Faithfulness and Control: Some Thoughts for Thanksgiving

At the beginning of this fall, I decided that I would finally have a racing season without any health struggles to hold me back.

I had it all under control–or so I thought.

It’s amazing how quickly my false sense of security came crashing to the ground.

The day before my first cross-country race of the season, I ended up in the hospital.

I never saw it coming. What started out as only a bee sting in my foot suddenly made me too weak and dizzy to even stand. My throat tightened, breathing felt harder, and a few minutes later I was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where I got 5 shots and an IV in my arm.

Thankfully, I’m not scared of needles, but it was still quite the experience (I had to pray hard, you know?).

The several doses of epinephrine knocked me out while I stayed at the hospital to have my vitals monitored. If you know me, you probably know the first thing I wanted to know when the results came.

Yes, I wanted to know if I could still run in the race the next day. I had been anticipating this race all summer, and I wasn’t about to let some tiny insect’s venom stop me.

I ended up running my first race of my junior year with all of that less than 24 hours behind me. I wore my medical bracelet and triple bandages just to show off my toughness (and I thought about wearing the IV tube as well, but I decided that was too excessive, haha).

Throughout the race, the epinephrine still coursed through my body, giving me an elevated heart rate, brain fog, and all-around exhaustion.

My finishing time fell short of my goal, but it wasn’t bad given my circumstances.

The point was that I still ran.

The implications of my ordeal didn’t set in until after the race.

Without treatment, I could have died. My life would be changing from this point on. I have to carry epi-pens everywhere. Later this week, I will be starting an allergy treatment plan that involves weekly shots and hospital visits.

And I have to be extra careful when running alone, especially on remote trails.

See, I have always loved running down open, winding dirt roads with only the sound of my breaths and footsteps for company, just letting my mind wander. Taking these long runs allowed me to absorb the beauty of nature, clear my head, pray and grow closer to God.

Has–has that all been taken away from me? I soon wondered.

My struggles heightened as I went on my next run a couple days later. Normally, I could go out and run 11 miles no problem, but this time, I could barely get past 7. At one point, I felt so weak that I almost fell downhill.

The effects of the epinephrine were still in my body, and I didn’t know when my strength would return.

I just had to take it by the day.

After falling short of my aspirations in a race, only to come back struggling a few days later, I grew frustrated.

Would this always be my story? I wondered.

As I’ve shared, I ended up breaking my 5k PR by a minute a few weeks later, but at this moment, it looked like I would never improve.

And I began to face my previous doubts of why I bothered running at all.

Here’s what’s beautiful: My motivation came back with a watercolor sunset, just like before.

I was cheering on my teammates in a race the next week when I saw the sun set over a few houses tucked away in the inner parts of the city.

This was the same sun that I had watched rise over the mountains and deserts all across the Southwest. The same sun that I had watched set into a sparkling ocean or over the little grass field in the neighborhood where I first started running.

The same sun that would rise again the next morning.

And behind that sun was a Creator who faithfully made it rise.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.”

~ Lamentations 3:22-23, ESV

And someday this struggle would set just like this sun, and I would rise again.

If there’s one thing that this obstacle taught me, it’s that I’ve grown pretty strong.

While watching this same race, I found out about a motto that has existed in one of the public schools for over 80 years.

No chillones (“No crybabies” in Spanish).

Now, I’m gonna be honest here. I’ve shed a few tears (well, maybe more than a few) over this sport.

But–I didn’t cry during the ambulance emergency.

That’s not my point right now, however.

My point is that toughness has its place in cross-country running. And this motto has gotten me thinking… Cross-country has made me tougher.

Nobody would’ve blamed me if I didn’t show up to run the day after my time in the hospital.

And yet–I ran the next day.

In this sport, I had been given nearly every reason to quit. Nobody would’ve blamed me if I tossed out my running shoes one day and never put them back on.

And yet–I ran every next day that I could.

On the days when I lose hope, I remind myself of my story. The story of how I never quit. Even more importantly, the story of how my God never quit on me.

The struggles that had once been my weakness have become the story that is now my strength.

It’s all because God is writing a better story for my life than I ever could.

 “Wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
    that you would not believe if told.”

~ Habakkuk 1:5, ESV

I was standing at the foot of another mountain in this road of life. I was standing in the ruins of yet another tower that I had worked so hard to build.

And yet–I could still rejoice in the Lord.

He had brought me that far, He let me live, and He wouldn’t have put me through all of that if I couldn’t handle it.

“but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.”

~ 1 Corinthians 10:13, NKJV

Not only did my emergency give me a new respect for the gift of life, not only did it give me a story of resilience, but it revealed to me the faithfulness of God.

He let me live.

He let me keep running.

Though my circumstance was hard, it reminded me to look at life with thankfulness, through the lens of two simple two-word phrases.

“But God” and “yet I.”

This is hard, but God is faithful (1 Cor. 10:13).

This is hard, yet I will rejoice in the Lord (Habakkuk 3:18).

The first phrase is true no matter what, but the second one? That’s up to you.

Life is not in our control, as my emergency quickly taught me. Our response is all that we can control.

So let’s praise God together this Thanksgiving, my reader. Share in the comments what you are thankful for! <3

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
    nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
19 God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the deer's;
    he makes me tread on my high places.
         ~ Habakkuk 3:17-19