Insight From the Sidelines

Insight From the Sidelines…

Have you ever realized that a perspective you unknowingly held was entirely incorrect?

How did you feel about the discovery?

In one experience of The 12th Mile, I found the discovery of my perspective completely amusing. I laughed. I laughed at how naïve my belief was and at how I hadn’t even realized I thought it was true…

This devotion is the story behind the story I share in The 12th Mile. In October 2020, I volunteered at the Amway Riverbank Run, held in the fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On that day, I worked at the 12th-mile aid station.

The Amway Riverbank Run in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the largest 25K road race in the United States. I normally run this race. However, after a recent epilepsy diagnosis, I was too distracted by treatment options to train with the focus needed to run well, so I volunteered. Although I was initially disappointed not to compete that year, I quickly found myself excited about the prospect of seeing all the runners compete, as I would be a support person from the sidelines for the entire race. I would see some of the best runners in the world, some of them famous! WooHoo!

Now, this is where it got mentally sticky and comical for me. Mile 12 was the point in the race when it became a mental battle for me! All of a sudden, the race felt really hard. Would the elites feel this way at mile 12? Would I even be able to tell? In the theater of my mind, I had imagined these extraordinary athletes effortlessly running at a sub-5-minute-per-mile pace, smiling and waving to the crowd as they flew by. This was NOT what I saw that day!

When the race began, I had a bit of time to wait for the lead competitors to reach the 12th-mile aid station. When they finally arrived, they were a privilege to watch. What incredible skill and strength! Their fitness and focus were impressive. However, they did not look like they were having a good time! Their faces showed the true labor and difficulty of the challenge as they strove to run their race! They were working incredibly hard to accomplish their work with excellence. Their work was effortful, not effortless! It was a bit humbling—even inwardly comical—to see how incorrect my assumption truly was. But as God often does, my lesson was not finished yet. As the race progressed, the pace per mile did, yes, increase. However, as I saw the faces of the runners who were accomplishing a 9-, 10-, 12-, or even a “more minute-per-mile” race, I observed that, in many, the expressions looked very much the same as the elites. Labor, focus, and determination were the things I saw in the faces of so many of the runners that went past my aid position at mile 12. The paces were different, but the strain of the effort looked very similar. And this truth was humbling to see and understand as well. Running with intention is hard, no matter how fast your feet may carry you!

I believe life’s tests have our names on them. What is hard for you and where you may need to grow is not the same as what is hard for me and where I need to grow. In this way, we do not match. Our life racecourses look very different. In a May devotional, I shared that my friend Sarah yelled encouragement from the sidelines, “Run Your Race!” That sentence is packed with life wisdom, not just running wisdom.  

As I have said, running is hard, but life is harder. That day as a race volunteer, its message settled into my spirit. Every runner had a unique story about what brought them to the race. Gifts. Abilities. Challenges. Victories. Setbacks. Every story mattered. And even with all these differences… every single competitor shared the same hope: the finish line.

That is life! The finish line. God calls each of us to run with Him so we finish well. I believe this means loving, working, resting, celebrating, and sometimes hurting. The good stuff. The hard stuff. We all do it. God uses everything!

Let’s run together and cheer each other on for the next best step.

 

Christ gave each one of us a special gift. Each one received what Christ wanted to give him.   Ephesians 4: 7 (ICB)

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit them together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it.  Psalm 139:13-14 (TLB)

So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.   1 Thessalonians 5:11

With Love,

Louise Ann