On Running

According to the program on my phone, I've spent 4 hours and 30 minutes of the last week walking/running.  That's 270 minutes dedicated to an activity I despised and swore I would never do.  Not even to save myself from a violent crime.

Somewhere, I hear the cackle of my former PE teacher turned coworker.

I was initiated into this running club by a 7 inch blister on the back of my foot that I swore would callous if I could just keep walking.  So I bought NuSkin, bandaids and wrapped my foot to keep the rubbing to a minimum.  That particular jaunt ended with me walking barefoot on one foot with a bleeding heel until I could make it to the car.  The CCL offered to piggy back me--that's how nasty it looked.  And believe me.  It didn't feel any better than it looked.  I limped for days.

But all of that is beside the point.  The point is that God is using running to teach me about The Needing.  Well, actually, God has used everything in my current path to converge on me with a lesson about needing so powerfully that I found myself face down on my floor crying out to Him this afternoon.

When I look at my surroundings, I'm struck by how little we really need God to move.  Few of us really depend on Him for our daily bread and become the ultimate problem solvers when it comes to encountering temptation.  We pray for His kingdom to come on Sunday but seem to lose all real conviction the power and the glory that could work in our lives to bring Him praise any other day of the week.

We circle mountains and circle mountains and circle mountains living our lives of "quiet desperation" as Thoreau once said.  But never once do we...er, I...entertain the idea that my quiet desperation is a crying out for His presence.

Well, I didn't.  Until I started running.

The experience of running has been a nutty thing for me.  My legs may hurt, but I could honestly run a couple of miles except for the hinderance of my lungs.  In protest of this activity, my lungs refuse to process air.  Instead, my mouth takes it in and my lungs politely declare an unwillingness to expand for said air.  It's awesome.  And by awesome, I mean ridiculously panic inducing.  There's nothing worse than feeling suffocated--real, lack-of-oxygen suffocation.

My running partners (and my own sense of determination) have worked hard at pushing my boundaries.  More often than not, my brain hits panic mode and demands that I quit in order to breathe.  God used that opportunity to speak to me.

(I never want to speak *for* God, but the following is what took place in my heart during a particularly grueling session.  It wasn't out loud; however, it was very, very real.)

God:  Don't quit.

Me:  I can't keep going.  I need to breathe.  My lungs can't get enough air.  I can't keep going like this; I'll pass out.

God:  Ask Me.  Ask for My Strength.  You need Me for your next breath.

In my life of self-help-quiet-desperation, I never considered how deeply I have needed Him.  I've circled mountains with no hope of finding an end.

Then I heard Him say, "You've circled this mountain long enough; turn north" (Deuteronomy 2:3).

North didn't mean those things dropped out of sight or magically disappeared.  North has been a place of complete and total dependence on His capability alone. 

It's running and depending on Him for my next breath.

So in the near future, I'm praying for a Needing that will grip my heart and not let go.  If running is the only thing that reminds me to Need, it will become a daily part of my routine.

Feel free to hold my hand on this trip.

We're heading north to find streams in the wasteland (Isaiah 43).

(Thoughts?  Comments?  Every blogger appreciates feedback.)

Let My Life Song Sing Part 2

Part One

Last night, I dreamed it again.  I was in a sloppy sweatshirt and some pair of stretchy pants walking down my driveway.  I was lost, or at least I felt like I was lost, and I was looking for Favorite.  I kept saying his name and sobbing because I couldn't find him.  And then I was aware of a suffocating emptiness. 

When I wake up, I know it's not a dream.  I can relay the emotions of that day and the days before with alarming clarity.  I don't necessarily remember events in sequence, but I haven't forgotten the way it felt.  In short:  suffocation.

The real days that followed might as well have been a dream--hazy, undecipherable nonsense.  I cried and learned, for the first time, that not all tears are satisfying.  They came in unpredicable, seizured outbursts--a response to pain I couldn't identify or treat.  If I could've spent them like currency, I would've bankrupted myself in the first few hours with the hope of washing my hands.  Finished.  But they budgeted themselves.  And even now, they demand to be used as payment when I believe the account to be empty.

My prayers were wordless sobs.

Then there was the antagonistic swirling in my mind.

If I shouldn't fear and if I belonged to Him, why did this happen?  He could've stopped it.  Almighty God holds dominion over death; therefore, this situation didn't need to exist.

Since it does, what now, God?  What do I do now?

Then there was that story:  the disciples were on the water; Jesus was sleeping.  There was a huge storm.  Waves swept over the boat.  In a panic, the men woke Jesus and (I imagine) yelled, "Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!" (Matt 8:25).

On the black and white pages of scripture, my prayer existed.  We were drowning.

I whispered that prayer before laying my head on my pillow.  I whispered it when I got up in the morning and when I brushed my teeth.  I whispered it on the drive to work, when I turned off the ignition or took another breath before walking into my classroom.  I whispered it before every church service and after every song.  It was every inhalation and exhalation of my body.

Lord.  Save us.  We're going to drown.

One evening, when the tears were spent for the time being, I opened the Word to read my life verse.  I needed reassurances because I was drowning in grief.  Instead of starting in verse one, my eyes drifted to verse two of Isaiah 43:

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

I prayed, "Lord, we're drowning.  Save us from drowning."

He responded, "I'm here.  I see the water.  But you're not going to drown."

Those moments are replete with an intense needing.  I can remember the water and the waves and I dream about the suffocation and the needing and the desperation. 

Some days I think about those waves and how scared I was when we were just trying to keep the boat afloat.  I think about His direct response to a specific prayer and I wonder why I don't spend more time in the river laying my heart bare in front of Him.

"We didn't count on suffering
We didn't count on pain
But if the blessing's in the valley
Then in the river I will wait"

                                                            --Delirious, "Find Me in the River"

I'm waiting here.  For You.

Let My Life Song Sing Part 1

For the past few weeks, PastorJosh has been encouraging us to think about our Life Verses.  Currently, my Life Verse is looking a whole lot more like a Life Chapter because God continues to speak new Truths out of the same segment of scripture.  Apparently I'm supposed to be learning that all this stuff is tied together.  (Who knew?!)

A few years ago, I had never even heard of the concept of a Life Verse.  When Beth Moore shared it during one of our women's studies, I was confused as to how one determined which verse was "the one."  Did you just pick one you really liked?  Did someone else choose it for you?  Would it come out of a fortune cookie?

Mine came as a response to struggle.  My struggle?  Worthlessness.

I have always had difficulty feeling like I was good enough.  I've never believed I was pretty enough.  Or smart enough.  Or thin enough.  And those feelings of less than have carried over into a good number of my personal involvements.

I struggle to lose weight because I don't believe my body is capable of doing it.  I have difficulty with school because I am constantly comparing myself to the people around me which results in insecurity in my intelligence.  I am forever feeling like I don't measure up at work because I'm not as creative/determined/scheduled/prepared/conventional as I should be. 

So when Satan attacks my life, he generally does it through self worth.

"They don't like you because they know who you really are, Crys."
"You are fat because you are a loser.  You'll always look this way, you know."
"It doesn't matter how many hours you devote to the job.  You'll never be excellent at this."
"You might as well get used to being mediocre.  That's all you'll ever really be."
"They're really only tolerating you.  You are such an annoyance to everyone here."

They are harsh statements.  But I have mostly believed them.  And I can tell you that losing our child was the nail in the worthlessness coffin.  It was one more thing I couldn't do.  One of our most basic, primal abilities as women and one more example of failure in my life.

It was official.  I sucked.

During Believing God, one of the things we were supposed to remind ourselves of was this:  "I am who God says I am."  But all of these things (and then some) were the very reasons I was struggling to believe God had already defined me as more than a conqueror.  My life seemed to breed failure and I was terrified I would never really be of value to God.

When fear was addressed in one of our studies, I made it my mission to look up several verses that included the words "fear not."  (There are so many of them in the Bible.  Don't believe me?  Do a biblegateway.com search.)  I read through them until I got to Isaiah 43:1:  "Now, this is what the Lord says, the one who created you, O Jacob, and formed you, O Israel:  'Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine.'"

It was my deepest fear recorded in the middle of scripture.  I was (it's still a struggle) terrified I would never be the person God had called me to be.  I had screwed up one too many times.  I would continue failing Him in the most monstrous ways possible.  I?  Wasn't worth the breath He gave me.

But when I read that scripture, I felt like God was starting a personal conversation with me.  Me.  The person least worthy of His personal attentions. 

That conversation hit me in the places I needed it most.  He began by addressing my fear, and reminding me of His enduring, redemptive presence in my life.  Then, by calling my name, He basically indicated He knows me.  He doesn't just know my name--He knows my true self...the things I hide and the internal struggles.  And his response to all that mess?  I belong to Him.

Intrinsically, don't we all want to belong?  This verse, more than anything, has been a reminder that I belong to someone who is willing to redeem and claim me.

It hasn't been magic.  I still struggle to believe those things and often find myself repeating those words.  Just because something is True doesn't mean we automatically believe.  But I know there is freedom for captives through the words of scripture, and I have committed myself to a belief that I am who He says I am even when that seems like the most ridiculous premise available.

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I'll continue this series with the ways God has spoken to me through the words of Isaiah 43. 

Next up:  A specific and direct answer to prayer.

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Do you have a Life Verse?  How did you find it?  I'm interested in the ways God speaks to His people.