Be Shaped but Not Defined

 As a birthday tradition I run (or bike if injuries require) my age. This year it was thirty-two miles, and I decided that Forest Park in Portland would be the perfect place to do it. I prepped my running pack with sustenance, my husband dropped me off at Washington Park at the Wildwood Trailhead, and I began my birthday endeavor. 

Forest Park is beautiful in the fall and the first several miles were enjoyable as I trotted along toward the westernmost trailhead thirty miles away (yeah, I had to tack on a couple at the end). It was chilly but sunny that day, a rarity in Oregon in November. As I continued to run, I praised God for a working body and a pleasant place to run. As the words poured from my lips, I was struck by the fact that this gift of relaxation, strength, enjoyment, and solitude had been born out of a time of anxiety, weakness, grief, and darkness. I had been shaped but not defined.

Six birthdays prior to this one, I had recently resigned my teaching job in Indonesia due to severe mental health problems, moved back to the United States, and began living with my sister and her family. I began working with a counselor but had no job and no prospects. I lived off my savings and had no idea what I was going to do. I had left students that I loved, friends that were family, and a purposeful job and ministry. 

A few months later I descended into the deepest darkness I had yet faced in life as my mind refused to heal. Rather than getting better, I worsened. I was working again as a substitute teacher, and the days in the classroom regularly exhausted me. I became nearly non-functioning, and suicide was ever on my mind. I just wanted it all to be over. Why couldn't I get better? Would I ever again be the teacher I was? Would I ever be able to go back to the mission field? Would the doubts, worries, fears, and despair ever end? Was I destined to stay in this state? All of these questions flooded my mind, and I couldn't answer any of them! 

Exercising, especially running, has always been a way I have released stress. So, out of habit, I began running to deal with everything going on in my life. My best friend was teaching on the other side of the state, but her mom and I regularly met to trail run after school. For an hour or so, I would escape the trauma of my mind and focus on pushing my body to its maximum. I had learned to endure through such horrific mental pain that physical pain seemed like nothing. I could take it! I felt strong as I flew through the woods and left the fears and trauma of my mind in my dust (or more often mud). 

Soon I was entering trail races, basking in the freedom of the run and the strength of my body. As I tried each new distance of trail running, I wondered more and more at what God had given me: a gift of endurance. His very gift (perseverance) that had allowed me to endure months of mental pain and trauma gave way to a gift that would provide relief from such things. A deep gash in my life, that I had wondered if it would ever heal, not only healed but acted as the very catalyst that shaped me as an athlete and as a person. 

How could a mere six birthdays see the alteration of something so horrible into something so beautiful? But is not this the very work of the Gospel, taking something so horrifically monstrous and making it the most beautiful thing in the world? Did not Christ endure mental pain, physical pain, and trauma to bring about the redemption of sinners? All of this happening in a mere three days. He had endured too. He had endured through death to bring about the joy of all who follow Him as Savior and in turn He receives joy in our adoption as His children. 

To this day I still trail run and train to compete at a high level in it, but I am no longer suicidal, no longer depressed, and no longer debilitatingly anxious. I have been shaped but not defined.