly remember is the part of Hebrews 12:1 that tells us to "Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us."  I had spent years walking and crawling through my life.  Now, I am learning to do hard things.  I am learning to run.

Day One: It All Started in the Shower

    This seemed like an average Tuesday.  I woke up to a terrible radio station on my alarm clock combined with beeps and static.  After rolling out of bed and groggily feeding the animals, I trudged downstairs, picked out my clothes for the day, and started the shower.  I didn't know my life was about to change.
    I live with depression, and sometimes waking up doesn't seem worth the effort.  For a few weeks, my mind has been playing a question on repeat: "What is the point of life?"  Not just my life, but all life.  Why are we here?  What does it mean to be a human being on the face of this planet?  What is truth?  What is love?  How does my existence fit into the grand scheme of the universe?  I know these are questions that most people ask themselves, but even knowing it is normal has been scant consolation to me.  I want my life to mean something.  I want the world to have a point.  I want to know that whatever happens to me has a purpose.
    I used to believe that the God of Christianity had a plan for my life.  Raised in a Christian family, I attended church multiple times per week from my infancy.  I grew up on a steady stream of Christian books, Christian movies, Christian music, church camp, Bible quizzing, praise band, and finally, a Christian private college.  I knew what Christianity was all about.  I had practically bathed in it my entire life.  I did all of the right things: prayed, went to church regularly, read the Bible, kept a prayer journal, attended Bible studies, and played music in various different praise bands.  However, I felt empty.  It seemed like I was seeking but not finding.  Even though my life was so full of Christianity, God seemed far off and hard to find.  I was reaching out, but I felt like everything that had been promised to me when I became a Christian was still out of my grasp.  It wasn't fair.  I was doing everything right!  It didn't make sense.
    In 2007 my world turned upside down.  The Christian family I had grown up in disintegrated before my eyes as my parents separated, then divorced.  Despite all of my prayers and faith, God had not saved my parents' marriage.  His love had not been enough to teach them to love each other.  I was crushed, and all of my beliefs crumbled.  Everything I had been taught seemed useless.  If God could not save a Christian family, was he even real?  Was there even a god, or power, or consciousness that heard my pleas?  What had once seemed rock solid lay spread out like a million grains of sand around me.  If there was not God, then what was there?  I felt alone in my pain.
    As time passed, I gradually began to assemble a collection of fragmented beliefs, picking them out of the rubble left behind after the divorce.  I chose each one carefully, making sure I actually believed it.  I kept nothing out of a sense of duty or guilt.  Each piece I salvaged was a genuine belief that I accepted only after careful analysis and stringent examination.  I first believed that there was a higher power.  There seemed to be too much of a distinction between good and evil in the world to deny that some standard had to have been originally set for human behavior and morals.  Beyond that, how could a world of such beautiful complexity exist merely by chance?  I think it would have taken more faith for me to not believe in a higher power than for me to admit that there was probably an intelligent force at work in the universe.
    After I believed in a higher power, I began to examine other beliefs I used to take for granted.  I analyzed the God of Christianity.  I took a bitter, jaded look at Him and decided that He still made more sense to me than any other religion I had encountered.  I then moved from God to Jesus and decided that yes, I could keep Jesus, too.  But I wasn't sure about the effectiveness of prayer, the validity of certain theological interpretations of scripture, or how much God really has to do with day-to-day life on this planet.  Were the things I was taught about the nature of God still true?  I could not believe that God had a plan for me.  Not yet.
    A dear friend of mine tried to lead me in prayerful meditation to start healing the brokenness in me, but I was too skeptical of prayer to venture very far down that path.  Everything was still too raw, even years after the split.  I was married by then.  I had a daughter, a home, pets, a job...all of the makings of a good life.  However, I lived in the shadow of depression.  How could I rest when any day my life could fall apart?  My marriage could implode.  My daughter could die in a freak accident.  My mental health could hit the breaking point and land me in the hospital with a string of bills in the wake.  There were just no guarantees that I would be okay.  I was not safe.  Life was a scary, uncertain place, and I struggled frequently with depression, fear, and anxiety.  I felt like God was a spectator in a sky box, watching humanity with half-apathetic interest to see what we would make of our lives.  I did not ask him for anything.  I would not risk the pain of another disappointment.
    Throughout the entire searching process, I did not give up going to church.  Even though I was not sure I even believed in a higher power, much less Christianity, I was not willing to stop seeking for truth.  I figured it couldn't hurt to listen to sermons and analyze them.  I think even in the deepest parts of my doubt, I was still drawn to the God of my childhood and youth.  I believed that if God was not real, I would emerge from my search empty-handed.  If he was real, He would not mind if I poked and prodded him a little bit to make sure.  I did not really want to give up on God.  I just wanted a good reason to keep believing.  I wanted enough proof to make it safe to trust again.
    I entered counseling and began taking medication to treat my depression.  My mental health became a roller coaster of "okay" highs and panicky, weeping, paralyzing lows.  Sometimes I had thoughts of suicide.  I felt broken beyond repair, and it was a struggle to function like a normal person.  I swung like a pendulum between loving gratitude for my family and a leaden, hopeless desire to leave them and live by myself.  I tried to convince my husband that he would be better off without me.  I pictured a small apartment in my mind: a safe, quiet place where I could be alone until I could fix myself.  If I could just be alone, if I just had time to sort it all out, maybe I could get better somehow.  Every tiny conflict in life seemed unbearable.  I stretched out my hands desperately for happiness, but it seemed to be very, very far away.
    Beneath the pain and panicked reactions to fear, I still believed that there might be help for me.  In the times when all I could do was collapse and cry, I reached out for life.  I cried out to a God in whom I was not sure I even believed.  In the deepest part of my despair, I called out to the God of my youth and begged for help.  I did not know what kind of help to ask for.  I was not sure I even believed that He would do anything.  I was just out of options.  As I cried and pleaded, I sensed that God heard me.  I believed it.  I did not hear a voice or see a vision.  There were no miracles, no Bible verse leaping off of the page to comfort me, no phone call from a friend who "just felt that God was telling me to call you."  Only silence.  But in that silence, I felt that there was help for me.  I was not alone.  My tears slowed, and as I climbed from my knees, I felt drained, but no longer hopeless.  There was a God, and there was help coming for me.
    My sessions with the counselor were eventually so successful that he and I agreed that I did not need to come regularly anymore.  I had learned how to cope with conflict, how to self-differentiate from my parents and my spouse, and how to assert myself.  My psychiatrist told me he wished he could show me off to his colleagues, because they really still did not have much of an idea how people who have depression get better, and he was pleased with the progress I had made in my treatment.  I still had highs and lows, but it seemed that the extremes were becoming less as I learned how to successfully navigate life's obstacles.  I felt that I had gained much from the time I spent in counseling, and it seemed like a graduation when I left the office that day.  However, life still felt heavy.  Not unmanageable, but not joyful.  Not terrible, but not wonderful.  Not volatile, but not secure.  There was still something broken in me.
    I couldn't figure out what it was.  Was it my marriage?  My job?  My home?  My faults and flaws?  My social life?  Even though none of those things was perfect, none was flawed enough to be called "bad."  My life was enviable in many ways.  I really had no room to complain.  So why did I feel so restless?  Why could I not be content?  I flitted from project to project, trying to find happiness in my many hobbies.  I re-read favorite books.  I watched TV and movies with my husband.  I played with my beautiful baby daughter.  I cooked, decorated cakes, and cleaned my house.  I sewed curtains for my mother.  Nothing seemed to have a point.  They were all good things, but they didn't mean anything.  I was adding water to the ocean with an eyedropper.  The tiny amount of beautiful and creative things I did seemed futile.  I was still depressed. 
    That feeling was with me when I climbed into the shower this morning.  In the early morning stillness of my house, I faced a new day and did not care.  What was another day?  My life had no meaning.  Just another day of breathing, eating, working, playing, and finally, sleeping.  A simple human existence.  I would probably never have a lot of money or be famous.  I would probably never create anything that would change the world.  I was just a woman in a small town, living in a small house, working at a low-level no-prestige job to pay the bills while other people raised my daughter.  What could this day possible hold for me?
    As I mechanically washed my hair, I thought about something my pastor had said in his sermon on Sunday.  He was preaching from the book of John, and he read the story of Jesus and Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was a Jewish teacher.  The religious law was his entire life.  He knew all about what God required of his people, and he was secure in that.  Then, he met Jesus, and Jesus told him that he needed to be born again if he wanted to see the kingdom of God.  Thinking logically, Nicodemus asked how it would be possible for a man to enter his mother's womb a second time.  It seemed pretty impossible.  However, despite all of his study, all of his knowledge, Nicodemus could not perceive the spiritual truth that was being laid before his eyes.  Jesus explained that the new birth was of water and spirit.  For Nicodemus to see the kingdom of God, he would have to lay aside his understanding of the way things of God worked.  He would have to believe something new.  Something impossible.
    When Jesus was performing all kinds of crazy miracles, people flocked to follow him.  They celebrated him, they praised him; they hung on his every word.  They also changed their minds as soon as Jesus no longer appeared to be successful.  By the time he made it to the cross, even his best friends had run away and said they didn't even know him.  He seemed to have utterly failed.  Everything that had "proved" him to be the Messiah had fallen apart.  Where was his adoring fan club?  Where were his miracles?  Where was the voice from heaven calling him "Son?"  No one knew the plan God had for Jesus as he hung up there dying.  What a disappointment Jesus was.  We thought he was going to save us, but he didn't.  We believed in him, but we were wrong.  It didn't make sense...until later.
    This morning, I realized that I need to believe in something bigger than myself.  No, not "need" as in "I am obligated," or, "I should," or "It would be a good thing if..."  If I am going to remain alive on this planet, I need to believe that there is a purpose for my life.  My spirit is dying a slow death without that belief.  I am being swallowed by depression and fear.  I am unable to enjoy the simplest pleasures in life because they all feel so pointless.  I need to believe that I am a thread being woven into a pattern of beautiful intent.  I need to believe that the painful things I endure in life are worth more than my momentary comfort and self-preservation.  So I do.  As of this morning.  For the first time in my life, I believe that God has a plan for me.  I don't believe it because I have been convinced by facts or impressed by crazy miracles.  I don't believe it because God answered my prayers and saved my family from painful dissolution.  He didn't.  But I am choosing to believe because I need to.  And you know what?  By the time I stepped out of the shower this morning, the depression was gone.  In its place: joy.