Written on 7 July 2018
July is my “organizing life” season, just turns out that way … every year. The weather encourages hibernation and the school holiday is quite long. My instinct? Pack away, throw away and questioning myself: “Are you on track?”
I haven’t blogged for five months. It is a VERY long time, to not write, for someone who makes sense out of life by writing. Well, here I am now outing thoughts on paper, because I simply must.
Please bear with me trying to find sense in all my experiences in these past months. My prayer? That you can associate and experience some relief and hope through these words.
Let’s start…In these past months, one of our prominent focuses was my husband preparing for the Comrades Marathon, which took place on 10 June 2018. He first took part in the marathon 18 years ago, when he was only 24 years of age. I was not part of that process, only heard the stories. This year I was part of the process, 18 years later. And as a spectator slash intimate friend the process was a very significant experience.
It is quite safe to say that you cannot rely on your experience of running a marathon at 24 years of age, to help you through marathon at 42 years of age. You are almost two decades physically “more mature “(I hate the word older) and wiser on your perspective on life.
A big part of my spiritual focus in these months also moved to my faith in God. Not the general thought of me being a believer, no, the challenge to believe everything God says. To me, that is a challenge. I realised, I have read the bible selectively most of my spiritual life. With the grace of God, He is teaching me that He really means everything He says in the word. His promises are for me, and not just for others. The catch is this: I must claim His promises, repeatedly.
This brings me to another part of life that challenged me. My knees. No, not prayer. My actual knees.
So, you know how peoples’ motivation works: When there is Wimbledon on the television, suddenly more people appear on the tennis courts, when Master Chef is on suddenly we try more daring recipes in the kitchen. Naturally, when my husband started his focused running? … Yep, I wanted to run too. I did a race or two with him, only the fun run, 5 km kind. I enjoyed it, felt quite proud of myself, until my knees started complaining. Call it midlife crisis, trying too hard to escape not settling for the couch, whatever … It hit me hard and left me very discouraged and sad. I had to stop, hear what God was saying and see a doctor.
If I look at these things it is so clear that God starts a process and will not stop until He is finished. Through these events, my everyday experiences, He has taught me and is teaching me valuable, life-altering lessons. I must keep on asking tough:” Where are we going?”. The answer almost always is: “We are on our way to a very specific destination, but maybe not as fast as you want us to go.”
In my previous blog: Freedom to Live, the great challenge of letting go helped me focus a lot on the now. Even though we have plans and dreams, the only reality we have is NOW. It is in your present normal life that God is teaching, healing and loving you and your loved ones.
This quote made so much sense to me after these few months:
“I believe God has called us to run a marathon, and not a sprint” (Joseph Prince from Live the Let-Go Life)
After my husband’s marathon I’ve learned how much intention there is in running a marathon. You sacrifice, you train, you focus, you care for yourself and your body. In the words of Bruce Fordyce: “You have to hold back, but you can never stop”.
These words sound so familiar if we think about our lives and our spiritual journeys, doesn’t it? The thing about us is; our patience gets depleted, then we want to sprint and stop. There is much more intention to run while holding back. Living while smelling the roses.
Please know that God is busy with you today, just as much as He will be busy with you in three years ‘time. Don’t miss the lessons now. Run the marathon, don’t just sprint.
Hebrews 12:1b – 2a
…and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
He sees our big picture where everything comes together, all our victories and our failures. He turns it into a beautiful tapestry which will all make sense in the end.
Be blessed dear reader!
Johanni Meiring 
Thanking you, Johanni
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