You Give Me Joy For My Mourning |
 | Less than a week from today I'll run the 35-mile Georgia Jewel. Each day up to race day I've been reflecting on the song that has given me strength through this journey: Confident, by Steffany Gretzinger. Yesterday, I focused on the lyrics - Your laughter scatters my enemies. Today, I'll turn to the next lyric in the song: You give me joy for my mourning The great conflict in life is reconciling our pursuit of joy with the ever present reality of pain and suffering. Whether you're like me and believe we were created for joy, or you find that joy is |
simply where you're internal compass naturally points, I think we both find ourselves constantly trying to wrestle joy away from the hands of hardship. Whether we believe we were made for it or that we simply long for it, life is about finding the joy.
Nowhere has that been more true in my life than in my running journey. When I started down this road 5 years ago, every step was hard. Whether I ran 50 yards or 2 miles, my focus was on finding a good reason to keep going, not joy. My lungs felt like someone had set an automobile on top of them, my legs like out of control wildfires, my feet like blister farms. And this was somehow supposed to add value to my life? In the heart of those runs I usually felt like death would add more value to my life.
One of my favorite sayings in those days was:
"I hate running, but I love being done with running."
What that saying boiled down to was a celebration of survival. Like saying I hate getting in car crashes but love the feeling of knowing I can survive one.
The day came, though, when all that changed. I found myself saying I love running, that there was joy in the act of running worth pursuing as much as the joy at the finish line. It's crazy to think about it now, but the joy was actually found in the process of the reconciling and wrestling.
I discovered if you wait for having cars on your lungs and fires in your legs to feel like joy, you're going to be waiting a long time. There's a lot of circumstances in life where joy doesn't knock on your door, so you have to go beat its door down. I discovered that more than an emotion, joy is a thought process. A way of looking at things.
God, through running, has taught me believing in Him, following his will for my life, doesn't come with a bottle of fairy dust I can sprinkle on myself every time I need a shot of joy in my life. What it does come with is a mind that can be renewed in any and every situation. A mind that has the capacity to say this is pain and hardship, but there's joy to be found in here somewhere.
For me, in running and in life, the joy is usually found when I walk away from my pursuit of joy and walk toward gratitude. Where's the gratitude in the middle of a run when death feels imminent? Ironically it's found in life itself. It's found in knowing I'm running when others can't. It's found in feeling the hands of life stirring me inside in a way sitting on a couch never could. It's found in discovering I have personal strengths and capabilities to offer this life I never would have thought about exploring if it wasn't for running.
Joy is found in discovering life has a voice. A voice that wants to whisper me through pain to joy, a voice I never hear louder than I hear it in the middle of trials. Trials in life. Trials in running. It's a voice that loves me enough to bring joy to my mourning.
Next Saturday, there will be trials along that 35 miles of the Georgia Jewel. At times the only joy imaginable will be that finish line. The thought of being done. Dear Lord just let me be done. Those thoughts will be reminders. Reminders to wrestle joy away from the hardship. To point my mind toward gratitude and away from the trials. To listen to that voice of life that wants to whisper joy into my mourning.
 Click above to donate to help Giving Words help Kate. | I am honored to run this race for Giving Words and my friend Kate Fletcher. I got to know Kate when I interviewed her on my TwoTim47 podcast after she ran 100 miles to raise scholarship money for her Louisa County High students. I was taken by her heart and spirit for using running to help others. You can listen to my conversation with Kate here: High School Teacher Kate Fletcher Runs 100 Miles For Student Scholarships. In the interview, I had no idea Kate had needs of her own. Her humble spirit won't give things like that away. But Kate lives in a house with some significant structural challenges. So I'm partnering with my friend Eddie Brown and Giving Words to help her. I'm hoping to find 100 people to donate $35 - one dollar for each mile of that Georgia Jewel run. |
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