Failure is Not Your Mojo

In the trail running community the term "mojo" is used quite often. "Your running mojo." "Your trail mojo." We even talk about what to do when you lose your mojo. It is simply a slang term that has developed from African American culture that means "your charm or your groove." And you will definitely lose it at points. Trail running is hard and losing your mojo out there can be devastating.

This season I took a chance on a new distance, the 100K, at the encouragement of my husband. My husband's reasoning was that I am competitive in the 50M but have the stamina for the 100M. So why not meet in the middle? So, first race of the season I attempted the 100K at Black Canyon Ultras. Go big or go home! It wasn't necessarily a bad race, but my 11:30 hour and 28th female finish was a far cry from the 9 hours and top 10 finish I was trained and predicted for. Oh, well. It's the first race of the season. I had already had Gorge Waterfalls 100K on my schedule for a couple months. I ran an amazing 55K in March and with that boost of morale set my sights on running with some of the best ultra runners in the PNW at Gorge Waterfalls. This was it! A chance to prove myself. Instead, I shutdown at mile 18. I had had a crazy, emotional week helping with a family emergency and things started spiraling almost immediately in the race. I made a very irrational decision by mile 4 and lost touch with the leaders. What am I doing?! I tried to get my position back, but my mind was wandering. I decided to just ease and make the race a really long training run. Just have fun. But I was so scatter-brained that I started spiraling. "I don’t want to be here. I just want to go home." I hadn’t been home since Tuesday and my whole routine was off. I couldn’t make decisions on what I needed to do at aid stations. By 14 miles I was shutting down in my motivation and I realized I didn’t want to eat. I knew I could keep going. I had the training. But I didn’t want to. My legs started cramping. I was able to call my husband at mile 18. He was concerned. He didn’t like that I wasn’t wanting to eat or that I was risking putting myself through more mental exhaustion after the previous week. He gave me the go to drop, so I decided to DNF. Discouraged and exhausted I drove home. Maybe 100Ks are not my race? What if I don't even have what it takes to run competitive in ultras?

My attempts at going back to the mission field seem just as wrought with failure as my attempts at the 100K. In 2020, less than two years after returning to the United States from Indonesia where I suffered extreme burnout, I was told, after multiple psych tests, that I was not ready to return to the mission field. To say I cried a lot would be an understatement. However, I understood the decision. I was not healthy and was having mental health episodes daily. So, I waited and healed. I was properly diagnosed for my mental health a month later and fought to recover. Now four years later (2024) I made another attempt to return to the mission field. This time after being discharged from counseling for three years and as a married woman. Everything seemed to be going well. The Lord was leading my husband and I fast and furiously. We were confident in God's calling us to the Czech Republic to teach at an international mission school. Every hurdle we came up against seemed to be prayed away and we were just waiting on the final go ahead from the mission organization we had applied to. The email came last week. It was a no. What? How can it be a "no"? Sean and I cried so much. We couldn’t make sense of it all. Did we hear wrong from the Lord? What are we supposed to do? 

It would be really easy to say that I am just not made to run with the "big dawgs." I'm just a small-time runner. Or that the call to missions I have felt all these years has just been in my head. But what if failure is supposed to be part of the journey? In teaching there is a philosophy called "Growth Mindset." It is a philosophy that proposes that you are not stuck in any one place. You can always grow in any area no matter your struggles. How many times have I told students, "It is okay to fail." Why? Because you learn more through getting things wrong then by always getting things right. I would often make my students repeat that when they failed. Am I willing to embrace this in ultramarathoning? In missions? 

The book of Lamentations speaks of God's mercies being new every morning. If God's mercies are renewed every day, then that too shows that God doesn't even expect us to never fail. He knows we will--every day. Therefore, He graciously resets us every morning. This is also seen in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6) when Jesus says to not worry about tomorrow because today has enough troubles (failures) of its own. We are to consider the lilies of the field that are clothed in more splendor than King Solomon. If God cares enough about the lilies of the field to clothe them in beauty, then consider how much more He cares for us. He cares so deeply for us that He gives us a fresh start every morning and asks that we forget what lies behind us and press forward for the prize ahead--Himself (Philippians 3:13).  

So, failure is not my mojo because I am not called by God to never fail. I am called by a gracious Heavenly Father who loves me in spite of my failures and mercifully pushes reset for me each morning.