Happy Monday! Here’s a quick bit of motivation for your fresh new week.
As I was wrapping up my run this morning I was tired and hungry and honestly amazed by how drenched in sweat I was despite the cool temps. (Hashtag humidity)
I could easily have stopped right there at 7 miles to eat and rest but wanted very much to start the week with a good, solid ten miles, hungry or not. It just sets the tone for all kinds of productivity and high energy work at home. So I distracted myself thinking of how many things we can endure if we choose to.
Human beings can really endure some stuff!
Just for fun, here is a list of endurance trophies we can earn for ourselves. Most of them are running related, but not all. And as always the running lessons translate beautifully into the rest of life.
In celebration of Boston Marathon registration opening this week, I made the list exactly 26 items long:
- Hunger or thirst (just imagine that first drink or first bite, it will be so delicious!)
- Boredom (cultivate a strong, flexible, inventive mind. Put your imagination to good use!)
- Copious amounts of sweat
- Wet feet & slippery socks
- Chafing
- Sore muscles
- Sheer exhaustion
- Anger
- Sadness
- Stress
- Distractions (Practice new ways to slow down & focus.)
- Hot hot hot sun like it will kill you
- Rain like it might flood and also drown you
- Loneliness
- Self Doubt (long runs are excellent opportunities to prove yourself wrong about some insecurities.)
- Disappointments (“Sweet isn’t sweet without the sour.”)
- Shock
- Grief (Have you read the Buddhist Mustard Seed parable yet?)
- Tight finances & limited resources (Some of our happiest memories have been made when we were flat broke.)
- Awkward social situations
- Mondays. (Make ’em count!)
- Long drives through Kansas or the Oklahoma Panhandle (I mean probably)
- That awful pleasure-pain of a deep tissue massage
- Waiting for a prayer to be answered (Trust Him, it is worth it.)
- Listening to an ok writer try to tell a story verbally. (See #20.)
- Winter
Speaking of human endurance, when the time is perfect for her I will be so excited for you to read what my sister Angela has to share. She has endured far more than some hard miles in fancy shoes by choice. She is the real deal, and her life proves that endurance is vital and life-giving. We can absolutely survive more than we think we can, and it makes the other side of things so much more beautiful when we make it.
Hang in there, friends, endure it!!
“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing
but to turn it into glory.”
~William Barclay
XOXOXOXO
Much needed today, Marie. I love your spirit and you’ve inspieome to endure, regardless of today’s outcome. Thank you! ❤️
Inspired me, not inspieome. 🤣
I love you. I cannot express in words how good it feels for you to say anything so concrete about who I am~ not because I think I’m sooo great but because it’s you ❤️ What’s funny is that I am constantly reminded that Gratitude is truly what carries us through all of life’s lessons and hardships. Endurance, for me, in retrospect, was almost more of a cop out. It was another reason to remain a victim of my life- like all of these things are happening TO me! I still love the anecdote about how if God were to tell us to put our “crosses” down and we could pick up anyone else’s we wished- we would pick up our own every time. Every single moment, every trauma, every heartbreak, every failure, every humiliation, every victory, it’s all part of our purpose. I love you sooo much. You are one of the best people in the whole wide world.