Loyalties: Major on the Majors

Loyalty.

A strong and powerful word. A word said in the company of sentences like: 

"Where are your loyalties?"

"They are loyal to a default."

Loyalty carries a lot of weight. When people talk about loyalty, they usually mean commitment and dedication. 

Standing by someone.

Showing up.

Staying true.

But sometimes I think we miss the forest through the trees when it comes to loyalty. 

Sometimes we get so stuck on the idea of loyalty that we lose ourselves in it. We become obsessed with being loyal and don't see that we have become loyal to the wrong things, and in doing so we forget the things that actually deserve our loyalty. 

The wrong things are not necessarily "bad things", but we find that we don't always have a good outcome or we end up behaving bad to be loyal. 

I like to call this majoring on the minors. 

We stay committed to things that are small, temporary and honestly insignificant in the grand scheme of life. 

While sometimes we are loyal to BIG things, things or people of worth, but we lose ourselves in their cause. 

For me loyalty starts with my GOD, myself and my family. 

But sometimes we find ourselves giving our loyalty to things outside of that inner sacred circle-organizations, obligations, expectations, opinions and even passions. We give our loyalty to people outside our intimate circle finding our inner circle suffering.

Before we realize it, we've sacrificed our peace, our relationships, and even pieces of ourselves trying to remain loyal to things that make a difference on this side of heaven. 

True loyalty should never cost us the very thing it was meant to protect. 

THE RUNDOWN

LOYALTY. How it collides with my life right now. I have been asked to step into some big roles with the ladies at church and my training program has made a big turn into the land of "grit." 

I have wrapped myself up tighter, isolated a bit more to protect my loyalties. 

Majoring on the majors. 

Loyalty has to show up in my miles. Running has a funny way of exposing what you are loyal to. It is easy to be loyal when the sun is shining, the legs feel good (I don't even know what good feels like anymore) and the miles click effortlessly. But loyalty shows up on hard days. 

Like this last weekend when I had 2 back-to-back 25-mile training runs, I had to prepare for a 10-minute teaching in Romans and teach it with feedback from the elders at church and another 20-ish other people. As well as prepare for my teaching this Tuesday for our ladies' ministry. 

MY HEAD WAS SPINNING. 

The weather was less than stellar, and I couldn't start one of my runs until after my teaching at 1pm. 

Yeah, loyalty shows up on the hard days, the windy days, the busy days etc....

TRAINING requires loyalty. 

Loyalty to the PLAN, the PROCESS, and loyalty to showing up when no one is watching. 

But here's the thing I have learned: running loyalty rarely happens alone. 

THIS WEEKEND PROVED THAT.

Alecia and Julie rolled in at 1pm for my first 25-mile-long run. ONE o'clock. Not the normal, civilized runner hour. And even when their bodies were failing, they didn't quit back to the car- maybe back to the bathroom or the ditch, but they never quit! And even Andy came out to save me for my last 5 miles to bring me in. 

Then SUNDAY, Christina was ready and waiting to grit out another 25 miles with me Sunday. And Pam and Lynn jumped in for the second loop of 12 miles, topping their milage to bring Christina and I in. 

And that second loop is really special. That's the one everyone smells questionable, conversations are getting quirky, or I am, and nobody is sure if their legs are still attached.  

THIS is being loyal to the run, and to one another. 

Sometimes the greatest reminder of God's faithfulness isn't found at the finish line...

It is found in the people He sends to run the road beside you. 

"Individual commitment to a group effort-that is what makes team work." Vince Lombardi

In Peace, Not Pieces,

ANITA

When the Bar is Low

 

Life does not have to be perfect, to find some gratitude. 

With my hands reaching high, my eyes closed to my surroundings, my heart wide open-tears streaming down my face-I sang. 

A voice untamed and shaky lyrics pressed deep into my wounds. My posture upright but my soul humble in awe.

The words were caressing my soul:

"Anita, how did we make it out, the bar was so low..." 

My big brother calls me, and we hold these deep, intimate conversations about healing and grace, the grace only the Lord can give. We laugh.

We cry. 

But we always give God the glory.  

The grace that redeemed orphaned siblings. The grace that protected the little dirty "ragamuffins" that no one wanted.

Nobody wanted my brother and me. 

But God. 

The Lord never let us go. He had a plan and a purpose for us. 

He is the "Father to the fatherless". Psalm 68:5

Some days I long for my parents. 

I grieve memories that never existed. 

Beautiful people with a terrible addiction. 

Oh, the pain of addiction, of abandonment. 

The pain of being traded in for a case of beer, a bottle of pills, the pain of being discarded for love, for getting high, or getting numb. 

OH, But the BEAUTY. 

The Lord had a plan and a purpose for it all.

The Lord called me by name.

He held me in His arms, protecting me. 

He was forgiving me for so many ugly things I did from that wounded heart. 

The days that death washed over me, the depths of darkness, He pulled me out and strengthened me through those blackened nights. 

Because there is JOY IN THE MORNING. 

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5

I just had to make it one more day. 

Sometimes, I see those scars on my arms and I feel my stomach turn inside out. 

He had a plan for me. 

The Lord is Father to the fatherless. 

He counseled me. 

He forgave me.

He equipped me.

He LOVED me when I couldn't love myself. 

He taught me to not GIVE UP even when everyone gave up on me. 

RUNDOWN:

My running is a biproduct of my survival story. To survive I had to learn to persevere. I had to learn to not give up or give in. 

I had to learn this thing called GRACE. 

I had to learn how to climb the mountain.

 BUT when I reached the top....I had to learn something harder-to look BACK over the path I climbed.  

The path climbed in humility, and without bitterness. 

The climb, the terrain, the wilderness, the savage predators, the wounds along the way were conquered. 

NOT because I was strong. 

Because the Lord never left me and never forsook me. 

"Though my father and mother forsook me, the Lord will receive me." Psalms 27:10

 Even when I FELT alone, abandoned and rejected.

The Lord prepared me all those painful years ago. 

Here I am. 

I am 5 weeks out from a 100K.

 12 weeks from Western States 100.

An EPIC Dream, I thought for sure was never going to happen just 9 weeks ago.

 

"Work like it depends on you but pray like it depends on the LORD."

But don't you dare give up. 

No matter how low the bar was set, no matter how impossible dreams look- life looks, don't GIVE UP. 

I got in 10 miles in Metamora this morning. Sarah and I hit the backroads in horse-country, hill terrain. She dragged me up those hills, and I chased her heels a lot faster than I expected to. I think the training is actually working! And the healing! 

Speaking of chasing, that's what my brother and I do, a lot different than we did when we were kids. Today we chase each other with encouragement and the Word. We chase each other towards healing, grace, and the life God somehow carved out for us in a world that didn't expect much from us. 

The bar may have been set low.

But GOD was quietly building endurance. 

IN Peace, 

Not Pieces,

ANITA~

Me, Bobby, Gina. 
When we were in foster homes, my sister was the youngest, she was so adorable and smaller. A couple fell in love with her and wanted to adopt her. 
That's another story. 

Shadows

 "Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward." Oscar Wilde

They are everywhere. 

Some I try to make friends with and some I try to out run, out hide...out wit.

Some I can shake off and some are relentless, lurking, searching, and chasing me down.

Some I can't live without and some come and go.

Saturday, I was on a long run. They came after me before my run, and ran like a monkey on my back during. 

But I discovered I am not alone. 

Somewhere on the backroads we ran. I felt them on my heels as I tried to get distracted by the voice of another. The stories of another. 

A detour from self I engaged in another. 

She spoke of deep hurt. The kind of hurt that wraps you so tight the breath in your lungs escapes you. 

The sort of affliction that grabs your voice and you tremble. 

The soreness in your heart that your eyes weep without knowing. 

I saw her tears resting on her cheek even after the mile we ran. 

I also felt them. 

Shadows

The shadows of yesterday.

The painful phantoms of heartache.

They show up in words, in memories, in moments, in failures and even in fabrications. We live with them and some we can't live without. We love them and we hate them. 

They grasped me somewhere on the backroads alongside her. Gently, they held me as they opened my heart up. 

THE RUNDOWN:

 "No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Phil. 3:13-14

What are we listening to? What are we exploring? 

Shadows can be the words that we hear. The moments we retrieve. Some haunt us. I hear the words said and unsaid and if not managed they will hurt me and hold me back from the calling the Lord has on me. 

And have. 

Before I started my run I was weighed down by the shadows of fear. I was having a party of all the ugly. 

I prayed for the Lord to guide me through the ugly that was afraid of the BACK to BACK runs. 

I recovered in confidence collecting all the victories the Lord had given me. 

Saturday 25miles

Sunday 20miles

And I had to JUST DO IT. Forward is FORWARD. It's releasing what is behind, mistakes, setbacks, even past victories can trip you up, but PRESS ON. 

Shadows only exist because there is LIGHT. The Lord is my Light. My Hope. My Forward.

Because I feel moving FORWARD the shadows fall behind me! 

I do not have to fight every shadow; I just have to keep walking in the LIGHT. 

SPEAKING OF LIGHT....

Hal Koerner said 69 miles for the week. 

The SUN showed up. My friends showed up. 71 Miles for the week! 

Nailed the B2B.

Sunshine therapy, laughter and strong women. Let's GO 100K in APRIL!! 

GLORY TO GOD!!!

In Peace, Not Pieces,

Anita