A Season of Letting Go

Picture the type-A personality and then picture it on steroids.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet my oldest child.  

Self-motivated?  You got it.  Driven?  To a fault.  Goal-Oriented?  Yep.  Large and In Charge?  Just a little.

While we like to poke fun with him, Joshua was made in God's image with these exact characteristics.  Eric and I know God made Joshua this way for a reason and that He wants to use these traits for His glory.  Yet sometimes driven personalities can become so focused and driven that they bull-doze right through God's plan.  Sometimes they can make their plan more important than God's plan.  

And therein lies the struggle.  Whether we are Type-A's or not, we can all relate, can we not?

Anyone who knows Joshua knows he is a runner.  And if you don't know him, about 5.2 seconds upon meeting him, you're gonna know he runs.  He lives it.  He breathes it.  He loves it.    

It's truly a strength and a weakness all rolled up in one.

It's a strength because God gave him the ability to run for a reason and He wants him to use it for Him.

It's a weakness because he would tell you his struggle lies in making this gift more important than the Giver.

And truly that's been the struggle.  He has spent the past couple of years in a battle--the battle of making running too important.  Anything we make too important in our life--even if it's a great thing--takes over the spot that God is supposed to have in our life.  The Bible calls it idolatry.

And, oh, how I can relate to my son's struggle!  I do the same thing--not with running (unfortunately, haha) but other things in my life.  I wonder if this IS the greatest struggle us western Christians face, having been blessed and given SO MUCH at our fingertips?  The struggle of making the stuff and the comfortable life more important than the relationship with the One who created us?  

But back to the story.  We watched and coached from the sidelines all last year as he  wrestled between flesh and Spirit.  Striving, exerting, fighting…  We watched him make mistakes, learning hard lessons from overtraining and over-doing.

This year, he finally decided to listen to his parents :) and try a different approach.  To back off, to not over-analyze, over-think, or over-do.  However, as the cross country season got under way, he was more than a little disappointed when times came in not where he wanted them.  Meet after meet, his performance was not where it had been the year before.  The temptation was to train more and push more.  To try harder.  

Strangely, in most circumstances, this is exactly what you want your athletes to do--train more, push more, try harder.  Yet, we knew Joshua's problem wasn't a lack of work ethic.  His problem was in letting go.

Eric and I are way more concerned about our children's hearts than we are about their sport's performance.  I daily pray for our children to love THE LORD, not anything else, with ALL their hearts, minds, soul and strength.  As I mentioned before, each one of us--we have the continually struggle, the constant battle, of other things in our lives usurping God.   However, at the same time, God uses all the activities we are involved in to shape our hearts, does He not?  He want us to talk to Him about ALL things.  Even concerns about races and times.  As a mom, I often try to figure out what God is trying to teach my children.  As I watched his performance suffer, I pondered and prayed about what was happening.  Lord, what are you doing?   Is this just a momentary setback?  Or are you doing something bigger here--is this your way of moving him away from running and pointing his life in a completely different direction?  Is running just too distracting in his pursuit of you?  

God seemed to be silent in answer to all of my questions, except for a faint, quiet, 'Wait.  No worries.  I've got this.'

The worry part.  Oh, I understood that part clearly.  You see, just as Joshua can be consumed with his worries with his running, I can be consumed with my worries regarding our children.  Oh, how I can fret and worry with the best of them.  Worry and fear can have me crawled up in a corner, sucking my thumb in no time.  God and I--well, let's just say we have an ongoing conversation about my issue on a very regular basis!  Let's just say He's still hammering it out.  

Isn't it amazing and so God-like that the Multi-tasker can work, mold and chisel two different people on the opposite side of the same problem?  

The wait part.  The waiting room I am also all too familiar with.  The waiting room, God's classroom for teaching faith and trust.  I knew from experience that I better sit back and get comfortable because the bell wasn't going to ring anytime soon.

'Wait.  No worries.  I've got this.'

In the wait, we kept encouraging him in the one thing we knew was God's best for Joshua.  Let go.  Let go of the temptation to let this sport consume.  Let go of his worries, his doubts, and his inadequacies.  Yes, he needed to train and do what his coach said.  But then he needed to just let go and be.

Amidst those hard days of defeat and frustration.  Those days that seemed like setbacks...

Bigger life lessons were at stake, the kind that teach us that our abilities don't define us, but God defines our abilities.  He makes the calls and He determines outcomes.  We don't and we can't.  

And we must trust and rest in that.

And little by little, as the season rolled along, the white-knuckle grip began to not cling so tightly.  This one-track, focused mind looked up and began noticing the scenery around him.

As he let go he began enjoying those God has placed around him. 

He stopped that bulldozer and became more reckless and carefree. 

Embracing the many different moments outside of running.

The night before Regionals I actually had to tell Joshua he better go to bed and get some sleep (where's the boy who's in bed by 8:30 the night before a race?).  

Before the boys ran, he joked around and cheered on the girls with his team (where's the boy that doesn't appear until moments before the start?). 

However, the pre-Regional haircut was still a serious matter.  Some habits die hard :).

As the Regional race got off, I noticed something different about Josh that day.  He seemed more confident and sure than I had seen him all year.  As if a weight had been lifted.

He ran well the entire race, placing eighth individually, resulting in a qualification for state.  He was so pumped.  We all were! (Not only were we excited about Josh, Sophie and her team also qualified for state!  But that is deserving of a post all its own)

The next week was full of anticipation, as well as exciting memorable things such as a good luck yard sign:

and a school-wide pep rally for the volleyball and cross country state qualifiers:

Friday was here before we knew it and away we drove once more down that long stretch of Western Kentucky Parkway to the eastern side of the state where all big sporting events are held.  

That evening, once again, I had to make Joshua go to bed at a reasonable hour the night before the meet.

As the hours ticked by before his race on Saturday, Josh was about as relaxed as I've ever seen him, joking and chumming about.  We saw and hung out with his old Louisville coach.

Then, finally, the event that he had had his eye on all season was upon us.  He warmed up at the start line as hundreds of spectators lined the course in anticipation, there to watch the boys 3A cross country race, the biggest and most competitive race of the day.  

All of the West Kentucky boys of Region 1 who had qualified individually were in the first lane.  As they bowed and prayed together, we were praying too:

 

The last time he had toed this line hadn't ended very well.  His buddy Zach knew this better than anyone and having him there for  mental support meant the world to all of us.

Joshua was ranked going into this race in the mid-60's.  I think because he wasn't ranked in the top ten or twenty, I was less nervous than I've ever been before he runs.  I set back and relaxed, thinking in my head that he would probably finish around 60th or so--a good and respectable finish.  And that would be that.

Wow, was I ever wrong!  And surprised.  So pleasantly surprised!  Isn't it the best feeling in the world to be pleasantly surprised??!

He is on the very right hand end

They took off and a few minutes into the race we were able to see them.  Joshua was pretty easy to spot and I kept having to do a double take, thinking is that really him???

He was in the front of the race (like top 35 or 40) the entire race and kept steadily passing people.  He looked so strong, I probably said a thousand times, 'Wow, I can't believe it!  He's doing so good!  Wow!'

Loose and carefree, relaxed and letting go...

He looked light on his feet and burden-less

He finished 36th with a time of 17:07 and was the first freshman to cross the line!

A pat on his back from his coach and his buddy Zach…the role models God has put in his life who he looks up to so very much.

Sometimes we can't grasp the whole story until the end.  We can't see the slow moving growth, the beauty emerging from the bulbs when we're standing right in the thick of the garden.  It's only weeks later when we are looking from afar that we see the whole picture--the transformation in entirety.

And that's exactly how I felt on this Saturday of the high school state cross country meet.  I stood from afar and was finally able to see all of those weeks leading up to this day.  Like one giant puzzle whose pieces began to fall into place.  Piece by piece he had let go, piece by piece he had gained freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:1

A season of letting go and stepping off the bulldozer to smell the roses God has put along the path…and learning to enjoy every minute of it. 

'Be strong in the Lord and

never give up hope.

You're gonna do great things

I already know

God's got his hand on you so 

don't live life in fear

forgive and forget

but don't forget why you're here

Take your time and pray

These are the words I would say'  

Small Town Poets

My Middle-Middle's Push to the Top

Sometimes middles can get lost in the shuffle.  Especially the middle child (child #3) in a family of five.    He's not only the middle child, he's the middle-middle child.  Sandwiched between two other middles, Wes has the hard pick of the lot in our family.  Yet maybe that is what makes a middle-middle child so special--the fact that they've got the hard pick of the lot.  They're not catered to, they're not given extra attention, they're often over-looked, and they're used to figuring things out for themselves.  Yet these hardships quite often end up being blessings.  Such is the case, I believe, for our Wes.  

He's used to hand me downs.  He's used to being told no.  He's used to waiting in line.  He's used to things not always going as planned.  Our Wes is easy-going and even-kill.  He's low maintenance and unassuming.

Quiet and thoughtful, he purposefully gets the job done without needing a lot of supervision.  Because he's our middle and that's what middles do.  Especially middle-middles.

I especially love the fact that God gave our middle-middle certain features that would naturally make him stand out among the rest of our children.  He's the only one with wavy blond hair.  He's the only one with blue eyes.  He's the only one with lighter skin.  Our older two look quite a bit alike, our younger two could pass as twins, but Wes--Wes' features are his and his alone.  Just one of God's creative ways of singling out our middle-middle. 

When our family first got into cross-country, the spotlight was naturally on our oldest two.  Wes got to run just because we were already there doing it, so why not let him jump in and do it too?  But we never really expected it to be his thing. 

Yet I'll never forget that day--that day that Wes came out of no-where in a race and surprised us all, charging ahead and throwing off that middle-middle status, making a name for himself in his unassuming, quiet way.  I watched on the sidelines, incredulous and dumb-founded, thinking, 'did Wes really just do that?'  And before we knew it, it was know longer just Josh and Sophie's sport, it was also Wes' sport.  

That was the day we set up and took notice, realizing he had a gift--a gift of running.  The day that we noticed he looked a lot like our family's favorite marathon runner: 

The day I put my mama foot down and said, 'YOU MAY NEVER CUT YOUR HAIR.'  :)

Anyhow, year after year, he ran.  Year after year, he improved.  We marveled at our middle-middle's noiseless tenacity and his no-fuss race approach.  Thoughtless, he just went out there and ran.  He set out to do his thing and got it done.  End of story.  And he had a lot of fun along the way.

Last year when we moved from Louisville to Paducah, I didn't realize how difficult the move was for Wes.  Of course I didn't.  He's our middle-middle.  Middle-middles don't complain.  Not only that, with newness comes excitement, so our first couple of months of running with a new team and going to public school was just one big wave of excitement.  There was no time to think. 

Occasionally, though, Wes would comment, 'I really miss running with our team in Louisville'.  At the time, I didn't have enough foresight to read between the lines of that statement.

This year, as cross country kicked off, Wes seemed to drag his feet.  For the first time in his life, he seemed disinterested in practicing.  It wasn't long before we realized that he had lost the spring in his step, the spark in his eye, the zeal.  He said to me countless times, 'I'm just not really enjoying running this year.'  

It's hard to sit by and watch your child waste what they've been given, waste what their good at.  Harder still to watch them not enjoy it.  It seemed he was at a crossroads--maybe God had other plans for his life and those plans didn't include running?  Maybe he was using this to show us that?  Maybe so?  Maybe not?  So many questions ran through my head.

While we have no idea what God has planned for our middle-middle, God does.  While we don't always know what's best for our children, God does.  He tells us in James 1:5, 'If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.'  We can come to him with any issue, any problem--big or small--and ask Him to give us wisdom.  As a parent, I find this Bible verse to be one of the most encouraging of all!  Parenting wisdom--oh, I need a large dose of that on a regular basis.  Hook up the IV, please!

The wonderful thing about God is that He created us for relationship.  He longs for an intimate relationship that involves talking to Him.  He wants us to come to Him and ask Him to solve what we can't.  

So I took this to Him, asking Him to bring back the glean to Wes' eye, the zeal.  To bring about an excitement that he used to have for running.  To give us the wisdom to know what he needed.

First, God faithfully brought about conversations with Wes that made us realized that he was missing the buddies he used to run with in Louisville.  He was missing the competition they had brought, as well as the camaraderie.  We realized that Wes thrives on that competitiveness.  He needed a challenge.  Without it, running was boring.

God brought to mind a similar situation that a good friend of mine had went through the season before.  I remembered she had began praying that God would bring another girl to their cross country team that would challenge her daughter.  He had answered that prayer and now her daughter and the new girl on their team were two of the top runners in the state.  

So, I started praying.  Praying that God would bring a teammate into his life that would stir up his passion for running again.  That He'd bring someone into Wes' life that would bring back that competitive glean.

God is so faithful.  He may not always work the way we expect or want, but if we invite Him to come into the smallest of details in our lives, He always shows up.  Always.

One thing God did was bring several strong middle school boys to the team.  In every single race, those boys improved.  By A LOT.  The middle school boys also won several meets as a team.  I think God is just getting started with this group and I look forward to seeing these boys continue to improve more and more in the years to come!

God also answered my prayer in a totally unexpected way--through someone not even on our team.

In the fourth race of the season, Wes ran against another sixth grader a few counties over from us.  His name was Jonah.  Wes had beaten Jonah last year, but this year this boy came out fast and furious.  He beat Wes by a good twenty seconds. 

And it wasn't long before that glean started coming back.  

Wes began looking for upcoming future races he had against Jonah.  He began trying harder in practices.  He began thinking about racing against Jonah at the cross country state meet.  He began setting his mind upon beating him--because that's what boys love to do--beat each other.

The competition was back.  And Wes was back.

As the end of the season drew near, I watched him get stronger and stronger.  And before we knew it, it was time for state.

The cross country state 'Meet of Champions' began like every other one I can ever remember--cold, windy and cold.  It's always ran at Masterson Station Park in Lexington, KY.  The course, a large open field of rolling hills, tends to invite and trap the blistery wind.  

We had gotten up at 5:00 AM that morning and began the long four hour trek across the state to Lexington.  Joshua had been involved in Homecoming the night before, so we had had to wait and leave for the meet the morning of.  Because of this, we couldn't get Jeremiah to the meet in time to run in his age group.  He really wanted to run anyway, so we put him in the 5th and 6th grade race with Wes.

It seemed like in no time, the fifth and sixth grade boys were lining up on the start line.

You can see Wes and Jeremiah left of center in this picture, wearing black with white stripes down the side of their shorts, Wes' blonde hair blowing in the wind.

There were almost 400 boys in this race--the picture above only shows about 1/3 of the start line.

The boys run straight out and up a hill.  Because of the number of kids in this race, it's important that you get out fast.  As a spectator, you only see them for a brief moment, as they run over the hill and out of sight.  And then you wait for them to come back in view….to see who has claimed the lead.  Waiting as a parent during a cross country race can be some of the longest minutes to endure.

They finally came into view and I quickly spotted Wes' hair!  Jonah was in first with Wes just a few steps behind him in second.  And then there was no one for several seconds.  It looked like the battle was going to be between Jonah and Wes, the West KY boys!  I wish I had a picture but I was just too in the moment to take any! All I remember about that moment is how red Wes' face was--I had never seen it that red in my life and prayed he was doing okay.

My other mama-friend and I took off running to the next spot where we would be able to see them again.  This is fairly close to the finish.  It's a good spot to stand cause you can see them for quite awhile running on the course.  

Soon, they came into view and Jonah had about an 8-10 second lead over Wes.  As we watched them run, for a moment it looked as if Wes might be gaining some ground…but Jonah continued to stay strong.  Here they are approaching us, Jonah with a pretty secure first place:

Wes coming by, face as red as can be:

Jonah finished the 3K in 10:37; Wes finished in 10:47.  Jonah broke the prior year record.  Wes came within a few seconds of doing so.

I was so, so, so happy for these two!

A little bit later, Jeremiah came through the finish:

He finished 123rd, with a time of 13:08!  So proud of this little guy too!  Proud that he never once complained about having to compete against a bunch of older boys.

When you finish in the top 10, you get to be presented your medals in a special ceremony.  Here they are below:  

There are some great runners in this crew--Jacob Sutherland for one.   And the little dude that got fifth is only a fourth grader (that's crazy!)!

It was a special day to go down in the memory book for our family.  A special day for our 'middle-middle' to shine.  I love more than anything in the world to watch my kids compete at a sport that they love.  And sharing that moment with friends and family--well, there's just nothing quite like it! 

These two have struck up a friendship that I'm so grateful for.  The friendship that I'll always remember as the one that brought the glean back to my son's eyes.  I'm looking forward to watching these two West KY runners push one another over the years to come.  

So proud of my 'Middle-Middle'!