"Into marvelous light I'm running
Out of darkness, out of pain
By the cross you are the truth, you are the life, you are the way"
-Marvelous Light by Charlie Hall
If you know anything about me, you know that I like sports. And if you know a little more about me, you'll know that I run......alot. It's an awkward form of exercise, the combination of a grueling punishment and exhilarating adrenaline rush. One day I told my friend about my horrible mile repeats that I had completed the day before and she looked at me and said "Katherine, why the heck do you do that?!?!!!" There were a million places for me to start and not a single one of them answered the question....so it got me thinking.
This past year has been, without a doubt, the hardest year of my life. Between the decisions my brother made at college, to losing touch with great friends, to other trials I don't even have room to explain, I have been tested. And for some reason, during these tests and trials, I started running. It was actually an accident, something that was not supposed to happen. I was devastated about not making the Robinson soccer team (as in, I cried for about 3 days), so my parents just suggested I join track. After all, my dad was a runner, my brother is a runner, my uncle ran the Boston marathon....you get the picture. So I tried it. I thought it was cool and I was good at it, so this fall I joined cross country.
Lemme tell you, cross country is the time when God fully revealed himself to me. I'm not going to lie, running (pardon the french) sucks, it really, really does. But something happened this past fall. At every meet, at every practice and every time I laced up my Mizuno's, I was pushed to my limit. I was past exhaustion and would collapse to the point of fainting. I couldn't do it by myself, there was no way. During the first meet, a random praise song just popped into my head and I sang it the ENTIRE race, just remembering that the Lord is where my strength is, and through him, anything is possible. I looked around me and the colors of the trees, mingled with the reflection of the lake topped with the pounding of my feet on the asphalt overwhelmed me, and I felt the strength of the God of the universe inside of me.
I finished 5th in a race of over 250 girls. That's not me...that's him.
Everytime I get weary, everytime I get groan at the thought of an 800m interval workout, I just remember the card that my dad wrote to me when I got invited to the William and Mary Invitational. I keep it in my Bible and it has Hebrews 12:1 written on it:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with endurance the race marked out for us."
So, why the heck do I run? Because I glorify God through it. I see his power as the colors of the trees whip past me, I hear him encouraging me with every surge of pain, whispering those words that let me know he is never going to let me down. So, as for me:
"Into marvelous light I'm running, out of darkness, out of pain"
9 comments:
WOW!!!! way to go katherine houliodoulio
hmm...not sure if I share the passion for running, but God works in mysterious ways...
wow, that's so amazing! a very cool stroy to tell people wheather you win first place in the state, or wheather ur witnessing to bring someone to jesus. waitago katherine!
You make me miss cross country so much! I have thought of that song also when I run. I love the thought of running into the light. sometimes I run on the trail behind my house and the sun peaks through the trees and shines right down onto the path and I just praise God's amazing glory. I literally get to run into the light. God is my glorious!
You are lucky that you are able to both run and play soccer. Myself, I am a sprinter, not one of the lazy ones, but I know what you mean about finding the stregnth to push on and the amazing feeling of accomplishment that comes from pushing yourself to the edge and coming out the other side a stronger and more confident person.
Katherine Houle! That was inspiring. I run with you everyday but i just look at it as a way to keep me fit. The way you describe the surroundings in a cross country race is something i would care less and ignore it. I love this qoute from your writing: "It's God who won the race, not me."<--This changed my point of view.
YEAA I commented you! OK so I definitley feel the way you feel...cross country races(and track to!) are like 20:00 minutes of hurting non stop...but the feeling of finishing mile repeats or 400 + 800 meter workout and after you have gone through it is the best feeling in the world! When you said "It's God who won the race, not me", totally true!!My best example is when we went down to Richmond for the Lee Davis Invitational, when La La was like this is such an easy course, no hills blah blah blah...then when Steph(the REGURGITATOR) came up to me and was like "that race was HORRIBLE, there was this one hill that i thought I was going to die on"...and my feeling was like lord help me know, because I will need it!All during that race I could feel god helping me throughout that race up and down that hill of death, and when i couldn't feel like my legs couldn't go any more and I was dying of heat stroke, I could feel God giving me the strength to go on and telling me to push forward!Because of that one race, I know God will always be there pushing me through the ups and downs of life!
sometimes I'm not sure why we put ourselves through the pain of running, but this puts it all back it perspective...I too see God's power when I run, it causes us to be completely and udderly dependent on him, and him alone
Running is the very best of both worlds, you get to enjoy all of the scenery and beauty of nature, but you get where you are going much faster... the only problem is that when you get there you are exahusted
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