4:23:34...

"Is the fruit worth the squeeze?" -The Girl Next Door

"Go through it. You ain't gonna die. At the end of pain is success. You're not going to die because you're feeling a little pain." -Oz Pinoy, Pain is Temporary

"I have fought the hard fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith"-2 Timothy 4:7

A month and a half ago I finished my first marathon. I know lots of people finish marathons these days, but I want to tell you about mine.

You see, after three knee surgeries in five years, I've had to ratchet back my high-impact exercise by leaps and bounds. I can't play as much ultimate frisbee or basketball. I can't run like I used to. But I wanted to finish a marathon. It was kind of a bucket list item. If my knees weren't ever going to be "perfect" anymore, I wanted to cross one of those finish lines.

So last September I started training. And I was feeling good. I ran a half marathon to see how it felt, and it felt good. I was cruising. The winter months started to come and the temperature started to fall, but I kept right along with my training program.

As the race approached, the weight of all of the training started to take its toll. Months of waking up before 6 coupled with a full-time job and being a full-time student has a way of wearing you down. But my training was going great and my body felt ready to go. I was finally going to cross off this accomplishment.

And then it happened: an ice storm. In Texas. On the week of the race. And just like that, all the training was for nothing. The course couldn't be melted and cleared by the time the race was supposed to start, so the Cowtown Marathon was cancelled.

But I wasn't going to let that discourage me. I'd spent five months training after all. So I started scouring the lists of races all around the region for one that would be close, and one that might be cheap. And then I found it: the Big D Marathon in Dallas a month away.

But that month was not as easy as I thought it would be. For one, it was an extra month of running on legs that were already pretty completely worn out. Additionally, I spent Lent (which just happened to overlap that month) fasting during the week, which I can confirm is not compatible with marathon training. On top of that it was a busy season at work and I was going through what can best be described as the most exhausting semester I've had at Brite.

The day of the race finally arrived and the weather was much better. Dad and Little Brother drove down to support me along the way. My friend Larry, a veteran marathoner, had offered to be there to cheer and help me finish the last few miles if I needed a pick-me-up. And my legs felt decent.

But three miles in, I knew it wasn't going to be my day. I set out on the pace I'd set for the Cowtown, and kept it for 14 miles, but it all started to fall apart quickly thereafter. My knees started tightening and firing on and off. My body, worn out from the wear and tear of the past couple months, simply didn't have anything left.

At mile 18, I found Dad, Thomas, and Larry waiting for me to spur me on. I thought about quitting right there. My knees were squeezing every quarter mile forcing me to sit and stretch. But Larry pulled onto the track to start his part of the race with me. So I kept going.

He quickly realized the predicament I was in. Every mile or so I thought about quitting. Every quarter mile I had to stop to walk because me knees got too tight to stride. My body was giving up. But Larry kept pushing, and I kept going.

4 hours, 23 minutes, and 34 seconds after I started the race (45 minutes after I'd planned to finish) I crossed the finish line.

And there wasn't an ounce of me that was disappointed. I wasn't mad I'd run slower. I wasn't upset I'd met the "wall" miles before I'd planned. I wasn't let down because I'd had to walk.

I finished.

It wasn't perfect. But I finished.

And isn't that how life works? After all, when has something always gone exactly according to plan? Nothing worth finishing comes without some kind of obstacles. Nothing worth anything comes without some kind of pain. And sometimes the result we celebrate isn't even the goal we set out to reach.

I was sure I was going to run a marathon in under 3 hours and 40 minutes. I was sure I was going to blast through it and finish with a smile on my face. But I didn't.

And that was just a part of my journey. It had twists and turns, disappointments and successes. It had smiles and tears (no really, lots of both!) When I crossed the finish line, it wasn't at all what I thought it would feel like. When I set out to run a marathon in September, I had a much different picture in my head of what it would look like.

But our stories always get interrupted. They always demand alteration and re-imagining. Our stories are always bumpy and imperfect. There was no character in the Bible whose life was worth telling about that didn't experience disappointment or pain. But their stories were worthwhile because of those struggles. We tell their stories today, centuries later, because God took their lives, even with all of the imperfections, and wrote something beautiful with them.

So may you run your marathon. May you face your challenges head on. May you find people willing to help pull you to the finish line when you don't think you can get there yourself. May you always remain open to the possibility that your future is yet unwritten. And whether everything goes according to plan or nothing goes as it ought, may you learn to recognize God's fingerprints in your story as it moves along as it will towards whatever finish line may be awaiting you.

forever unfinished...