Tag: faith

Spiritual

Band of Mothers

Jana Greene10 Comments

This week, as I celebrate the birthdays of my friends Cris and Liz, I am posting today’s piece in honor of them, and in honor of our friendship.  I love you, girls!

By:  Jana Greene

My friend Liz and I had signed up for the “Gymboree” class together.  Gymboree was kind of a “Mommy and Me” class for moms and their babies to meet and play.  She and I were fledgling friends back then;  our husbands worked with one another and our daughters were born six months apart.  When her Caroline was a newborn, already lithe and lean, I would bring Alexandra over to visit and we would sit on the sofa and drink International Delight Coffees and breastfeed our babies while we got to know each other.   It’s been nearly twenty years now, and we’ve been talking ever since.

We met our friend, Cris, at the same  Gymboree class.  Her son Billy was a blonde, blue-eyed doll of a boy, the same age as our girls.  Cris, a sweet and gentle, maternal spirit, found her identity in being a mom, too.

The three of us took our babies all over the ” Mom Circuit” in those early days, which is to say we frequented Chuck E. Cheese, the toddler program at the local library, and a human gerbil-maze called “Owlberts”.  We chased our kids through every park in Raleigh, including our favorite one,  Pullen Park, which has a real train to ride and the kind of ancient, metal playground equipment that we had played on ourselves as kids.   We taught our toddlers how to swim at public pools on sweltering summer days, and met at the mall to feed the kids at the food court on the chilly winter ones.  At  one-another’s houses, the host-mom would often serve lunch sandwiches cookie-cuttered into stars and hearts, or chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs.  The kids would play and fight and run and nap together.  And we moms were bonding, too.

We three just “clicked”.  Cris and I were brand-new at this parenting thing, but Liz had a five-year-old son as well, so we  looked to her for advice.    The three of us  were stay-at-home moms with beautiful new babies, and truly – it just doesn’t get any better than that.

It was becoming apparent that the three children were individuals; that there was something to the “nature” portion of “nature vs. nurture.  As they grew, their personality traits surfaced a bit, showing us a glimpse of who they were born to be.   Caroline, the quietes,t was the most driven to succeed at building a Lego tower or stringing the best macaroni necklace.  Billy had a competitive streak, and was all about the playing games, and being outdoors.   Alexandra was all about the  dress-up, creating some of the most interesting outfits, and talking the whole time.  She was bossy and extroverted, and strived to be the center of attention.

Still, we moms had tons in common.  We built relationships with one-another beyond play groups and potty-training.  Beyond sharing recipes for homemade play dough, our friendships were about sharing life, albeit with a lot of interruptions.

Most of the conversations we had with children present were stuccatoed with motherly reprimands: “I know, it is so hard to find a babysitter who NO, ALEXANDRA-YOU PUT THAT DOWN….  BILLY WAS PLAYING WITH IT FIRST you can trust and who GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!  WHAT IN THE WORLD? Has good references….”

Or tinged with worry, about what is “normal”:

“She has had a fever for days now, and the antibiotics aren’t touching it.”

Or with our heads cocked with “Awwwww!” at the cutest things they did;  Liz ever-ready with a camera, recording those moments.

One summer, Cris invited Liz and I (and our now nearly 2- year- olds) to her mother’s beach house a few hours away.   It remains to this day  one of my favorite beach trips of all time.  Cris had a daughter now, too, and she was only a few months old.  We swam with the kids in the pool and sang Raffi songs, played in the waves, and while the toddlers were getting drowsy watching Barney VHS tapes (ad nauseum) and napping, we ate chips with Cris’s homemade salsa and had glasses of chardonnay and talked without much interruption.

We- this Band of Mothers – forever linked by the sweet years of our children’s babyhoods, and the saltiness of the ocean.

A few months later, we met  met one afternoon at the local McDonald’s to let the kids blow off some steam at the new playground.  While the cultural phenomenon (and germ receptacle) of the “ball pit” was not new, it was new to us and new to our town.  There, I told Liz and Cris the great news that  that I was pregnant.  Six months later, I had my second daughter, Ashleigh.  And what couldn’t possibly get any better, got so much better.

And deep inside, I think we knew this, and feared it – that these were the best parenting years; the easiest ones.  We felt like we knew what we were doing to some degree, and we suspected that it would not always be the case.

Shortly afterwards,  some major life-changes happened in quick succession.  The children, who had gone to preschool together for years, started different Kindergartens and I homeschooled Alexandra for school.  Soon after that, me, my girls and their father moved a few hours away from Raleigh, to the beach.   Goodbyes were hard, but we kept in touch for awhile.

Our kids did not.

Christmas cards each year told a little about our friends in Raleigh.  Photos of grade-schoolers missing front teeth, shots of Billy in his Football jersey, Caroline in dance recitals.  And later, in the awkward adolescent years, reluctant siblings posed together in family photos near the Christmas tree, faces sprinkled with a little acne.  The next year, new hairstyles and more genuine smiles.  Eventually, they morphed into  the young adults that we didn’t realize they would be.   Strangers with the inclinations of our babies, but so different from who they were nearly two decades ago.

Christmas card snapshots tell you so precious little.

It would be over ten years before the three of us and our children would reconnect, gathering once again at the beach for a reunion.  There was awkwardness among the kids, for the simple reason that they were virtually strangers.   They scarcely remembered spending their earliest days at the park together, finger-painting pictures in preschool for each other.

But we remember it.  We, this Band of Mothers, now in our mid to late 40’s, we remember it all.

We remember when the biggest issue our child could  face on a given day might be sitting in the  “time-out” chair for refusing to share.  We remember agonizing over choosing the right chewable vitamin, and getting the little ones signed up for the best Vacation Bible School each summer.

We remember laughing at the antics of our beloved babies in what would indeed turn out to be the best and  easiest parenting years.

And sharing our innermost thoughts about motherhood with each other without fearing judgment, the truest measure of a good friend.

Since those easy days, each of us has been thrown he inevitible curve-ball or two.  I am divorced from my daughters’ father, and I’ve also been sober for 11 years from the alcoholism that nearly killed me – the alcoholism that I hid from my dearest friends across the miles because of shame.  Each of us has lost loved ones during the many years we were apart; there were medical issues that presented themselves in each of our lives to be dealt with.

And the kids?

The Dancer; Caroline….still the quietest, lithe, lean, driven and successful.

The Handsome Jock; Billy…still a blonde, blue-eyed doll– in a rugged, manly way, of course.

And Alexandra, the Free Spirit…still the chatty, opinionated spitfire she ever was.

They grew and challenged boundaries, and found low-grade trouble to get into, and learned the consequences.  They made good choices and and soared, made poor choices and gave us all gray hair.  One of them got a tattoo (mine, of course) and one of them got into an excellent out-of-state university  (Billy), and one has also gone to university and  found so much success as a Dancer that I won’t be surprised if she becomes a Rock-ette in New York City.

But I think the biggest change in nearly 20 years of friendship for the three of us is this:  Our faith has gone from being a minimally-important in our lives, to an absolute necessity on a daily basis where our kids are concerned.  Whereas we would think to pray bedtime prayers with them when they were small, each of us Mothers has a deep, abiding trust in Jesus Christ and we cover our kids with prayer continually.  We were right back in the day:  we wouldn’t always know what we were doing as parents.

And this deepened faith has also deepened our bond to one-another, Liz, Cris and I.  We are A Band of Mothers not just for a season.  We supported each other through the play date years, and enjoyed one-another’s company.  We thought we knew our children intrinsically, and helped each other out with advice.  But now, I see the three of us for who we really are:  A Band of Mothers sharing a friendship for a lifetime, supporting each other through the really difficult times (should Caroline move to NYC to dance?  Billy wants to go out of state to University!  Good Lord, Alexandra finally went and got her nose pierced), through marriage crisis, through health scares, and diagnoses, and through crises of our very identities as Moms.

Who are you, really, once the kids are out of the nest.  Who are we now?

We are meeting at the beach again this year, to enjoy one-another as who we are now, all these many years later.  Because we are not just a Band of Mothers, but a band of Sisters in Christ, and friends on a level that many do not understand.  On a level that I, myself, don’t even understand.

We will talk – uninterrupted now – about sharing new recipes, about sharing life.  We will still wonder “What is normal?” but perhaps less frantically.  Frantic takes energy that we don’t have as much of now, so we try to hand it off to God, having learned that we can’t handle it.

We- this Band of Mothers – forever linked by the sweet years of our children’s babyhoods, and the saltiness of the ocean.

Forever linked by one-another.

It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Spiritual

Flexing the Faith Muscle – Frankenankle Style

Jana Greene2 Comments

photo: 3dimensionallife.wordpress.com

By:  Jana Greene

My leg, which I had surgery on in March, is healing very nicely.  Frankenankle, as I affectionately refer to it because of the hardware that now holds it together and the scar that holds in the hardware, has become a bit of a lesson to me about various things.  One of those things was a reality check on my faith.

Two days before the injury, I’d had faith that all would be okay.  My plans to do projects around the house get in shape and find a new job had been carefully crafted for weeks.  I thought I was really flexing my “faith muscle” in believing my plans were foolproof!  “Lord, bless my plan,” was what I had prayed, essentially.  And believed, foolishly, that it was a reasonable request.

Many weeks later…..

When the surgeon first assessed the damage, he declared that the surgery “shouldn’t put you back all summer….”

Excuse me?  This could take all summer to heal?  That’s just not ok! 

But it would have to be.

But I’d had faith!

I found out what the doctor had meant about the time-frame when I had healed well enough to come out of the “boot”.  Even after graduating from the boot to the support bandage, Frankenankle would be weak.  I mean   very, very weak.   It looks puny and pale, and although I can walk on it for short bursts, it is painful when I’ve put it under too much pressure, flexed it the wrong way, or stepped out of a normal pace.  It revolts, “Oh no you DIDN’T!”

I am so over it – over my injury – in my mind.  My leg, however, has to regain strength.  By not moving it for months, it atrophied – plain and simple.

And I’d had so much faith in my plans.  Sigh.

My plans.  Hmmmmm.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, we are told by Jesus that “My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”

Which of course, having had years in active recovery from alcoholism, I know.  I’m familiar with the verse; I just forget that His grace is all I need in relation to all of my weaknesses.   In having faith in my plans, I wasn’t using my faith muscle at all.  Faith in myself is puny, pale and usually results in pain.  It atrophied my faith muscle.

But looking to His plans with great expectation?  Supernatural strength.   It takes some stepping out, and sometimes my flesh – wanting my way – revolts…”Oh no you DIDN’T!”

Oh yes.  Yes, I did.

Today, my prayer is “Lord, bring me into your plan, your will.   Stepping out of my normal pace, I am expecting His strength to be manifest in my weakness, and I have plenty of weaknesses.   My faith is again being strengthened again by Him.  He is so patient and  awesome that way. “I’m at your disposal, God….”  I pray.

I’ve got all summer (plus a lifetime) to be present for His plan, and authentic faith that yes – all will be ok.

 

Spiritual

The Saint-Sinner Paradox: Come as you ARE

Jana Greene6 Comments

saint-sinner ambigram tattoo – inkarttattoos.com

By:  Jana Greene

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”

 –Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

I don’t know if you are familiar with Brennan Manning’s books, but if not…I recommend them highly.  Although Ragamuffin Gospel is a classic, “Abba’s Child” spoke to me the plainest. 

I like plain talk, I like honesty. 

Brennan Manning is just plain honest.  A quick Google search of his name will alert you of the controversy among Christians about his life.  It seems that Brennan Manning is an alcoholic whose theological views go against the grain of some denominational teaching.  He is a sinner, whose view is that life is messy, and relationship with God is all about grace. 

Are you a bundle of paradoxes? 

Some of my favorite people are, including my other two favorite authors – Donald Miller, who wrote “Blue Like Jazz”, and Anne Lamott, whose “Traveling Mercies” literally changed me forever.  I love everything these two write.  But they are not what you might expect, if you were to expect traditional Christian literature.  They are honest in a literary way like Bob Dylan (or perhaps Adele, for the younger generation) is honest in a musical way….raw and real.  And I love that.

I once attended a live simulcast by a very famous Christian author and speaker.  There was a sense of excitement leading up to the event that I can only liken to the Super bowl, if the Super bowl was geared toward middle-aged females of the Caucasian persuasion.  The speaker, I must tell you, is very charismatic and popular.  She is “The Face of the Christian Bookstore”, I suppose you could say.  The simulcast was very nice.  It was two hours well spent, but not two hours that changed my life.  I’m glad that there are people whose lives are touched by this speaker.  There is nothing wrong with her message, she seems to have gotten past some truly difficult times in her life and she gives God all of the glory, as she should.

But “very nice” doesn’t hook me anymore. 

Donald Miller’s bestselling “Blue like Jazz” is a semi-autobiographical account of Mr. Miller’s departure from his Christian upbringing by attending university at “the most godless campus in America”.  Some Christians are shocked that the book (and recent film depiction) contain references to both sex and drugs, and believe those things should be omitted.  Had they been, the story would never have been told.  Because sex and drug issues are a part of life, and a very real part of what many people struggle with….even many Christians.

And Anne Lamott?  Although I personally disagree with her political views, I adore her honesty.  She writes like a sinner; like a sinner who is crazy in love with Jesus.   A 2003 Christianity Today article b Agnieszka Tennant describes her this way:  “She came to Jesus just as she was—a foul-mouthed, bulimic, alcoholic drug addict. One week after having an abortion, she surrendered to him in her very own version of the sinner’s prayer, punctuated with the f-word. The author calls Ms. Lamott “a Born-Again Paradox.”

Indeed. 

Please don’t think I am condoning any of the behavior mentioned.  Being a follower of Christ means that you try to walk in His footsteps because He was perfection incarnate.  But being human means that you will misstep sometimes because you are not.  That’s my theology.

Are you a paradox?

I am a bundle of them, when I get honest.

I admit that I forgive and struggle with grudges.  I am sober but crave oblivion.  I run to the downtrodden but turn away from what I see.  I am real but I still sometimes wear a mask.  I am no rational animal; my emotions run the show far too often.

A Born-Again Paradox, crazy in love with Jesus.

Inspirational

An “Inside Job”

Jana Greene4 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

“The career of motherhood and homemaking is beyond value and needs no justification. Its importance is incalculable.”
― Katherine Short

My kitchen sink is clean, and I’m proud of that.  I have dinner in the crock-pot, and I’m proud of that, too.  And my kids, who are now sixteen and nineteen, sit down with me and  talk to me about drama that is their lives.  And I’m grateful .  I am not an active member of the Outside World Workforce (can I call it the “OWW”?) right now.  I am a homemaker and a writer, just for this season in my life.

I worked from home when my daughters were small so that I could watch them grow up, and then…just when they hit the adolescent years, I entered the OWW.  Well, I was still Mom, of course.    I fed them, and clothed them, and loved them tremendously.  But I had other things to do, like work to put food on the table.

In 2004, going through a divorce sort of forced me into the OWW.  At first, I worked four part-time jobs with flexible hours to support my girls.  Eventually, it became simpler to work one full-time position to keep a roof over our heads.  My babies weren’t really babies anymore, although they needed me just as much at nine and twelve as they ever did in infancy.  With their parents divorcing and three moves in as many years, they probably needed me more. 

It is at this point that they became “latch-key kids”.   Once again, I became one of the mothers whose heads I had previously heaped the hot coals of judgment upon.  When life was easier, I had the luxury to judge.  Now, I was one of those mothers myself.

I am learning – slowly – that coals are for fueling compassion, not for heaping in judgment.  But I can be a slow learner.

Those mothers, they do what they have to do – and yes, sometimes what they want to do. 

I am glad that women have a choice visa vie working in the home and/or out of the home.  But I don’t believe she must work outside of the home to be successful.  There is success in a clean home, and dinner on the table, and in being present for your family in the moment.  I’m not sure when the value of those things diminished in society, but it’s sad that they have. Many women don’t get the opportunity to choose at all.  I have been both, at times.

My recent stint as a homemaker?  Caused by a series of unfortunate events, or so I’d believed when the first “domino” fell. 

 I am actually most fortunate.  For however long it lasts, I will enjoy caring for my family in ways that – to be honest – I resented having to care when I came home at the end of a long work-day.   Tired, fried, irritable and stressed-out.

 
A workday that was supposed to make me feel successful.

The truth?

Looking forward to my husband returning from a day at work – and doing the little things to remind him that he is appreciated…..is a luxury that I am enjoying to the fullest.  Making sure he has clean clothes and a hot meal at the end of the day?  I find that fulfilling.

Yeah.  I said it.

When my girls approach me after school or work to talk to me about what is going on/ not going on/ bothering them/ elating them/ the latest crush/the latest heartache….we talk about it.  We laugh a lot more these days, because I am not too exhausted to engage.  Again, to God be the glory that I can be present for them now, in this moment.  Time is fleeting, and they are so close to departure from the nest.  

Sooner or later (most likely sooner) I will again seek employment out “in the real world, and I will work hard at whatever job is next, and do my best to be successful.  This season, too, shall pass.

But I don’t feel “un-successful” now.   Not everyone smart and passionate finds fulfillment in the OWW.

Some women are  better at “bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan”.  I’m just not that good at “having it all”, I guess.  But I sure do love all that I have.

It is fulfilling.  And that’s the truth.

Inspirational

A World Away – Picture of an African Mother

Jana Greene4 Comments

I have always had a desire to travel to Uganda for a mission trip. 

Maybe one day I will.   It was from that desire that the idea for this article grew.

photo credits below
PHOTO: The then eight month-old Martha Akwango, who was suffering from malaria, with her mother Janet Awor in September 2007. Martha and her mother live in Katine, a Ugandan village where the Guardian is participating in a project to improve medical facilities and infrastructure. Photograph: Dan Chung.

 

              In my mind’s eye, I see an African mother.  She is an amalgam, really….her face a compilation for every young sub-Saharan woman whose picture I have ever seen on the glossy pages of National Geographic magazine.

                Her haunting eyes implore the camera to, “Come. Capture my reality so that the world can see.” And, at the same time,  “Stop!  Don’t record my shame!”

                We, in our comfort, like to banter about who we consider our “Most Inspirational Person”.

                She is mine, but I don’t know her name.

Her figure, baby strapped to her back, is  a montage from every television commercial that has implored me to “feed the hungry” and every picture brought back from mission trips to Africa by white, middle-class Americans.

A powerful beauty, her  hair is shorn close to her head (no time for vanity here) and her sandaled feet are dusty. Always, there is at least one child tethered to her body.  Her hands are never empty because they are  always at task. She doesn’t get coffee breaks or vacations, or time to unwind.  Her work is never done.

Unlike her First World counterparts, she does not have issues with self-esteem. Survival is the esteemed goal here.  Is she a woman who “loves too much”?  What about her “inner child”? Does she take healthy time for herself, and is she setting aside time in her busy day for God? No time for that – she hums prayers as she works, and that is her worship.

                She is a fallible person who makes mistakes, just as we all do.  But doubting her Creator is not a luxury she can afford.

                Her children, barefoot….do they have enough to eat today?

                Yes?  She hums her praise louder.

                No?  Pray and hope, and work all the harder.

                She doesn’t despair in losing the keys to her car, or fuss about the value of her 401k plan.  Her grief, when it comes….is wracking, life-altering. Her loss… it’s behind her eyes if you care to look.

                In the Western world, we like to say that our lives are our gift from God, and what we do with it is our gift to Him.   How presumptuous we human beings are.  My Sister in Africa has little opportunity to bring gifts that we in the First World consider valuable.  I think God smiles on her offerings especially;  they are  her very life and the lives of her children.

                I think that is what God intended us to bring. She inspires me so.

                I, as a white, middle class mother in America, sometimes wonder why I was not born as she. If life were fair, I mean.  If life were fair, I would have been.

                Sometimes, when my kids are getting on my very last nerve, I think about this woman. Because I often say to myself and others, “If this mothering thing were any harder, I couldn’t do it.” I mean it, too, when I say it.

When my children were small, I felt like I knew what I was doing as a mother. Like my Sister in Africa, I wore my babies in a sling on my hip or my back.  I nursed them into toddler-hood.  It felt natural, like they would be tethered to me forever.

                 Nowadays, as they are approaching young adulthood, I’m not quite as confident.  Writing about their growing up and my mistakes as a mother now is my attempt to capture the reality and share it.  And yet I know that during the process I will record my own shame.

                If this mothering thing were any harder…..God would equip me to do it, I suppose.

                But meanwhile, in a third-world, poverty-stricken, war-torn country in Africa….

                My Sister on the other side of the world.  Her life, just as precious to God, lived in the same units of time as mine – minutes, hours and days. Her love for her children just as fierce as mine.  When – if –  her babies  have survived to young adulthood, unclaimed by famine, drought or disease, she is not fixated about the proper way to “let them go.”

She is grateful.

Triumphant.

                I want to meet her one day, to touch her.  And to tell her that she is the Inspiration to another mother, all this world away.

Devotional

Sure-Footed Faith

Jana Greene6 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

 

My mother used to call it “petering out”.

“You’re always starting things without finishing them,” she would say.  “you just peter out.”

Oh, how hard I try not to “peter-out”!

I start out strong, and by ‘strong’, I mean obsessive-compulsively.  I gorge myself with information about any given pursuit, lunging into it with enthusiasm.  I will go the distance!

It makes no difference what the pursuit might be.  Below is an incomplete list of projects I have begun without finishing  (what…you expected a complete list?) :

Yoga:  This routine involved a DVD set in which I was to emulate the “poses” of unnaturally flexible people.  Thinking this excercise might be good for a tightly-wound person such as myself, I went all-out.  I bought the mats –  and, I am sorry to say – two pairs of spandex pants. (The mats are now rolled up decoratively under our living-room coffee table, so that a passer-by might think I am fitness-minded….if this passer-by were not to see my actual body.  I’ve no idea where the spandex pants are and if God is merciful,  I will never see them again.)

Gardening:  This one is a real embarrassment because it seems I have actually  failed more times than I’ve tried, if that were possible.  I plant flowers in the spring, carefully considering the nutrient needs of each kind  (ok, glancing at the tag at Home Depot…sun or shade?) and lovingly transferring into the soil.  Inevitably, each precious plant dies a slow and choking death by thirst and weed.  Yet, each new Spring, I forget that I don’t really  like dirt.  By the first hot summer day, I remember that I don’t like heat either,  and that I would have to stand in the hot sun watering plants all summer if I expect them to live.  I don’t, so they don’t.

Laundry:  I love to do laundry!  That is, I love to start the process.  I forget that the clothes have to be transferred into the clothes dryer  after being washed.  The result is that the clothes either start to smell funky and have to be re-washed, or my husband has to complete the cycle.    I just forget that laundry is in process (Really, Honey….I meant to finish it!)

Bible Study:  Ouch!  This one is hard to own.  I join groups with the best of intentions, but often end up dropping out.  Help me to focus, Lord, has become my prayer.  The initial propulsion is strong and forward-moving, but I am fickle, impatient and horribly inconsistent.

For reasons I cannot begin to understand, God picked me for His team anyway.

We’ve all heard that the “road to hell is paved with good intentions”.  I can testify that the roads to frustration, disappointment (and abdominal fat) are too.

What about the daily grind of getting through life with faith-intact?  What about losing interest in the mundane aspects, and giving up altogether on the difficult things?  Many times during this long faith-walk of mine, I have flat-out told God, “I can’t do this!  You have the wrong girl!”  Or, I fall behind and hope no-one will notice, with the mindset that this is too hard. Because sometimes, truly, it is.  We cannot see the finish line; we have no tangible evidence that it exists, but we are commanded (in the words of “Journey”):  Don’t stop believin’.  Thats the “faith” part.

I have a dear friend who is a runner.  As it turns out, there is an entire  sub-culture of people who engage in running – voluntarily – and with no large, predatory animals  in pursuit!  This friend trains relentlessly to run in marathons where the goal is to cross the finish line.  Sometimes a trophy is awarded, but often the only recognition is completion.  There is no prize for crossing the starting line.

“I feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment when I cross the finish line,” she told me.  “I always know that I will finish, even if I have to walk.  When I start a race, I start with the end in mind.  And when the finish line is in sight, I push even harder.  There is no turning back.”

My prayer is that my spirit will do what my mind and body refuse to – go the distance without “petering out”.  God tells us that we can follow Him with the sure-footedness of an Olympic athlete so long as we study the way that Jesus did it Himself, never losing sight of where he was headed.  My friend, The Runner, understands that more than most.

Even if we have to walk, we finish.

No turning back.  No petering out.

1-3Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!  – Hebrews 12 1:3  (The Message)