My peers are chasing successful careers.
They're married and having babies.
They're buying homes and puppies and paying mortgages.

Meanwhile...
I'm single.
I'm a writer and support-raising missionary.
I'm in-between cities which means bunking at my parent's house for a minute.
I don't live in a place long enough for a dog, and the jury is still out on when I will buy a house.
And I can't help but feel behind.

Woof.

Isn't that a crummy thought? It's not a new one for me; I've battled with the voice that tells me I'm behind, that I can't keep up, that I won't catch up for years. That voice says words like "should" or "supposed to." It tempts me to run faster and harder and berates me when I trip over my own feet. 

As I stumble and fall and lag behind, I look around at those around me and wonder what's wrong with me.

Why can't I keep up? 

This week I was—again—asking these questions of myself and that still small trusted voice of my Father whispered, "Because you're trying to run a race that was never intended for you." 

Punch in the gut. 

I think sometimes, no matter how successful or put together we look on the outside, we find ourselves looking around when we're sure no one's watching. We watch family and friends and complete strangers who seem to have "arrived" and wonder when we missed the train. We hold tightly to that idol called comparison and cling to it as if our entire worth depends on it. We call ourselves to standards we could or should never meet, because at the end of the day, your race is not mine and mine is not yours. 

When I step back long enough, I remember the truth—I love my job. I love my life. I really don't want yours. That's your story to live, and I'll take mine.

Somedays, though, our identity shifts. It becomes wrapped up in things we can measure and pursue and aim for. And suddenly, we find ourselves stuck in a race we will never win. 

And it's exhausting.

There's this curious verse in Colossians 4. It's a single line near the end of Paul's messages to individuals in the city, and it simply says, "And say to Archippus, 'Be sure to carry out the ministry the Lord gave you.'”

I love this verse. It might become my new life motto—minus the change in name—because in the midst of these words to people in the church, Paul singles this guy out. He doesn't say that his ministry is better or worse than anyone else. He doesn't ask him why he's not further along in the project, why he hasn't reached a certain milestone. It's almost as if this guy just needs a reminder. Like you and I need a reminder. Your ministry is important, so be sure to do the work the Lord gave you. 

So friend, do this with me—let go of that grip on comparison. Pick yourself up and disqualify yourself from the race you're in. Walk to the starting line of your own and begin again. Your race will not look like mine, and mine will not look like yours. That's all kinds of wonderful and beautiful and extraordinary. 

Be sure to carry out the ministry the Lord gave you, because only you can. And dear friend, our world desperately needs you to run your own race. 

The post Hey, Maybe This isn’t Your Race to Run appeared first on Kate Berkey.

In running, athletes talk about muscle memory. It’s that thing where even if you’ve quit running for a couple of weeks or even months, once you begin again, your muscles can remember where you left off. It’s not that you necessarily pick up where you left off. Often once you take a break from running, it’s really tough to get back to the fitness level you had when you quit. Muscle memory is simply your legs’ ability to remember. Today I felt a different kind of muscle memory.

I ran past homes and cornfields I hadn’t seen since running 7 or 15 or 18 miles. I ran hills and stretches of roads that I hadn’t experienced since the leaves turned orange.  I ran past a place that reminded me of a good book I listened to. I ran past a house that always looks inviting yet also gives me the heebie-jeebies when I run past it. I ran past a hill next to the road that I climbed and sang the doxology on just because.

And I also ran past a place that I had to stretch on the side of the road because my hip felt like it was on the verge of breaking into pieces. I ran past a spot that made me double over, crying, because I missed my roommate so much. I ran past the place where my friend fought off tears as she told me about her family. As I hit certain mile markers, I was reminded of the long runs I did last semester. I was reminded of the aches and pains that will forever be associated with that road in Upland, Indiana.

At first, the force of these memories made my bones ache. Training for the marathon was a beautiful, painful, hot mess of a task. But today I remembered that hard things are not always bad things, that those stretches that made me cry, shouldn’t be avoided because of the tears.

My muscles are having a hard time remembering how to run long distances. Each time I ask them to run a mile farther, they ache and groan. They beg me to walk, to turn around. They beg me to watch Friends and eat a tub of ice cream.

But something always eggs me on. Something tries to coax my feet forward just one more step. I’m not sure that it’s something as fancy as muscle memory. I have a feeling it’s mostly the memory of pushing through hard things in the past. It’s the memory of finishing 18 and 20 mile runs. It’s the memory of crossing a finish line each week, of accomplishing a little bit more of the goal.

I’m trying to get my muscles to remember how to run. They’re fighting me as hard as they can. But then I remember that hard things aren’t always bad things, and those things that cause pain, that make me want to cry shouldn’t be avoided just because of the tears. And so I run a step farther.

The post A Step Farther appeared first on Kate Berkey.

I’m finding that Sunday’s marathon is this terrible, wonderful event. In less than six hours I experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I felt invincible, and I felt like someone was repeatedly punching me in the gut. So how did it go? Hard seems like an understatement.

As my dad and I walked to the start line, I remember choking back tears and saying, “I didn’t imagine how much courage it would take to make it to the start line.”

Courage was the theme of the day.

“Courage. Courage to start. Courage to run. Courage to finish. Courage to try hard. Courage to trust. Courage to begin something that will get a lot worse before it gets better.”

I wrote that in my journal two days before the marathon. I had no way of knowing just how true those words would be on race day.

The race started out perfectly, well minus a few hiccups in the starting corrals. My dad and I ran our goal time each mile. I ran my fastest half marathon. But I knew something wasn’t right. My stomach was turning, and my body felt as if it were bracing for something terrible. Mile 13.1, the halfway point, provided that terrible. I experienced some of the worst stomach issues that I’ve yet to face in my life. My dad and I slowed to a walk because running made everything ten times worse. We walked from aid station to aid station. Quitting was not an option.

Runners like to talk about the wall, the invisible barrier that hits them during a long run. The wall usually hits in the upper miles, 18-22. For me, it hit at mile 15. At that point we had walked for 2 miles, I felt as sick as ever, and our pace was slower than a grandma on an electric scooter. We still had 11 miles to go, and quitting wasn’t an option. My dad wrapped his arm around me as we walked, as if protecting me from my own thoughts.

“Only 11 more to go.”

The streets of Chicago are wet with a lot of my tears.

Because in that moment, I was not brave. I was feeling all kinds of hopeless. Everything in my body hurt, and I was pretty sure my stomach was trying to murder me. Each step took us farther from the city yet closer to the finish line. My mom and best friend were waiting for us at mile 21.5, another 6.5 miles away. I trained for this race for months, woke up early to do training runs, altered my schedule and my diet. Race day was not supposed to go like this. I was better than this.

Every couple of miles it would hit me: I was walking 10 miles of my  first marathon. The voices in my head were busy that day. They were ruthless, and it took every ounce of energy to tell them to take a hike.

After another onslaught from these thoughts, my  dad said the words that defined the day.

“Courage is not persisting when everything is going well. Courage is persisting when everything falls apart.”

When people ask me about race day, a picture immediately pops into my head. My mom and best friend were still waiting for us at mile 21.5 even though we were hours late in getting there.The voices in my head told me that when I saw them, they were going to be incredibly disappointed in me. They were going to tell me to suck it up. They were going to tell me that I was better than this.

Isn’t it funny the kinds of games our thoughts play on us? They turn family and friends into enemies. They conjure up lies that tear us down.

Because when I saw them, they were cheering. My friend ran out to me on the course, breaking many spectator rules for race day. She wrapped her arm around me and walked with me. My mom told me that I was her hero as she joined us on the course. I’ve never held so tightly to two people in my life.

Seeing them, hearing their words, gave me the courage to continue on.

I was not very brave on Sunday.

I was not very positive.

But I’d like to think that I was courageous.

Because everything fell apart that day.

Everything.

But my dad and I finished. Thanks to some medicine, we ran the last three miles.

We finished strong. We finished battered, blistered, and sore.

But we finished courageous.

The post Courage appeared first on Kate Berkey.

Yesterday was a first for me.

I ran 18 miles.

I spent the rest of the day hobbling around my dorm, sitting on my futon, and trying to fight off sleep. I rewarded myself with a Pumpkin Spice Latte and held it close as I tried to warm up after an ice bath.

Yet today I am finding that it is not the thrill of accomplishing something new, or the pain of recovery, or the reward of a coffee that is sticking in my mind. What’s sticking is something much deeper than doing something hard.

Last week as I thought about this run, I was filled with dread. I knew that I couldn’t do it myself, and I had to find someone to ride her bike beside me. Not only did I need the water; I needed the friend.

So a dear friend said yes to doing the most boring task that anyone could do: Bike about seven miles per hour for almost three hours. Oh and did I mention that we were on the road by 7 a.m.? It takes a certain kind of “special” to do that on a Saturday morning. Yet, yesterday was one of my best long runs ever, and it had little to do with my legs or my muscles. It had everything to do with the support and encouragement of having another person stick with me the whole time.

My friend and I talked the entire three hours, and actually I mean that she basically talked the whole time. I offered a few things when I could catch my breath, but for the most part I got to listen to her and hear about her life. This wasn’t the first time I’d done a long run with another person. At home I always do those runs with my dad. Last year when I trained for a half marathon, a different friend rode her bike beside me. And what I’ve found is the open road and the distance does something to the walls in conversation.

I think that we tend to set up barriers. We tend to draw a line that says “I will go this far, but not a step further.” But it’s incredible what people share at mile fifteen, when you’ve traveled up some steep hills, dodged some cars, and looked at the daunting landscape ahead of you. If you listen, if you stick with your people, if you create a safe space by your presence, they will, eventually, share. We tend to build up walls because there is little space in our everyday lives to struggle. There’s little space to dump things on our friends. These struggles, these tough situations don’t come up in casual conversation.

But yesterday both my friend and I fought off tears at different parts of the run. We weren’t struggling because of something physical; there was no pain that was bringing tears to our eyes. There came a point on our journey when both of us were raw. We were open. We were vulnerable. We threw out our words and prayed to God that the other would be able to pick them up and know how to handle them.

I’m learning that people need this space, need this freedom, need this comfort in order to say, “hey, I just need to get this out.” And I’m learning that it takes time. My friend and I didn’t talk about the tough stuff until mile 13. Even then, we have almost a year of friendship under our belts, of little deposits here and there into our “trust jars” as Brene Brown calls them in her book Daring Greatly.

And I’m learning that this “open road” is tough. It’s much easier to stay on the happy topics, to avoid the shadowy land that will probably bring tears. It seems easier to hold up the walls then to let them come crashing down. But there is something healing in vulnerability. There’s something healing in the midst of tears and awkwardness. There’s something healing in allowing another person to walk through a situation with you.

I am incredibly thankful that my friend decided to do the most mundane and seemingly insignificant thing with me yesterday. I’m thankful that she carried my water, that she talked to me the whole time. And I’m so thankful that she let me be raw and vulnerable with her and that she was vulnerable with me. Mostly, I’m thankful for the tears, for the stories that leave you breathless.

And I’m thankful for the open road.

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