Enduring, Rebuilding, & Finding Joy at the Finish Line

On Saturday, I ran the last cross-country race of my sophomore year.

I didn’t get the time or place that I wanted, but that’s okay. I didn’t qualify for State or do anything amazing, but that’s okay.

As my health failed me again, I ran the best I could given my situation. I kept fighting until the end. And I emerged from this difficult season having learned so much.

I’ve been running competitively since the seventh grade, and yet all my years of experience didn’t show up in these past few months. My times kept increasing as the weeks continued. I didn’t break any of my freshman PRs. I only ran one “good” time.

But as I look back on seventh grade, when I was first starting out, I see that I built up a running ability from nothing.

I was a swimmer. I didn’t know how to run. So I had to start from ground zero.

I built up an ability from nothing, but so many times in the years that followed, I found myself at ground zero again. At ground zero again, needing to rebuild.

Right now is one of those times.

I need to rebuild.

But it’s at ground zero that you discover the core of who you’ve become. Are you one to abandon the site the moment it breaks, or will you see it through until it is rebuilt from the ruins, brick by brick?

Ground zero reveals the foundation like nothing else. Underneath all the ashes lies an understanding of your identity. When all that you’ve built up is stripped away, who are you? When all that makes you seem “worthy” is stripped away, who are you?

What are you going to rebuild upon?

Over the years, as I’ve watched my abilities get built and then broken, rebuilt and then broken again, I’ve learned that I’m more than just what I can build.

And I’ve built myself on a deeper foundation over the years. Because all these years of experience still add up to something. Maybe they seem like rubble, but they’re not lost.

These years are like broken pieces. Broken pieces that can somehow become something beautiful in time.

Broken pieces that are still a part of me. I’m still the girl who ran two half marathons and overcame vitamin deficiencies and finished four cross-country seasons. Sure, I didn’t get through a lot of that without wanting to quit, without tears and fears and a real mess.

But I think the point is that I endured.

Sometimes I broke. But I also rebuilt.

So I’ll rebuild again.

At this point, I’m not talking about just running anymore. I’m talking about faith.

If I’m honest, there are a lot more cracks in my faith than I’d like to admit.

And as I strip away all the parts that make faith seem “easy”, I’m back at ground zero. The foundation, where it all starts and where it all rests.

And I’m back at my cornerstone, Christ.

Sometimes faith doesn’t seem certain. Sometimes it all comes crashing down again.

Nothing in this life is certain, so little in this faith feels certain…

But Christ is.

“And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”

~Matthew 7:25

So as I rebuild, I want to rebuild on Him. Christ my cornerstone.

The root of my faith when all the rest of it doesn’t make sense. The root of my identity when all that I pride myself upon falls into pieces.

I’m at the foot of the mountain again, but I’m going to climb back up. Step by step.

I’m at ground zero again, but I’m going to rebuild. Brick by brick.

One day near the end of the season, as I looked at how seemingly little I had reaped from all my efforts, I remember scribbling these words in my journal:

You will rebuild.

Come winter I would go back to the drawing board, rest up, and start again fresh. Whatever happened this season was going to be okay, because I was going to rebuild.

Not in our own strength

Just as I had decided this, my Bible reading plan had me on track to read the book of Nehemiah. The book focuses on Nehemiah’s project of rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem.

Reading it left me with many takeaways, and one particularly inspiring part happened in the fourth chapter.

“In Judah it was said, ‘The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall.'”

~Nehemiah 4:10, ESV

The key words here are “by ourselves.”

When we try to get anywhere in our own strength, we’re going to fail. The burdens are too heavy. The pain is too great.

As my health crashes again, I’m reminded of my own physical weakness. Perhaps that’s why God gave us such weak bodies–to remind us that we must depend on Him for strength.

And as I’ve depended on Him, my physical strength hasn’t come back. I don’t know when it will, if it will. But that’s not the kind of strength God guarantees us.

Instead He guarantees us spiritual strength, a kind of strength that He will give us even in our physical weakness.

We weren’t made to build up our own successes in this life. The Tower of Babel (see Gen. 11) failed for a reason. It failed because it wasn’t built for God’s glory, but for humanity’s own glory.

And Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the wall succeeded for a reason: It was built for God’s glory. Nehemiah recognized that he couldn’t build it on his own, telling the people to “remember the Lord” (Nehemiah 4:10) in their time of weakness and fear.

As I attempt to rebuild my athletic stamina, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, only that the results are a part of God’s plan. I’m not sure if I’m going to succeed, because He never promised me worldly success or physical strength.

But I do know–and have seen–that He will provide me with His spiritual strength. His strength will be there for me, there in me, even as I’m weak.

And the same goes for you, my reader.

Valuing others’ thoughts too much

This season, I faced another all-too-familiar struggle: Caring about what others think.

To be honest, I’ve valued other people’s thoughts too much. Obsessed over it, sometimes. I found a temporary happiness in the praise that people gave me when I performed well.

At the beginning of the season, everyone thought I would qualify for State as an individual. The stats and rankings predicted it. My training and previous performances suggested it. My freshman PRs would have gotten me in this year.

But the season didn’t play out that way. About halfway through, my decreased performances made my chances at State look rather slim.

And about halfway through, the praises stopped. I seemed to fade into the background again, as just another mediocre runner who could easily be tossed aside.

It hurt, but it also made me realize that I couldn’t focus on trying to please other people. At that point, people didn’t expect anything from me, and I felt like many of them didn’t even see me at all.

In my moments of feeling unseen, I had to remember that God saw me. In my moments without people’s praise, I had to remember that only His praise matters.

Perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that I ran many of my best times during runs that weren’t even races. Many of my best times are unrecorded. Most people don’t even know that I ran them.

Perhaps that’s God’s way of showing me that I can’t value others’ thoughts anymore.

The hardest thing about hitting ground zero is that other people forget what you’ve done in the past. They only see what you can do now, and when that isn’t your best… it hurts. When you’ve built up your skills from nothing, it hurts.

Because other people don’t know all that you’ve had to endure.

When I continued reading chapter 4 of Nehemiah, I noticed that the enemies didn’t believe that the Jews could rebuild their wall.

“What are these feebles Jews doing?” (verse 2)

“Yes, what they are building–if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!” (verse 3)

Yet their disbelief didn’t stop Nehemiah from what he had set out to do.

Especially on this road of the Christian life, the world is going to walk right past us, doubt us, oppose us…

Yet even their silence, their doubt, their opposition, has no meaning to our God-given, Christ-rooted identity.

And their praise and attention has no meaning to our identity either, because the Christian identity rests in Christ alone.

It takes strength to run in the silence. Few middle schoolers can run ten miles, even with the excitement of a cheering crowd to spur them on. But how many middle schoolers can run ten miles out of their own volition, under a cloudy sky, alone, in constant circles around a park, without music for company–just their own thoughts and this terrible silence?

It’s an even smaller number, and that’s because we tend to fear the silence. We tend to fear this idea of being unseen.

I ran those ten miles in the winter of my eighth-grade year. The fact that nobody watched me do it can’t change the fact that I still did it.

In the same way, the lack of praise or attention in your “unseen” life can’t change the fact that you’re still living it. You’re still living it. It still has so much value. God is still using it for His beautiful plan.

Joy set before you

Nothing changed me like running the mile races with severe anemia in eighth-grade track. Getting last place, race after race, taught me more than any success.

Because even though it was painful, I still showed up, race after race.

I hated it at the time. It was hard, running a distance that I had once been able to run so much faster. Running when my body lacked its usual strength. Running and feeling like an embarrassment.

It’s easy to run when everything is going well–You’re getting new PRs and great places and lots of praise. But it’s hard to run when things aren’t going the way you hoped or planned. Those moments are the true test of strength.

I know that a lot of people in my place would’ve quit. But I kept going. I’m a distance runner–I’ll run forever, bear the pain forever, because that’s all I know how to do. I won’t always run fast, but I’ll keep going. I’ll endure.

And because I endured that, I knew that I could endure this. Somehow I knew that God would give me the strength to keep going.

A part about Hebrews 12:2 had stood out to me from the beginning of this season, and I didn’t understand why, until now:

“Jesus… who for the joy set before him endured the cross.”

The pain that I’ve felt in my lifetime is nothing compared to the pain of dying on a cross. And yet, I’m still weak and struggling… because I’m broken. And in this verse is a little reminder to just endure.

Just endure, even when you’re weak and struggling, unable to run your best race.

Just endure, because there’s joy set before you.

In the weeks leading up to finals, I was constantly dreading the day I would have to race–because I thought that I would surely cross that finish line bearing the weight of disappointment. Unless, by some miracle, I made State.

I didn’t make State, yet I also didn’t cross that finish line disappointed.

I crossed that finish line with a slow time, but I crossed it feeling this abundance of joy. A sort of joy that I can’t even explain. And maybe that’s still a little miracle in itself. That joy–It was from God, I know it.

I could feel His presence during the whole time I ran that race, as strange as it may sound. And I could feel Him giving me strength–not the strength to run an amazing race, but the strength to just endure.

After going through such a hard season, I was relieved to be able to even cross that finish line at sectionals. In those last 200 yards, I pulled off the fastest sprint that I’ve done in a long time. That last stretch of the race, that final stretch of my sophomore cross-country season, felt like walking on air.

And it felt amazing.

What felt even more amazing was the joyful moment afterward, somehow being able to celebrate a time and place that shouldn’t have signified anything special.

But every time and place has its purpose in the bigger picture, doesn’t it?

What I’ve rediscovered this season is that sometimes you won’t be able to run your best race (Eccl. 9:11).

Sometimes it’s hard enough to just endure.

Racing is hard. Rebuilding is hard.

But there’s still joy set before you, waiting at that finish line.