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