Mile twenty five was slowly turning into twenty six. We had been running for what seemed like an eternity, though in reality it had been just over four and a half hours. I could hear the crowd at the finish, faintly at first, but growing louder with each stride we took. Rounding a corner, we saw a lively choir in matching yellow gowns singing and swaying in unison: “Hands up. They’re playing my song. The butterfly flies away. I’m nodding my head like, yeah. Moving my hips like, yeah.” Their enthusiasm made me smile and almost forget about the last four hours of my life. Almost.

We pressed on, rounding the corner, and there was the crowd. Hundreds of people yelling and cheering. Spectators looking for their runners. Runners looking for their families and friends. Smiles, signs, and waves were abundant on both sides. I scanned through the people, looking for the familiar faces I knew were there waiting for me. Not slowing my pace, but staring intently, I saw them! Big smile. Big wave. Pictures of the happiness being taken as we ran past. A flood of joy, relief, and pride welling up inside… pushing us faster toward the end! One final picture from the professional photographer as we joined hands and ran under the giant inflatable finish line sign! Medals were placed around our necks and Mickey Mouse ears were put on over our sweaty and matted hair. 

To the non runners, it looked like pure bliss as the marathoners crossed from the gated corral into the general population. Such joy. Such accomplishment. Such pride in that finish line. Months and months of training culminating in a single event for everyone to see and celebrate. But when my family finally found me, I was sobbing. Not tears of joy. Big, huge, uncontrollable rivers of salty water flowing freely my eyes… right underneath the Mickey Mouse ears that sat on my head. 

Make no mistake. I was elated to have finished the marathon. I was proud of myself for showing up at the starting line at 3:30 that morning… when I would rather have kept sleeping. I would wear that medal… and those ears… all day because I wanted everyone to know what I had accomplished. My tears were not because I had finished. My tears were for how hard it was to get to that line and how much pain it took to get there. 

It is no secret that I hate marathons. I love running, but marathons are not my distance. The length of that race is daunting and intimidating for me. It requires months of training. It takes determination and planning to be successful. To train properly you must sacrifice multitudes of mornings of sleep in order to lace up and head out on the road to get in the miles needed, often alone. Strength training and stretching take up the rest of your time. And still there are things on race day that you cannot prepare for. Weather, illness, and other situations that are beyond your control can factor in at the last minute causing a shift in your race day performance.

This is where I found myself that day. I had trained for months. I increased my strength training. Put yoga in my workout schedule. Changed my diet and prepared my nutritional intake to help peak my performance. I prepared myself the best I could for the race and showed up at the starting line knowing the rest was up to the “race gods“. My friend and I nervously waited for our turn to pass through the starting line. It was dark and cool, but exciting. It was a Disney race so there was plenty of excitement around us. Fireworks went off for the start of each corral. Mickey and Minnie were on the big screen while announcers hyped everyone up on the microphone.

Then it was our turn to go! We set out at a comfortable pace, ready to assume this position for the next several hours. My friend was no stranger to this distance. This was her tenth marathon so we knew we could rely on each to get through. The first mile ticked by with ease. By the second mile, runners were bottle necked as there was some sort of construction near the course that had not been there in the years prior. Into the third mile, my friend began to have some stomach issues and now multiple bathroom breaks were needed… for the next five miles. The stop and go for the bathroom, put an unexpected stress on our pace as we just couldn’t get into a good running flow. We finally found her some medicine (thank you Disney for multiple medical tents along the course). Now we were ready to hunker down into our rhythm.

Between miles ten and eleven, we felt small, cold drops of water. We looked into the sky, but didn’t see any clouds. It must have been some random water source. There was no rain predicted in the forecast… I know because I checked multiple times before leaving the hotel. (I despise running in the rain, more than I despise marathons.) Nearing the eleventh mile marker, we turned onto a road… and there… looming in the distance was a large, ominous gray cloud. The kind that is unmistakably a rain cloud. I felt the pit of my stomach drop. I knew there was nowhere to go to escape it. The adage “the only way out is through” went through my mind… and definitely applied here. Before I could even process the situation, it was raining. Not a mist. Not a light sprinkle. A deluge of cold, hard rain was pouring down on us. Soaking our hair, our clothes, our shoes, and my spirit. I went silent, but kept running. To add insult to injury, after the rain finally cleared, the temperatures dropped about fifteen degrees. What was a pleasant cool before, now turned to a frigid cold, made worse by the fact that our clothes were soaked and the sun did not come out so we couldn’t dry off… or warm back up. 

I will spare you the details of the next fourteen miles, but just know that the muscles in my legs cramped up and I could not get them to release because I could not get warm. My hip began to hurt from the muscle cramping and I began to run with a limp. My friend had numbness in her fingers and feet because the cold triggered her Raynaud’s syndrome to flare up. We were miserable, but determined to do two things: finish and make the most of our situation. We walked, we ran, we complained, and we encouraged each other. We struggled and we felt defeated. We felt tired and fatigued. We wanted to quit. But we knew we couldn’t. When I really felt like stopping, I remembered that my family was waiting for me at the end. My parents, my husband, and two of my sons were looking for me to come across that finish line and I was going to have to fight to get there. 

So fight we did. I forced myself to think of positive things. I forced my legs to move when they wanted to stop. I ignored the pain in my hip, even though it felt like bone on bone by the time we finished. We stopped talking about quitting and began to discuss what we would do when we finished. We dug deep into our minds and spirits and made it happen. We made it to that finish line hurting and humbled and limping. But we made it across. 

And this is why I cried.

Sometimes people only see the finish lines in our lives. They see our successes. They see our happiness. They see our health. They see our faith. They see our social media posts with the smiling family.

But what they don’t see is the struggle it took to get there. They don’t see the sleepless nights from worry. They don’t see the weariness from working two jobs to make ends meet. They don’t see the tears you cry from the helplessness you feel about hopeless situations. They don’t feel the heartbreak you had when you walked away from relationships that were hindering you. They weren’t there when you prayed all night for your child who was determined to make poor choices. They are unaware of the darkness that surrounded you while you struggled to keep your faith. They did not hear the words you spoke out of desperation to find God in a godless world. They did not feel your heart start to harden when you realized the world will only get darker and more filled with hate… and that even the Christians in the church are not impervious to the tendrils of the enemy that twist and turn perceptions causing the love and compassion of the believers to grow cold. 

The struggle for our faith is real. The onslaught of unexpected, outside forces that fight for your attention and strive to break you down on a daily basis are everywhere. You pray… you read your Bible… you go to church. You prepare yourself for this marathon of life the best you can, but there always seems to be a rain cloud, or a cramp, or an injury lurking just around the corner that catches you unaware. If you spend too much time focusing on these unexpected surprises, you will find yourself in a mire of self pity with an overabundance of desire to quit the race altogether and to let your faith grow cold. But remember who is watching for you at the finish line… waiting with a smile… and a sign… and a “well done my good and faithful servant.” Don’t stop until you get through.

We all have our own “marathon” story: a unique story of struggle and wrestling to maintain our faith in a God that seems to be becoming less relevant to this world. And yet we know that we need to press on. We need to keep moving. We need to keep putting one spiritual foot in front of the other. We need to go deeper into our struggle and not let up until we see the blessing. We have to cross that finish line, even if we walk with a limp afterwards.

“Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.'” Genesis 32:28

““But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13b-14