Spring Is In The Air

I realize I haven’t written much lately, or at least I haven’t been publishing much of what I’ve been writing lately. I haven’t been scrapbooking lately. I haven’t taken any photos lately. I haven’t been running much lately. I haven’t been doing much of anything lately.

Except climbing back into bed.

I’ve spent the majority of this winter getting up, and then going back to bed. I’m in bed almost every night by 7:30pm, doesn’t matter if it’s a weekend or weekday.  Early to bed, early to rise. So yes, I do get up between 3-4:00am every morning seven days a week. I sometimes work out, I sometimes make coffee and read. I sometimes just sit in the still and dark quiet of the house, doing absolutely nothing.

And when the rest of the house starts to waken and the sun starts to come up, I just climb myself right back into bed.

I’ve stopped laying my clothes for working out and for work the night before (probably because most of those clothes don’t fit me comfortably anymore). I’ve stopped tracking the books I’ve read and stopped logging the miles I’ve run.  I’ve stopped counting my transformer numbers during the occasional time I talk myself into doing a workout video. I’ve stopped counting the points of the food I eat.

I care. But at the same time I absolutely don’t.

I keep thinking, hoping that the promising arrival of spring will help lift my spirits and help light that lost fire in my belly again. I keep hoping that the sunshine and warmer temps will finally help kick my sorry ass out of my bed and back into the big overwhelming world again.

But… it really hasn’t. At least not yet.

I have a 15k race coming up this weekend. And I am not ready, not ready by a long shot. Not ready mentally, not ready physically. I have put in some winter miles in the basement on my machines, but that transition back to outside in real life, with real hills, and real gale force winds of Iowa - it’s brutal (for me anyway). I’ve only gotten outside to run less than a handful of times, and every time it was met with epic failure in my mind. Every time I am again reminded about just how far I have regressed over the last year, how faster and farther and thinner I was a year ago.

You would think that would be this fantastic instigator, motivator, incentive to kick it in the jimmy… but for some reason it’s not. And I’m finding that even more frustrating than you can imagine.

It’s been a season of hard for me lately. A season of heavy and unnameable burdens. The weight on my shoulders feels like it’s overtaking me most days, and I hide in the shadows of shameful regression most days. Surely, how could I come so far a two short years ago, only to slip so far backwards so quickly yet again.  Surely, we aren't supposed to admit our struggles, share our inner fears and pains and insecurities.  Surely we aren't supposed to own up to the wispers of our own demons of depression and darkness within us.

Ahhhh, the epic story of my life. And here I thought maybe for once, for once in my life I had finally done it different, the right way, the slow way, the hard way, and it would stay… but obviously that is not the case.

This past weekend the sun was shining, the wind was blowing at it's typical tundra force, and the temperature was finally in the sixties. I did not want to, but I finally convinced myself to lace up those damn running shoes and at least attempt a sizable training distance. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t mind over matters, I couldn’t mind over miles… and as I fought and fought for each one of those redicuously horrible five long miles on the hard concrete streets in my little town, I found myself fighting back tears.

Anger. Frustration. Helplessness. Hopelessness. Exhaustion. Giving up.  My body hurt, my legs hurt, my feet hurt... and my heart hurt.

Before I had even started out, I had told myself I would run five miles and allow myself to power walk four miles. The five miles would be through town on concrete roads. Theast four miles would be on the local trail that was once a railroad path, which I knew would be muddy and a little tricky to navigate while running. Well, at least that’s the story I allowed myself to believe, the excuse card I wrote out in my mind and handed over to justify what I knew was going to be less than what I was wanting.

I finally reached the trail entrance and took a left turn and started down the way. I went from a concrete curb and gutter view, to suddenly… a view of nature. It was a beautiful mix of old, drab and dead with that of a vivid green new growth with its promise of tomorrow, and hope, and God’s faithfulness.

All those bright green little shoots of grass popping up through the dormant earth, peeking and poking their way through that once frozen black ground, reaching, stretching, clamoring upwards toward that sunshine.

I walked and walked, and watched the passing sides of the trail from one end to the other. Four miles of those magical pops of green, four miles of life and death, rebirth and growth, so clearly displayed in its most bare and raw natural environments. A visual and tangible reminder of God’s goodness, His grace in granting new life, new growth, new opportunities. His gentle touch of healing and His granting of the passing of time, the celebration of the change of seasons, the continuation of His faithful promise to never leave us, never forsake, never forget us.

Had I continued to push myself, continue to curse myself, over the course of those last four miles, I would have never taken these sights and these thoughts in. I would have continued to fight it all, to push and punish, and stay blinded by my own disappointment, my own lacking, my own judgement, my own condemnation of not enough.

But I chose to walk. I chose to listen to my body. I chose to give my mind and my body a small reprieve from its mental insanity… and in that slowing down, in that stillness, in that season of defeat I would look down and see those first little hints of grass, of growth, of glimmering hope in what’s to come tomorrow.

Life didn’t stop all together in that season of cold and harsh winter that spread behind it all those long several last months. Life slowed, it changed, it evolved into something nearly unrecognizable, but it didn’t stop all together. It rested and it waited for the gentle but firm touch from God to signal the time for change, the season to start to grow again.

I couldn’t help but feel an ache within me, an ever so slight pull within me as I thought of all this, knowing that God isn’t done with me yet either. He may have me in a season of hiding, a season of dormancy, a season of lost and laonely and hurting and sadness, of being bleak and cold… but it’s not going to stay that way forever, I need to remember and trust that this isn’t going to last forever.

I need to trust God will grant my current winter season to again evolve into a new spring. I need to trust He will reach out, reach in, to gently touch the current cold, lifeless soil of my soul and ignite in me a time of renewed growth and hope. Oh may this winterness pass soon. I long to return to that which I once knew… that which I once had accomplished… that which I had once conquered.

And as I type these words and bring these thoughts to a close tonight, I’m reminded of the words of a song… I google them, read them, listen to them. And in closing shall share them.

May we all find the strength and patience to weather our storms of inclemency. May we all hold strong in our weaknesses and lacking. May we all have open eyes to not miss the budding hope of new growth and opportunity all around us.

You Breathe In Me by Michael W Smith

You breathe in me
And I'm alive
With the power of your holiness
You breathe in me
And you revive
Feelings in my soul
That I have laid to rest

So breathe in me
I need you now
I've never felt so dead within

So breathe in me
Maybe somehow
You can breathe new life
In me again

I used to be
So sensitive
To the light that leads
To where you are

Now I've acquired
These callouses
With the darkness of
A cold and jaded heart

So breathe in me
I need you now
I've never felt so dead within
So breathe in me
Maybe somehow
You can breathe new life

In me again

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