I never really believed I would ever finish a marathon, which made the actual experience of completing it pretty supernatural. I remember a year ago, going for a short 3-mile run and envisioning the feeling of finishing a marathon...it overtook me. I pictured moving past all those things that held me in chains: the feeling of being unsuccessful, insufficient, unworthy, guilty, faulty and flawed...running was a way out. Which is perhaps the reason I feel closest to my Creator and King when I am running. To me, it is symbolic of the change I experience when I remember I am redeemed; free from debt and the sentence to isolation. Running means I am covered. Drenched. Lavished upon with the love of the God of the universe. It reminds me of what it will be like one day to experience complete bliss. The aroma of the morning air lifting off the ground, and the sight of the sunrise setting the world ablaze are only a snapshot of what are to come.
Running the race meant a celebration of the many miles spurred on by only the pain I feel for my students who go home to violence after school; it meant being stronger than an abusive high school running coach; it was the acknowledgment that my gain is nothing of my own, but that I am allowed it; it meant rejoicing that I am slave to the King, not a captive of darkness.
I've realized running is a two-way cycle. An aching in my bones to release energy, and in exchange receive life and breath. I get crazy pictures in my head of nation after nation bowing before the Lord one day, of drug addicts and assassins and traitors and deceivers and slaves and run-aways being released from their shackles and falling prostrate, facing something so beautiful it can hardly be looked at. I imagine a King riding in on his horse and ripping free the women who are stuck in sex slavery. I imagine a God of vengeance who will come one day and break the chains we are all tied to. Every single one; broken.
So for this I will keep running: because I was given legs and because I can run when others cannot, I will. Bones to skin, sweat to ground, breath out, life in. Let's go.
