Running is one of my heart’s biggest passions. I love it so much. It really is one of my favorite things on earth to do, and I’d rather be running than almost anything else.
Long ago, I had stuffed the dream of running the Boston Marathon deep into my heart. So deep, that I never told a single soul. This was a total pipe dream as I was never a fast runner. Average sure – but not Boston quality, and I never really thought I could ever possibly run that fast for that long. I’m a relatively seasoned runner as I’ve been running for 14 years which is actually more than half of my life. 
Over the course of the last 14 months, God has really blessed my running abilities. I spent most of last winter huddled around a space heater in my freezing cold basement doing crazy amounts of speedwork, intervals, and fartleks on my treadmill along with tons of lifting, strength training, yoga and drills. I put SO MUCH effort into my off season and God really blessed that hard work.
Two months ago I ran the Hershey Half Marathon which was my first longer distance race. Throughout my 8 week training, I realized that if my race predictions held true, the finish line of that race was going to become the starting line of much more for me. A couple weeks prior to the race, I started feeling a bit of irritation in my hamstring. Sure enough, halfway through the race I had sprained it so bad that I lost about 2 minutes off my pace for each remaining mile. I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped because of the injury, but I still walked away astounded by how much progress I had made, and the doors that God had opened for me this year. Even though I could barely walk to the car…
I really enjoyed the race experience and decided that I wanted to do more longer distance races. I always wanted to run a marathon and had previously trained for one in 2011, only to be sidelined by a miscarriage before ever making it to the starting line.
So I started planning out 2016’s race schedule, and I thought I’d shoot for a fall full marathon after a couple half’s and 5 milers (my favorite!) throughout the year starting with a half in the spring. But as I started doing my race research and studying race courses, I realized that for a little bit more training effort, I could do a spring Full (instead of the half) and I could really maximize my training time. The Lord was definitely working to change my heart. I wanted to do a spring race, but the idea of having to train all winter outdoors really had me feeling unsure. Outdoor running gets riskier for me the colder it gets because of having asthma. So I decided that if I was going to put in the effort to continue running outdoors all winter, I had better make the risks worth it and go for the Full! The holy spirit had been working on me, and day by day I started seeing the full picture of what God was asking of me. But after driving the race course and seeing how hilly it really was, I realized that with having a freshly healed hamstring injury it would mean almost certainly re-injuring my hamstring during the race. I thought, “there’s just no way I can run out and back up a mountain in my current state!”
And of course, during a prayerful run God interjected my thoughts right as I crested a pretty big hill and looked down over my small town with NO pain at all in my hamstring and he said, “With Me, you can do all things.” Ya’ll should have seen my face. It was like that scene in Elf where he finds out his dad is on the naughty list… “Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!”
He was reiterating what I already knew I had to do but just didn’t want to face.
But seriously though. I thought, “God, there is no way!”After a great deal of prayer, I came to grips with the fact that this is what God wants me to do next. So I signed myself up for a crazy hilly full marathon in April. My 16 week training has begun. I am forging ahead into the unknown, but I trust that the Lord will lead me, keep me healthy, and breathe strength into my fearful bones.
A few days after all that, I started feeling the Lord press me to look more seriously into the qualifying standards for running the Boston Marathon, as I’d heard that they have changed a lot over the last five years or so since I last reviewed them. I was shocked to see that according to this year’s race performances, I was literally right on the cusp of qualifying by only a couple minutes. It feels sort of like when you’re on a roller coaster and you’re right at the very top, cresting the hill waiting in suspense to soar over the edge. I didn’t even have a single clue about the treasure I was actually sitting on! With a whole lot of hard work I could absolutely get there, possibly by next year. I realized that God is right, and I need to start getting some marathon experience if I ever want to come close to this deep-seeded dream.
Back in November, the Lord started giving me a vision. It’s me holding a beautifully wrapped gift box, with a beaming light gleaming up in my face. My face has a look of awe. I didn’t know the meaning of that vision, but sort of assumed it was a metaphor about our salvation and the gift we have in Christ. However, a few weeks ago I had that vision again, and this time it had a Boston Marathon finisher’s medal inside the box. I instantly dropped to my knees and ugly cried. I still just can’t even comprehend how this is all happening.
The Lord is so good to me. He chose to enter the library of my heart and browse all of my cataloged dreams. He picked this gleaming book up off of my shelf of broken dreams and decided to re-write the ending. Simply because He is Good and he can. This is the type of love I have never had the privilege of experiencing and struggle most with accepting.
You can imagine why I can’t help but cry every time I think about what’s going on in my life right now. I have never felt worthy of any accolades or accomplishments, and never before have I ever felt like I was naturally good at much of anything. That’s largely because of my upbringing. I was not raised in a loving “greenhouse” home environment that my strengths and talents were watered with praise, encouragement, or positivity. I was told “NO you can’t do that because of…” more times than I can even count. My ideas were not met with an attitude of encouraging growth, but only being shut down and told that I didn’t have the ability to accomplish that. I don’t really think this was intentional on behalf of my family, and I largely just let it roll off my back and ignored the negativity as I got into my teenage years and started taking real control of my own life.
God is on a mission to uproot all of those lies that were sewn into my heart. He infused strength into my abilities and pushed me to a different level of running by giving me encouraging race experiences that PROVED my abilities. No matter how sheepish I feel admitting it, I can’t deny that I’ve done better lately, and made huge progress with every race I chose this year. I think I probably would have argued my way right out of doing this full marathon (let alone a mission to Chase the Unicorn) had God not prompted me to get into racing.
About 5 months ago, I started feeling that God was changing my direction, and what he had for me next I would not even be able to wrap my brain around. And He’s right, I can still barely stomach the whole idea. But I’m psyched out of my mind for this challenge, and I’m going to eat that mountain for breakfast. I probably won’t qualify for Boston by way of my spring marathon because is the hills, but I am very realistically hopeful that in November I will qualify for the 2018 Boston Marathon.
I think he’s got some other things up his sleeve for me once I complete my marathon on April, and I’m starting to see some glimpses of those puzzle pieces coming together. And I couldn’t be more excited to travel this adventurous road into my future.
Brenda
Family Beginnings & Running Dreams 