March 06, 2006
Worship CD Review
I recently had the opportunity to listen to "Sovereign Grace Kids". The CD was free to me for review here so I will pass on my opinions to you. I listened to it as well as my wife and children ( 4 and 6).
September 19, 2004
Footprints in the Snow (Continued)
Have you ever been so tired that you could not sleep? That feeling of total exhaustion where your body hurts so bad that you cannot relax. The night after Michael had his disaster was one of those nights. I could not sleep and I was so exhausted that I could not move. I just laid there praying for sleep and praying for answers to the questions that haunted my mind.
At 4am I simply could not resist it any more. I got out of bed and went to work. I know that sounds like a stupid idea but I needed something to take my mind off what had just happened. When I arrived at work my boss looked at me and told me to go home. I explained my situation and he agreed to let me work so that I could keep my mind occupied. I picked up my assignments and then drove out into the pre-dawn cold.
I eventually found a place to park and pulled my car into a dark alley. I began to pray and it was not one of those nice “Churchy” prayers that you might hear prior to some pot luck dinner at the local church. It was a prayer of desperation, a cry for help. I begged God to be more real in my life and make something out of me.
“Why won’t You talk to me?” I cried out.
“Why did you talk to some people and I don’t ever seem to hear anything from you?”
“I am ready to listen.”
And then I waited.
I sensed this eerie feeling that I was not alone. That feeling that we have all had that makes the hair on your arm stand up. It seemed like the Spirit was asking me…
“Are you willing to give me 100% of your life and nothing less?”
Some people may have stopped to think about the consequences of this answer but at that moment all I wanted to do was answer “Yes.” The answer came out as fast as that thoughts running through my mind. The consequences of this answer meant that I would have to be willing to sacrifice my career, my home, my car, my best friend Toby (The family pet), and even my family. With that in mind I still stuck by my answer.
"Yes, I am willing."
His response was not what you would have expected or at least not what I would have expected. I expected a response that sounded something like…
“Then sell everything you own and move to some God forsaken miserable place and help the poor, and act like you like it.”
Luckily, that was not the response that I got, but what I did get could not have been more of a shock. I expected something dangerous and adventurous, something for strong people who have guts and need special forces training. I expected something that would make a good documentary on the National Geographic Channel, but what I got was something far different.
I stood at attention like a soldier awaiting his orders from his commanding officer. I waited for what seemed like an eternity.
“This must be something good, something so crazy that even God himself is hesitant to tell me what it is.” I thought to myself.
Then the order came……………
“Start praying for those people you have been reading about.”
I am sure that God has a sense of humor and He must have had a good laugh as I stood there like a little boy who just opened his big Christmas present only to find that his parents bought him a pair of socks or a new sweater instead of the G.I. Joe Action figure that he was expecting.
“That’s it?”
“Are you sure there isn’t something else you wanted to tell me”
I got no response. It was over. My big moment that I had waited all my life on was over and this was what I got. As disappointing as it may sound I still was fired up and going to do exactly what I was told.
The people I had been reading about were Tibetan Buddhists that lived in Tibet, Nepal, India, and Mongolia. I was reading a book that told about the horrible Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 and the terrible atrocities that followed as they tortured and killed the Tibetan people and the Tibetan’s fled to Nepal and India to escape the persecution and continue in their faith of Tibetan Buddhism. My interest in them prior to this point was only as much as any other people group that I may have seen on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. Now I was vested with this one task and I was determined to do it well.
I began by telling everyone I knew about the Tibetan Buddhist people group and gathering as much prayer support as I could for them. Then I started reading every book that I could get my hands on about them. I must have read 20 books over the next several months as I tried to learn more and more about this mysterious people group that God had laid on my heart. I learned what they ate, what they drank, where they lived, how they lived, what they believed, and how they practiced their faith. I attended art presentations at museums that featured their art work and I gathered around a group of Tibetan nuns as they performed a prayer mani at a bookstore in Knoxville. I did everything I knew to deepen my love and respect for this one small people group that seemed so dear to our Father’s heart.
In my heart I just knew one day that I would do some type of mission work in Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia, or India. I just knew that was what God was preparing me for. Why else would He lay this people group on my heart? I dreamed of working and living among these beautiful people in the land that I had read so much about. Little did I know what type of adventure I was in for?
It was nearly four months later when I sensed the spirit’s presence again like I did that day in my car. I was lying in bed praying before I went to sleep when I suddenly felt like someone was there in the room with me. The hair on my arms stood up and I gripped the bed as I waited for what I just knew was my next assignment. Again, God must have had a good laugh as I stood at attention like a good soldier.
“Alright God, Where are we going? Africa, Tibet, Nepal, India, where? You just name it and I will go.”
Then my answer came.
“I want you to adopt a child.”
“What?????????????????”
“How does dodging spears from headhunters or learning to eat grub worms have anything to do with changing poopy diapers?”
“Are you sure you dialed the right number God?”
Once again, I am sure God just sat back and laughed as that same childish look came over my face as I answered him as slowly as I could.
“OK……….. I guess?????”
Little did I know just what an adventure I was in for? I did not even know where to start! How do you adopt a child? Where should I adopt them from? Is it a boy or a girl? What in the world is my wife going to think about this? I don’t even know how to change a diaper! How I am going to afford this? I am not going to have to fly on an airplane am I? God, you know I am scared to death of flying!
Of course I did not get an answer to any of those questions. God will answer each of them in due time and in His own precious way. My adventure had started and like all great adventures they seldom ever turn out like you think. The next two years would be the hardest two years of my life as we began the process of adoption.
As I look back on that freezing day in February when Michael nearly died I think about how scared I was. I was not scared of just death; I was scared of leaving this World without doing anything for the very one who created me. I was scared of dying without significance. Michael’s tragedy was a horrible mistake on my part and he will forever be scarred because of my poor judgment. Fortunately, God takes bad things and uses them for His Glory. Without being knocked down I would have never looked up. That horrible event set the stage for where God wanted my heart to be so that I would listen.
September 16, 2004
Footprints in the Snow
I have always been fascinated with snow. As a child I longed for the occasional snow day from school and my fondest memories of childhood involved sledding down a steep hill near our house on anything that we could find. Snow brings a peace and quiet that no other time of year can produce. It blankets everything and even a junk yard looks beautiful with a thick blanket of snow.
The winter months are some of my favorite times to be in the mountains. Kayaking in winter means swollen creeks and having the river all to yourself. The higher elevations get heavier amounts of snow and fewer visitors so the trails are often deserted during the colder months. As part of my new outlook on life I began spending as much time in the mountains as I could, especially in the winter time.
I began volunteering with our church youth ministry at Fellowship Church in Knoxville and soon I found myself surrounded by a bunch of senior high young men who shared the same love for adventure and the outdoors. We would hike the Chimneys in the middle of the night or hike up to a beautiful overlook to watch the sun rise. We would look for snow and plan our trips to make sure we were camping high in the mountains any time we saw snow on the forecast. We drove to Wyoming to paint houses on the Shoshone Arapahoe Reservation. We drove to the Rocky Mountain National Park to go snowshoe in the middle of the winter. It seemed there were no bounds to what we would get into and we developed a deep friendship and trust. It seemed that I would take them to the places that most of their parents would not or could not. The parents trusted me and with that trust came a lot of responsibility.
In January 1998 I led a group of guys into the mountains when the forecast called for snow and high winds. We hiked through a snow storm and spent the night in an AT shelter. We stayed up all night talking and telling stories. The wind blew so hard that at times we thought it may take the roof off the old shelter. With the wind came snow and hail and by the next morning it was very deep outside. Despite all the harsh conditions we all had a blast and news of our adventures spread fast through the group. Now we had to decide what we could do next.
It was early February when I saw the forecast for the weekend. A cold front was moving into the mountains and with it was a heavy amount of snow. The temperatures were expected to be in the single digits in the valley and below zero high in the mountains. The group decided that this would be a good opportunity for us to head to the mountains and hike in ahead of the front and try and hike out after the storm hit us. It sounded like a great idea in the warmth of my house as the eight of us made our plans and packed our bags.
The forecast was just as expected. We started out with the temperatures being fairly warm for February but it was not long until the temperatures dropped and it became extremely cold. By now we were high in the mountains and way too far in to turn back. As the sun set the temperature was already in the single digits and we were very cold. We put on every layer of clothing we could find and each of us zipped up our mummy bags and did not move until the next morning. None of us slept but we very quiet. We listened to the wind blow outside our shelter and just focused on trying to stay warm.
The sun never rose the next morning, at least we did not see it. We woke up to a beautiful snow storm outside our shelter and it was coming down very hard. We were all exhausted from spending most of the night shivering inside our sleeping bags. Now came the hard part…… getting out of the sleeping bag. We packed our gear and each of us struggled to keep our hands warm. The cold seemed to bite at your fingertips and I could do nothing to warm them up. We fumbled with our gear until we were finally able to get started. All of us were anxious to step out into the storm and try and get some body heat generated so that we could warm up. As we started to leave we noticed that one of our group was still laying in his sleeping bag shivering.
What is wrong with Michael?
Why is he taking so long?
Doesn’t he know we are freezing out here and that we need to get moving?
I quickly found out what the problem was. He was not quite as well prepared for the cold as the rest of us and he had literally shivered all night long and was completely exhausted. This was his first time with our group and it seems that his initiation to the group was quite a hard one. We helped him pack his gear and some of the guys loaned him clothing to try and help keep him warm. Soon we were ready to go out and try to get through the storm and back off the mountain to somewhere it was warm.
We started off in a hurry. Each of us was trying to warm up and the only way to do that was by burning some calories. We shot off into the storm unable to really tell where we were going. The snow was so deep that it was sometimes hard to see the trail. The problem came when we reached a crucial turn in the trail and we missed it because the trail marker was buried in a 3 foot snow drift. We continued hiking as fast as we could go and we kept noticing how different the trail looked since the storm hit. Not only was it full of beautiful snow but there were trees down crossing the trail. We finally stopped after hiking about three miles and realized that we were lost.
If you have never been lost in the mountains then you may not be able to understand the horror of realizing that you do not know where you are. It’s terrifying and in this case it was further aggravated by the near white out conditions and the fact that the snow was covering our tracks faster that we could retrace them. Thankfully, seventeen and eighteen year old young men are much more fit than I am so we would hopefully be able to get our way out of this mess. We held a short meeting to decide what to do and then decided to try and retrace our steps back to where we started and find out where we got lost. This is when I discovered how cold Michael really was.
Michael had used all his energy trying to keep his body warm during the night. By morning there was simply nothing left to give. He had hoped to be able to find the energy to go downhill but now that we were lost he simply could not go any further. As soon as we started back up the 3 mile slog to where we started Michael collapsed and fell face first into the snow. I tried to revive him but one look at his face told you how bad of shape he was really in. Snot had drained from his nose and was now frozen to his face and down past his chin. His eyes were barely open and when he spoke it seemed like his lips were frozen together. He muttered something about not being able to go another step without lying down for a while. By now Michaels ten fingers were all frost bitten and he was not able to go any further. He was in the advanced stages of hypothermia and at this stage your body seems to play a cruel joke on you. Your body tells you that you are very hot and that you need to sleep. If a person falls asleep at this stage it is unlikely that they will ever wake up. With this in mind I was not about to let Michael sleep.
I sent a group of the strongest hikers on ahead and told them that if we did not show up a few hours behind them to go get some help and start looking for us. They took off and I was left with Michael. I started off trying to carry him but you can imagine how difficult this would be on a narrow trail in knee deep snow. Soon the idea of carrying him was replaced with dragging him, then pushing him, and later grabbing him by the belt and the collar of his shirt and throwing him. We inched our way back up the mountain. The two of us must have fallen over 30 times trying to get back up that steep trail. It was during one of those falls that I looked at Michael and his eyes were closed. I was tempted just to give up. I had done all I could and I was so tired and cold that I was wondering if I would even be able to get myself out let alone carry him the rest of the way. I just cannot imagine what his father, who is a good friend of mine, will say if I were to survive and Michael die. “I cant leave him” I would tell myself. I would rather die here with him than face his dad.
I prayed with Michael and thought about what my life has added up to at this point. What is really important to me? What have I accomplished in this life? Have I really lived for God? I call myself a Christian and I know that I have a relationship with God but have I really done anything? I have lived the, “normal Christian life”, as it is defined by the American Church. I tried to do the right thing, go to church every time I could, regularly communicate with God, join FCA, Young Life, and do every other little thing a “Good little Christian” should do. Hek, I even had a little fish on my car in high school. It seemed that all my life had amounted to was going up in smoke, just fodder for the fire. Suddenly my relationship with God seemed so shallow, so selfish of me. I had a relationship with God but I had only used it for my own selfish needs. I served God out of a duty to get something in return. I did not know what it meant to serve out of a passion to honor the Creator who loved me so much that He would send His Son to die so that He could get to know me better. The God I knew was a God of rules who rewarded those who followed the rules.
Lying in the snow wondering if I would ever get another chance was one of the greatest opportunities of my life. It has been said that a man has to be knocked down before he will look up and this seemed to be the case with me. I was knocked flat on my back. My actions may cause someone to be killed. My carelessness has already caused a young man to permanently damage both his hands. I begged God to save Michael and give us some help.
Eventually we made it back to where we had started. By now ice was forming on all our faces and our hair was turning white. The water bottle that I was carrying had frozen even though I had placed it inside my shirt and jacket. Despite how bad we looked Michael knew that he could make it down. He even started to hallucinate at one point and told me that he could see his parents waiting by a car.
Going downhill was much easier than climbing up hill. Now we could fall and just slide down farther. Each step or fall was one step closer to getting to our car. On the way down we passed a man with a long beard on the trail. He stopped and looked at us and then kept on walking up into the storm.
Who in the world would be going up in this kind of weather?
His beard what completely frozen and he looked like someone who had just summitted Mt. Everest. We did not pay too much attention to him until we came a little farther down the trail. We noticed a water bottle lying in the middle of the trail. The amazing thing about the bottle was that the water was not frozen. My bottle had frozen inside my jacket and Michael’s bottle had been frozen. We were both dehydrated and the water was a welcome gift. I know that God was watching over us. He let us go to our limit and then helped us back in. Eventually, we made it back to the car and took Michael to the hospital.
Michael recovered but he permanently damaged all 10 of his fingers. He would have to spend the entire next semester of school at home recovering from the incident. The skin on his fingers turned black and then peeled off like he had a severe burn. The recovery was horrible but at least he recovered.
The incident taught me a lot about who I was. I learned who I was when I am stripped of everything. Most importantly, God used the horrible incident to set the framework for what he was about to do next in my life. (To be continued)
September 12, 2004
The Glassy Pond
It was during one of these warm fronts on a Sunday evening in January 1997 that I was working second shift for the police department as a rookie police officer. I was enjoying driving down Highway 321 with my windows down when my police radio broadcasted a call for my zone. It was a 10-39, (injured person), at a warehouse in our industrial park area and it was close to where I was located. I told the dispatcher that I was en-route and within a minute I was at the scene trying to find where the victim was located.
A middle aged man met me in the parking lot wearing a flannel shirt and old blue jeans. He appeared to be a factory worker who probably struggled to make enough money to support his family. His weather face told the story of a man who drank too much Pabst Blue Ribbon and smoked too many generic cigarettes. He waved me down and told me that one of his co-workers was hurt badly in the back of the warehouse. I parked my car and we hurried into the back door of the building not knowing what to expect.
I have always heard old wives tales that everyone has an identical twin somewhere in the world. That someone in the world looks identical to us in some way or another but grew up and lived a completely different life. Honestly, I never believed it until the day I met Jon. I passed it off as some old story that should be filed away with the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. On that warm winter evening I was about to meet my identical twin and the person who would shape my life more than any other person I have ever met. The next hour would be one of those moments in your life that you never forget.
Inside the warehouse I found a man lying face down underneath a large press. The press was some type of machine that looked like some type of torture chamber from an old James Bond movie. The press itself was the size of a refrigerator lying on its side that used hydraulics to force the end of it inside a chamber leaving only 2 inches of space around it. One the end of it was two pieces of steel that protruded out of it like jousts.
The man who met me in the parking lot told me that his co-worker was inside the machine when it came on and crushed his body inside the press. I sat and tried to picture how this could have happened but I cannot see how a person would not have been cut in two by the machine. The man lying in the floor looked to be in one piece and was not bleeding. His feet were moving which made me think that his spine had not been severed by the trauma of the incident.
I could tell that he was in an immeasurable amount of pain. I told him who I was and began talking to the victim. I could tell that he was on the verge of going into shock so I knew to keep him talking and to keep him focused on the will to live. I also wanted to keep him still so that he would not do further damage to his spine. Little did I know how badly he was injured.
He told me his name was Jon and he spelled it the same way I did. He had only been married a few years like I had and he had a small child at home. He had just started the job with this company the day prior to this incident. Jon was born in September 1970 only a few days after I was born. We were both born in Knoxville and we very well could have been born in the same hospital. Jon had brown hair and brown eyes. His skin was olive colored just like mine and we both had the same type of nose and facial features. The more I looked at Jon the more I saw myself in him. I stared in disbelief as I saw a man that looked exactly like me. He was the same height, same weight, and he even had a pair of old blue jeans on that looked just like my favorite pair that I had at home. He was wearing an old cotton t-shirt that looked just like my favorite t-shirt that I liked to wear. This man could have passed for an identical twin. We looked exactly the same with one major exception, he was lying on the floor about to die and I was the one trying to rescue him.
We continued talking about all that we had in common as I tried to keep him focused on anything but the pain that he was in. He talked about how much he loved his wife and wished that she could be here with him. I thought the same thing. If I was in his shoes I would not want to be away from my loved ones. We waited on what seemed like an eternity for the ambulance to get there. I continued consoling him and trying to keep him stable so that he could be transported to the hospital and hopefully get some help.
When the ambulance arrived they immediately hooked a heart monitor to him and began assessing his vital signs. They cut his shirt off and discovered that he had two holes through his chest, one through his abdomen and another closer to his heart. The holes matched the two metal spikes that protruded out of the end of the press. It seemed that nearly every bone in his body was broken. His rib cage felt like a broken egg shell and he had suffered terrible trauma to his vital organs. The more we examined him the more we were amazed that he was even alive. The strangest thing was that the two holes through his chest and abdomen did not bleed. It appeared that the metal spikes were very hot and possibly cauterized the holes after he was stabbed.
The paramedics and I attached a spine board to Jon and prepared to roll him over on his back. I told him what we were about to do and then we rolled him over. Instantly the heart monitor began to make a horrible sound and Jon’s head rolled over and his eyes looked straight at me. It was as if a light went off behind his eyes and he just stared at me blankly. I tried to talk to him but there was no response. For an instant it was like looking into a glassy pond and seeing your own reflection. It was the strangest most frightening experience that I have ever had.
The paramedics began doing CPR on Jon and told me to go set up an LZ, (Landing Zone), for Life-star, the regional medical helicopter. I ran out of the warehouse and met my Lieutenant. We found a field near the warehouse and circled our patrol cars around an area that was free of power lines or other obstructions. We held our flashlights with orange wands on the end of them to help signal in the helicopter. Soon we heard the thundering blades of the aircraft coming in high above us. It sounded like a stampede of horses as it approached the LZ. Once it landed the paramedics rushed Jon out to the helicopter and I could see that they were still doing CPR on him. After he boarded the helicopter it lifted off and soon the sound of the stampeding horses faded into the night as I watched the lights of the helicopter fade into the clear sky above me.
I stood in the field wandering what had just happened. Did this really happen? Did I just see my identical twin fly off into the night? I never got to spend time talking about what he liked. What is his family like? Did we have the same interests? Where did he go to school? Did he enjoy sports or have a pet? Did he have faith in God or was he a Buddhist or something? Where is his spirit now?
I turned my flashlight off and walked back to my patrol car. I felt the warm breeze blowing and thought about how much I liked these warm nights in the middle of the winter. I wonder if Jon liked them as much as I did. I would bet that he did and I guess if I had to pick a day to die I would want it to be on one of these warm nights. I wonder if I would be as courageous as he was when it comes time for me to die. Would I be thinking of my family and how this will impact them or will I selfishly be thinking only of myself and the pain that I am in. I like to think that I would be like Jon. I hope so at least.
The time I spent with Jon was one of those moments in your life, those moments when everything stood still for just a second and you knew that you would never be the same. How could two people who were born at the same time, look identical, have the same name, and live in the same small town go through life and not know each other. Why is he dead and I am still alive? I am the one who chose to be a cop and he chose to be a factory worker. Wouldn’t the law of averages tell you that I should be the one who was lying in the floor with two holes through my chest and not him?
Jon’s death became a turning point in my life. I started thinking about my life and what I had to show for it. More importantly I began dwelling on my death and the eventual reality that I would die one day. Prior to this I never really thought much about death. I was invincible like every other guy my age and the thought of dying never crossed my mind. I started having terrible nightmares. Dreams of falling and dreams of drowning began to haunt me every time I closed my eyes. I would see Jon staring at me after we rolled him over. I saw myself looking into a glassy pond. I would wake up screaming to find my wife rocking me in her arms because she could hear me struggling while I was still asleep.
Over time the dreams started to fade but Jon was never far from my thoughts. Jon taught me more in that hour that we spent together than all the teachers and professors I had spent hours studying under. Life is precious, life is short, and there is more to this life than what we see every day. Jon’s death gave me a broader perspective of the life we live in and he shattered my world view of what I have been created for. I felt like a cancer patient whose doctor told them that they may live a long life or they may die in their sleep tonight. The words of an old Baptist preacher that I heard once when I was a kid came to mind, “Live each day as if it were your last.”
Now to decide on how to live as if today were my last day.
December 17, 2003
Meditation, Simplicity, Study, Service
On Friday, March 21, 2003 the UPS man delivered a package from Amazon.com with two copies of “The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer”. That date was the second day of spring, the first entry in my running journal, and the first time I prayed “Lord, please bless us in this desire. Let us successfully train, successfully complete our goal.” (Goals - something I’m neither good at setting...nor keeping.) “Let us see it through to a smashing and joyous and jubilant cross over the finish line!”
This time last year I was miserable in my job, desperately missing my friends, my family and my ruts back in Texas, and heartsick over my flabby, ever-expanding body. There's a Garfield comic pasted in my running journal that perfectly describes my mindset at the time; Garfield, flat on his back, said "I'm tired of just lying here...Carry me someplace else."
Not so long ago I’d weighed a mere 135 lbs. Then Charlie and I got back together so I ate more regularly. I became a grandmother. And out of sheer vanity I quit smoking - I didn’t want anyone to actually SEE me with a cigarette in my mouth and I certainly didn’t want to look like some of the women at work that weren’t much older than me but looked decades older. So over the next 5-6 years the flab returned... with a vengeance.
At that point Kathy Davis and I knew each other casually, mostly through a mutual friend. One Saturday night I joined her for a special event during Shelby Trusley’s Emmaus walk. I love to ask people questions and hear about their lives. It was during one of those get-to-know-you sessions that Kathy’s mouth opened and I knew it was a message from God. “Someday I’d like to run a half marathon.” Now, don’t ask me how it went from a half marathon (13 miles) to a full marathon (26.2 miles) but I instantaneously knew this was an answer to prayer.
We tried to recruit other women on this incredibly lofty goal. Typical responses were “You’re kidding, right?” or “I could never do that” or “Why would anyone want to run 26 miles???" Jean Carpenter was the only taker, and even she thought we were on Crack.
For three months we ran 3 miles 4 times a week, doing it together as often as we could. Jean and Kathy are blessed with athletic ability and experience. I, alas, have been a wimp and a wannabe since childhood. On our first ‘run’ I got winded after 1/4 mile. I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was running with two lead pipes for legs, and I was very, very disappointed that working towards a goal God Himself had given me was SO HARD. This was to be the reigning theme throughout my training.
At the early (4:30am!) women's study this morning, Kathy, Jean and I talked about our marathon experience using the 12 spiritual disciplines in Richard Foster's book "Scriptural Classics". We each focused on the 4 disciplines that applied the strongest to our marathon experience (whether we thought so or it was under the ‘encouragement’ of the other two). My disciplines were Meditation, Study, Simplicity and Service.
Meditation was the discipline we kicked off this study with in mid-January. Thankfully our marathon training book gave us things to meditate on each week.
“For everything I do starts and ends with Him. Thank you, God!” - this was part of the introduction to our training book.
“Begin slowly and progress at a moderate rate”
“Follow the training program. Don’t let self-doubt get in the way.”
“Just focus on what you have to do TODAY.”
If anyone tells you that running is fun, they’re either lying or they’re among those genetically-blessed individuals whose body was born for athleticism. Actually, I was amazed how little time it took for me to work up to 3 miles. My first hurdle was sucking in enough air. The second and by far the most difficult hurdle was what to do with my mind. For safety and training purposes, headphones were taboo so listening to music to make the seemingly endless miles pass quicker was out.
In "Scriptural Classics", author Joyce Huggett said to “turn a passage of scripture over and over in [your mind], repeating [it] until the truth which [it] contains trickles from [your] head into [your] heart.”. After running over 400 miles on the Greenbelt, along Court Street, down Montvale Station, and on the shoulder of the dreaded Hwy 321 out to Friendsville and back, NOTHING was as I thought it would be. My body was nowhere near svelte, my pace was more like a moose than a gazelle, and this marathon thing was consuming not only my life but Charlie’s too.
One of my favorite meditations on my runs was - “Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to covetousness. Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things and revive me in Your way.” (Ps 119:36) I said this one OFTEN. I needed to keep my mind on the goal, not long for the ability and speed of others, or how easy running appeared to be for them. But mostly I needed God to remind me that this was His idea, He was there, and He should be my focus.
Under the discipline of Study. Phoebe Palmer said that “Knowledge is conviction.” From late March through early October, I checked books out of the library, subscribed to Runner’s World and read every website I could find about marathoning. If reading about running made a person a good runner I’d be headed for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, which just happened to be the site of the very first marathon in 546 BC. I studied but did I apply? Honestly, getting enough rest and showing up for the runs were the ONLY things I did right. I didn’t strength train, I didn’t make more than superficial changes to my diet and I certainly didn’t stop drinking my favorite "refreshments". I’ll do better next time. Yes, there will be a next time.
In this section George McDonald talked of spiritual stupidity — “Do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:21). No, I don’t understand. I ran all the miles. I persevered through injury and discouragement. Yet I didn’t get to cross that finish line. But McDonald also said, “He who trusts can understand; he whose mind is set at ease can discover a reason.” I’m working on setting my mind at ease and forgiving myself for not following through on all aspects of the training program. To quote McDonald, “We are in no position to judge ourselves; we simply must leave that to God...If God loves us, who are we to be so high and mighty as to refuse to love ourselves?”
Now for the discipline of Simplicity. Have you ever heard of the KISS principle? “Keep it simple, stupid.” All we had to do was eat right, get enough sleep, drink plenty of water, and run, run, run. That doesn’t sound so hard, does it? But it WAS hard. Very hard. And it was incredibly hard to make the choice to keep at it week after week after week. A.W. Tozer said, “At [our] testing place there will [not be a] dozen possible choices for us - just one and an alternative - but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.” Our possible choices? Run or quit. Miracle of miracles, despite Kathy’s bronchitis and sprained quad, Jean’s headaches, sore knee and incredible lower back pain, and my hip injury and overwhelming feelings of despair, we chose to keep running.
In Japan they have what is called kaizen. Kaizen is the art of making the smallest, subtlest change possible. To plaigerize the January 2004 issue of Prevention magazine, kaizen is not about feeding our appetite for the grand gesture; it’s about producing real and lasting change, however small. You know you’re in kaizen territory when the change you’re considering seems absurd, it’s so little. But by committing to a tiny change that’s so easily accomplished, you’re much more likely to stick with it and over time see results and big changes.
Small changes can bring big results. For the women's group, it began with a commitment to meet at 4:30am every other Wednesday morning. For Jean, Kathy and I it began with a commitment to show up and run. As Zechariah said, "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin..." (Zechariah 4:10)
My final and probably favorite discipline is Service. As part of our training program we had to register early on for a marathon and tell everyone about our goal. Friends near and far, family, co-workers, neighbors and even strangers were told of my goal to run across the Cheasapeake Bay Bridge.
Why did I keep “seeking the prize” week after week? To paraphrase what Meister Eckhart described as the three things that caused Mary to site at Jesus’ feet:
* God’s goodness had embraced my soul; I knew without a doubt this goal was of Him.
* I had a great, unspeakable longing without really knowing what it was that I was yearning for. AND
* I longed for “the sweet consolation and bliss” of the eternal words that came from Christ’s mouth. God SPOKE to me throughout the marathon training, directly, in His word, in the words and actions of others. I was blessed to be surrounded by a huge cloud of witnesses.
The bottom line for me can be summarized by Hadewijch of Antwerp: “Do all for the honor of God....entrust yourself to God’s goodness, for His goodness is greater than your failures."
Although I tear up nearly every time I talk about the marathon, it isn't because I didn't cross the finish line but because it was such an undescribably emotional experience. Richard Foster said that “Spiritual formation is ongoing.” In other words, THERE IS NO FINISH LINE.
Glory be to God!
