Hope is the Thing That Brought Me Here

It had been two years since I had gotten a cross-country PR.

Throughout all of last season, I kept hoping to cross the finish line and see a number, bold and bright, that tangibly represented my growth and my hard work. It never came. 

As I faced health struggles and burnout, getting a PR felt impossible. I wasn’t the runner that I used to be, and sometimes, I nearly let that break me.

But my junior year has been going differently. It came with a rough start, having to run my first race the day after an emergency hospital visit (a story for another time). And although I didn’t finish that race with my goal time, I continued to do what I had done for all these years.

I woke up again, ran again, and continued to hope that maybe, just maybe, I could PR again.

My second race happened on one of the hardest courses I’ve ever done. I hadn’t raced that course since my freshman year–the year that I ran my best. 

I came back this year and conquered those hills in a time that was a whole minute faster than the time I got on that course as a freshman. My strength and endurance had returned, as well as my toughness and competitiveness.

Although that race didn’t end in a PR, I knew that one was coming. And I kept on hoping.

I got another personal course record in the next race. The race after that was a special moment: my first win. Leading a race from start to finish was a surreal experience, but I still hadn’t gotten a PR.

All I could do was keep on running, and keep on hoping.

At the following meet, I was placed in a highly-competitive race where I had to run against some of the fastest girls in my county. I knew that I wouldn’t be anywhere near the front, but the competition pushed me.

Gliding over rolling hills and dusty paths and through layers of mist illuminated by the sun’s rays, I fought my way to the finish line. 

In what felt like a single moment, it finally happened. A smile lit my face when I saw that I had gotten a PR–and by whole minute.

Only it wasn’t the glamorous product of a single moment. It was the product of day after day, sunrise after sunrise, of choosing to keep hoping even when it’s hard.

Hope is the thing that brought me here. To every starting line, to every finish line.

Reflections on spiritual growth

Going through two years without a cross-country PR has grown me in more ways than any number can describe. 

These past two years have taught me to hope–to keep waiting on God to see what beautiful bigger picture He will reveal in His perfect timing.

God had planned that race for me, I just know it. There’s a God who knows that there are few things I love more than a cool, foggy morning running down an open dirt road. That’s exactly what happened the day I got my PR.

The PR felt like an affirmation of how I had improved as a runner. This was my best 5k to date.

I was free from constantly comparing my times to those of my freshman self. 

But well before I had gotten that PR, I had grown as a person. God used those two years to grow me spiritually.

He taught me to see this sport for far more than personal improvement and personal glory. Running changed my faith, and then my faith changed my running.

Building road markers for ourselves

The Bible tells us to build road markers for ourselves, that we may return to the road that leads us to God Himself.

“Set up road markers for yourself;
    make yourself guideposts;
consider well the highway,
    the road by which you went.”

~ Jeremiah 31:21, ESV

My PR is a road marker on my running journey. It’s a sign that I’m on the right path to reaching greater goals. 

But all along, I’ve seen milestones that are signs of God’s faithfulness in my life. And what if–What if we built our own road markers, signs that commemorated God’s faithfulness, so we could look back on them with hope?

What if we built our own road markers to remind us to stay on the right path, the path that leads us to spiritual growth?

What if we built our own road markers to remind us to stay faithful in the little things? 

Leaving the past behind

Staying faithful in the little things–That’s what leads us to spiritual growth. It’s what allows us to fully walk (or run) with God. 

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.”

~ Luke 16:10, ESV

And sometimes we complicate our lives with our own worldly ideas of success. In those two years that I didn’t succeed by my standards, I had to think about what God has called me to do.

I realized that His calling for me is rather simple: It’s just faithfulness. The kind of faithfulness that praises Him day after day, sunrise after sunrise, even when hope feels lost.

I should have recognized that calling earlier.

“Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’
    For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

~ Ecclesiastes 7:10, ESV

In those two years without a PR, I found myself constantly looking at my past with an unhealthy longing. 

“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

~ Philippians 3:13-14, ESV

I recently learned that, in this verse, Paul is specifically talking about leaving behind the successes of the past.

Instead of focusing on God’s greater calling for me, I became obsessed with trying to measure up to my previous successes.

Sometimes, that obsession nearly stopped me.

In the midst of my frustration, God gave me hope. Even when I had rejected His promises and given more focus to my worldly ideas of success, He surrounded me with the hope of a loving Father who sees me in my failures.

When I was faithless, He remained faithful, for He could not deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

And now, I want to press into the future with His hope. I’ve been stuck on my past successes for two years (far too long).

It’s time for me to leave that behind me, at the foot of the cross.

And it’s time for us to keep on hoping. To build a road marker. To faithfully seek God.

After all, maybe today is the day that the sun’s finally gonna shine through the fog, and you’ll see God for all His glory.