There are several reasons I have for believing in God, and one of them is my high school junior year track season.

Looking back, I still don’t know what compelled me to sign up for the team. I’d never been gifted or really interested in the athletic department, but I had long legs and good lungs and running seemed like something I could do. I had visions of crossing the finish line in a blaze of glory with Katy Perry’s “Firework” playing in the background. (It was 2011 and that was the tune of the times.)

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d never truly known what it meant to run. To push your body to keep going when all you wanted was to dive off the side of the track. To wonder if your lungs would actually have enough oxygen to propel you through two more laps. To feel acid rising in your stomach thanks to the taco you mistakenly ate for lunch two hours before a hard workout. To hear your mind begging please stop and force your legs to tell it not yet.

And I hated it.

The Katy Perry dreams quickly faded after I came in second to last in my first mile race with a time of 8:32. My dad, who had been a cross country legend in his day, encouraged me to try to get below seven minutes. This became my goal for the rest of the season, a goal that seemed increasingly unattainable as I finished each race around the 7:30 or higher mark.

Meanwhile I was becoming a frequent visitor to the guidance counselor’s office, overwhelmed to the point of tears over the anxiety I felt every day just thinking about having to go to practice, much less competing in races. After my third or fourth time seeing her, the counselor flat out asked me: “Have you considered just quitting?”

(Translation: “Why on earth are you putting yourself through this?”)

Honestly, I can’t tell you what made me see that season through to the end. It certainly wasn’t the love of the sport. Maybe it was the friendships I was making with my teammates, or maybe it was the rush of endorphins at the end of every race that temporarily made me forget how much I hated running.

Probably, it was because the Lord had something to teach me.

There was a girl on my team who was open about her faith, a fairly rare occurrence in the public school world. I started seeking her out before every race, asking if she could hold my hands and pray with me while I held back tears. During practice one day she found me sobbing in the girls’ locker room, and I broke down and told her why running was so hard for me.

I wasn’t afraid of losing.

I was afraid of the pain.

It wasn’t the end of the race I dreaded — I could care less if I was the last one straggling across the finish line (and I usually was). It was the second or third lap, when the adrenaline induced by the starting pistol wore off and my body began to feel the effects of being pushed so hard. It was knowing I still had another half mile to go before I could slow down, another eight hundred meters of leg pumping and ragged breathing and side cramping and stomach churning before it was over.

The truth is, running is uncomfortable. It requires discipline, perseverance, and endurance. And for this comfort-loving couch potato who likes to avoid pain at all costs — both emotional and physical, it was a rude wakeup call.

I don’t remember exactly what my friend said in response to my confession, but I know the gist of it was that as much as running hurts in the moment, it’s worth it for the joy of crossing the finish line. When we feel like giving up, God gives us the strength to finish.

Something inside of me shifted after that day. I didn’t magically start coming in first every race, but I did start trying a little harder. I got better at ignoring the voice in my head telling me to stop and listening to the Voice telling me I could go just a little bit further.

I started writing Bible verse references on my wrist to look at when I needed a dose of motivation during a run. One of my go-to’s was Hebrews 12:1–2 — “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Emphasis mine.)

The running metaphor in verse 1 is often used to emphasize how believers are called to endure in our faith, which is important. However, I think we too often overlook the second part of this passage, which tells us about the race that Jesus ran for us. The race that we could not run ourselves.

Jesus willingly put Himself through unimaginable pain on the cross for our sake. He hung there for six hours, his breathing ragged, blood flowing from nearly every part of his body, experiencing the worst form of physical and emotional agony possible. I can’t help but wonder what He was thinking at that three-hour mark, knowing He still had so much left to suffer before it was over. It must have been excruciating.

And yet, we’re told that He did it for the joy set before Him. The joy of rescuing lost sheep from their sins, of restoring them to a rightful relationship with their Father in heaven so we could live with Him forever.

We were the ones Jesus saw at the finish line, past the literal blood, sweat, and tears. When I looked at those verses my wrist mid-run, I remembered that I was worth the pain to Him.

If He could endure the cross for me, I could endure the race for Him.

By the grace of God I made it to the very last race of that track season, my final chance to get under seven minutes. My race was at three in the afternoon, which gave me much too long of a time to try not to be anxious about it.

When the time finally came and I stepped up to the starting line beneath a hot May sun, I realized too late that I’d forgotten to eat. The only things fueling me were water, some Cheerios, and prayer.

As I sprinted that last hundred meters to the finish line, I heard the official call out my time.

Six minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

ABOUT OUR BLOGGER

Kati Lynn Davis grew up in Chester County and returned to the area after a brief stay on the other side of Pennsylvania to earn her Bachelor’s Degree in English Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She currently works as a Library Specialist and earns a living mostly by reading children’s books. She’s pretty sure she’s an Enneagram 4 but is constantly having an identity crisis over it, so thankfully she’s learning to root her sense of self in Jesus. A few of Kati's favorite subjects to write about are social media, mental health, and films, and she especially loves to explore these topics through the lens of faith.

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