About That Time I Stopped During Marathon Training...

What I've learned from a poet, two prisoners in the New Testament, and three overwhelmed guys in the Old Testament about freedom.

Last Spring and Summer I trained for my first marathon. The short backstory of why I did this is summed up this way: I felt compelled to do it to raise awareness for cholangiocarcinoma, the cancer that took my mom’s life in August 2022. Praise Jesus that I raised over $2,600 for the cause. Raising the money felt easy; the training leading up, not so much.

One day, in the middle of a 15-mile training run, I simply stopped running. I was tired of running and uncertain if my body and mind could even carry on.

Have you ever felt like that? Like you’ve just had enough? Like you just need to stop for a minute?

As I paced back and forth, uncertain of what to do, I remembered a quote by a young poet named Erin Hansen that I had read weeks earlier:

“There is freedom waiting for you, On the breezes of the sky, And you ask What if I fall? Oh but my darling, What if you fly?”

Many of us get stalled at times. We feel overwhelmed. Uncertain. Lost.

In those few minutes of contemplating whether to continue my run or not, I realized that I felt overwhelmed with the sorrow of losing my mom. I was uncertain if I could finish what I had started. I felt lost in life without my greatest cheerleader by my side.

And I was tired of trying to press through pain — both physical and emotional.

But then I thought about what Hansen wrote. “There is freedom waiting for you… my darling, What if you fly?”

I started to run again and I made it home.

And weeks later, I crossed the finish line of my first marathon (see my pic at the end of this post!).

“There is freedom waiting for you.”

Consider what this sentence would look like in picture form. I imagine it like this:

How many of us would identify with this? Maybe not many, and here’s why: because we never stop long enough to truly understand how much we hurt, or have been hurt.

We minimize our pain: Things could be worse! Who am I to complain?

We deny our pain: I am not in prison! I am doing just fine.

We just keep running, but we are running on fumes.

Hey friend, this is not how God made us to live.

When I read Hansen’s poem, I hear God’s plea for us. It includes all of the elements of a great Bible story:

• The downcast soul ✅

• The weariness of living in a sin-wrecked world ✅

• A compassionate, clarion call ✅

• A counter-intuitive way of seeing the world ✅

• The promise of new life ✅

Without the last elements, there is simply no reason for us to truly confront the first two. Without the hope of freedom, we will remain in bondage.

Years ago while I was visiting Cape Town, South Africa, a friend had just returned from visiting some of the most impoverished communities outside of town. The community was riddled with young teens contracting HIV. My friend shared that these teens had access to contraception; they just didn’t use it.

Why, you may ask?

“There is no reason to use it,” they would say. “We have no hope for a better tomorrow.” They perceived themselves as trapped in a cycle of poverty and hardship that was hardly worth living for. They had no hope of freedom.

Fourteen years later, I have not forgotten this story, nor do I take for granted the fact that our situations can sometimes seem so dire that any hope for freedom or healing can seem like a passing breeze. But here are 50 stories of people I have talked to who have faced deep pain and uncertainty in order to experience freedom. Listen to any or all of them — God’s grace covers them all.

Back to my long run.

Let me be honest. When I stopped mid-run, I first spent a few minutes trying to change up my music. Then I thought a podcast might help. Any distraction to get me the six miles home.

Isn’t that what we do, too? We cover up our pain. We put on our music. We binge-watch movies. We do everything — good things, bad things — so that we don’t have to ask this hard question: If freedom is waiting for me out there, then where am I now?

It’s okay to say that you are not okay. It’s okay to say that you feel like you are in prison. Here, of course, is where I want to draw your mind to this lovely Bible passage from Acts 16:23-26 about two great guys named Paul and Silas:

“After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”

Did you catch that? Paul and Silas were in a literal prison. But even in that prison, as they were singing and praying, the doors flew open.

“There is freedom waiting for you.”

I need to get to my point!

Prisons exist for many reasons, but the most basic is this: something has gone direly wrong. For Paul and Silas, a group of men simply could not believe the good news of Jesus that the two were spreading. For the youth of the impoverished community in Cape Town, the veil of sin and injustice that permeates our world had blinded them to hope. “Oh but my darling, what if you fly?”

In my instance, my mom had been stolen from me.

For you, it may be that you have experienced church abuse in such a way that has distorted your view of God. Or you have experienced prejudice and bias on such a level that you can only see a fraction of who God made you to be. Perhaps you are just sad, beaten down by a world that tells you that you must be prettier or wealthier or have more friends or have a more influential presence online.

It’s okay to cry right now if you need to.

But allow me to also offer you a few simple steps that may begin to crack that prison door open.

First, stop running.

Stop running.

It’s okay.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Second, admit that you are hurting.

“In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.” (Psalm 18:6)

Third, believe in freedom.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)

When I was first grieving the loss of my mom, I told a friend that I felt like I was stuck, like I wasn’t going anywhere; I was just overwhelmed with grief. Her response has stayed with me: “Grief is not stagnant. Grief is working your way back to joy.”

There IS something on the other side of our pain, our loss, our sadness, and our feelings of insufficiency. The promise that we will fly.

Finally, allow hope in.

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13)

As you begin to believe that something better is possible, you need to give God the key to open up the doors that have held your burden in for too long.

An Attempt to Sum This Up:

Let me close by encouraging you to read the stories of three men. One loses everything he has, including his family, his health, and his possessions (Job). The second flees his homeland after an evil ruler threatens to take his life (Elijah). The third, feeling utterly defeated and confused by what God is up to, sits under a tree and waits to die (Jonah).

Please read about each of them in the Bible (Job, Elijah, and Jonah)! You’ll really need to read the entire Book of Job, sorry. But then with Elijah, I Kings 19 will suffice, but really, the more you read about the backstory of Elijah, the better. And with Jonah, well, the book is only four short chapters.

Each man gets to the point where he must stop and face his pain. And each of their stories DOES read like a good Bible story: Their souls are downcast ✅ and they are weary of living in a sin-wrecked world ✅. But as they sit, alone with God, they all hear a compassionate, clarion call ✅, have a counter-intuitive way of seeing the world ✅, and understand that God is doing something new ✅.

Die-hard marathoners may not say it’s okay to stop mid-run. Similarly, you may have been told that you just need to keep going.

Friends, this is not how we are to live. If you find yourself in a prison (however large or small it may seem), know that it might be time for you to let God unlock that door so that you can fly.

Much love to you,

💚 Laurie

Enjoy some pics of my running journey below (the first is after that 15-miler; the second, after I finished the marathon):

(Next time, I want to address what one of you shared with me after reading last week’s post on A Simple Guide for When It Hurts Everywhere; namely, about how — and when — we can begin to find our way back into a church community again when we’ve been hurt.)