Loss to me is an opportunity for growth. Through every loss experience, for me, there has been a growing experience interweaved through out the whole process. I have had loss of control, and from that came a sense of freedom. That being said, this was in no way an easy experience for me. I often struggled back and forth within myself to be okay with it. I feel, however, if you take a step back and look at things from a bigger perspective, you can always find a silver lining. I will share with you my journey to find that silver lining and the failures it took to get there.
“Oh yes, I’m going to the University of South Florida next year,” I hear myself say, with a perky grin on my face, to a family friend who asked where I’d be attending college next year. On the outside I was all smiles and polite exterior like a cheesy infomercial seller, but on the inside I started to feel the wheels of nervousness twisting inside my stomach. Overall, I am excited to be going to school in Florida. I mean come on it is just about the coolest place you can go to Northerners. Just mentioning it to people would produce squeals of delight and tons of responses similar to, “Oh My Gosh! You’re so lucky!” Really. And I was no exception. I felt anxious excitement to start my new life in Tampa, but there was still that tiny, painfully annoying itch of doubt. Will I be able to handle the workload? Will I get along with my roommates? I hope I don’t gain the “freshmen 15”! And then I remembered the one thing I could count on, running. I was going to run track at USF and could not wait to get started in practicing and competing with the team. Ah, no need for nerves, I would tell myself, track is the one thing I know I can handle.
Running always came easy for me. I was gifted in my ability and enjoyed it very much. I loved running so much that my friends would ask, “How can you love running that much? Like who gets that much enjoyment out of torture?!” However, to me, it was not torture. It was an outlet, a way I could express myself physically and a way to feel good about myself, both physically and mentally. Everything else could be falling apart. I could have stress coming at me from every angle and I was always still able to go out and race my buns off. Running was one thing I had under control. Or so I thought.
Starting from the first practice in college I could not get things together. What in the world is going on Robyn?! Why can’t you just run? Just run! You’ve been doing it for 10 years. What is the issue? I would try my absolute hardest at practice, exerting full effort, and the result was the type of run that you have in those dreams, or nightmares rather, where you just cannot go anywhere, no matter how hard you try. The feelings like you are knee deep in maple syrup (which normally if you gave me some pancakes I would be okay with, but not in this instance). Robyn, just GO! Catch her, just move your legs faster and RUN! I was living out my worst nightmare! Okay, maybe “worst” is a bit extreme but I was definitely not prepared for this. I thought I was going to come into college and be the star freshmen standout, among others, and have an amazing season, helping my team in the Big East Championships. I could envision myself crossing that finish line in first place. I could hear the people cheering, smell the familiar smell of rubber and grass of the track and field, feel the exhaustion of my muscles at the end of the race where I gave my all, but not enough exhaustion not to feel the smile of satisfaction on my face from a job well done. In reality, I could not even hit times that I hit my freshmen year of high school, and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried dieting to lose weight, basing it on the logic that if I was lighter I would be faster. I tried talking to my weight room coach about our workouts. Maybe my body was not responding to the ones we were doing? I tried getting more sleep so I would have the energy everyday to give it my all. Everything, in my control, I tried to fix. Ultimately, this was out of my control. Boy, did I despise that!
I totally lost control over the outcomes of my races and in turn I lost complete control over my feelings about the sport I once used to love. I was embarrassed, frustrated, confused, fed up and angry. I was an emotional wreck and felt totally out of control with my feelings. I was broken and crying, which ironically is when I came to realize that it was okay. It was okay that I was not running great times and if I never did again. It was okay that I did not have control over this because ultimately I hold no control over anything. This was a wake up call for me to turn towards God with my issues and struggles and really opened up the platform of my relationship with Him. To understand where I am coming from I will explain it like this: Imagine yourself carrying an elephant on your back. Yes, an elephant. Okay, so you are lugging this huge, wrinkly, gray burden around just totally weighed down and consumed by thoughts of this elephant on your back, not to mention the physical tax it is having on your body. That is a lot of weight to carry around. Now imagine, someone coming along and just plucking that elephant off your back like it is an insect and taking the burden off your shoulders. Relief right? That is how I started to look at my struggle with running after I came to know the Lord. He picked up the heavy burden of worrying if I will ever be able to run like I used to again.
The feeling of relief was definitely as instant as I describe. It was like an elephant being lifted off my shoulders. The feeling was not always consistent on a day-to-day basis; however, and that is one thing I have continued to struggle with through out my running career in college. On any given day my conversations with God would jump back and forth. On one day they would go like this, “Ah, thank You Lord for this great opportunity to be on a college track team. However You want to use me Lord I am okay with. If it is just to be a light for others on my team and to stay positive during my time of struggle I am okay with that and I thank You for allowing me to be in that position.” On another day my conversation with God would go like this, “Okay, so I know I said I would be okay with this not doing well thing and all but is this really going to be it? Am I really just going to be that girl constantly working hard but not seeing any results? What am I doing wrong that it is not clicking? I would really just like to do well God, yes just for me. Yes, just so people can look at me and be amazed at how well I do. I know that is not why I should want to do well, but honestly right now it is.” I definitely had my bad days where I threw myself pity parties.
Thankfully, along with my relationship with God, I am blessed to have a great support system in my family, particularly my mom and dad. Throughout my struggle in my sport in college they have never once sounded disappointed in me or criticized me in any way about my performance. This may be considered cheesy, but they would always say how proud of me they were even when I did horribly. My mom was constantly boosting my moral and holding up my work ethic and determination to be proud of. Not only on the track, but also in the classroom as well, which is an area of my life where I could say I was excelling. If I am not already cheesy enough I have a text message saved from my mom that epitomizes her unending love and support in me: “me being proud has nothing to do with ur performance in running! its sticking to it being strong and doing as wonderfully fabulous as u do in the classroom! [sic]” I also have a supportive text from my dad as well which reads, “Nice job girlie. its all coming together for you now. its built on good physical and spiritual base. Add the mental aspects of running and you will have it all. [sic]” I am not sure if this was in response to my attitude towards my running or if I had shared with him a specific good practice I had but it makes me smile and I am glad for the opportunity to see the dynamic of my relationship with my parents played out over different situations in my life.
A silver lining that I have been able to see take from in my life is the chance I now get to relate to girls who are also struggling with performance based problems. Not unlike many other hard times in my life, when I take the outlook of gaining experience and knowledge with something I suffered from I am able to be thankful to be used in situations to then help other people with similar problems. As per usual, this relates directly back to God and I will explain how. Remember the elephant? By nature, I am sinful and bound by my fleshly desires and temptation to sin, which leads to eternal life in hell. I am weighed down by sin, like carrying around Dumbo the elephant. There is no way I alone, in my own power, cannot sin and lift this elephant. If you are human, it happens. This leaves a gap between God and I and blocks me from having an intimate relationship with Him. We need help in order to lift the burden. That is why God sent His son, Jesus, to die on a cross for my sins, for your sins, for the world’s sins. This bridges the gap between the Lord and us and lifts off the heaviness of eternal death through sin. When you allow Jesus to enter your heart and your life you are free from sin and granted eternal salvation in heaven! Because Jesus lifted the elephant of sin, I am filled up on the Lord’s love, soaking in His word and guidance. This has allowed me to outpour love onto others and gain the Lord’s perspective, a least in a tiny sense, of maybe not why everything happens, but what I can now do with what happened to best glorify Him and further His kingdom here on earth, which is what we are all called to do.
Just recently, I got to hear a story where my outlook on struggling with track and my positive attitude helped out a girl on my team. A girl on the cross country team and I were talking and she said she remembers being so nervous on the day of our first race and making an off hand comment about it. I would not have remembered unless she said so but apparently I said something to her along the lines of, “There is no need to be nervous! You run all the time, it is just another one of those times. Think of this race on the large scale of your life, it will seem silly in order to be nervous of something so small.” Talking to her after the fact she said that helped her so much and really put in perspective her feelings and nerves. Those kinds of moments are amazing to me because without me realizing it, I encouraged her and in turn without her realizing it, in telling me the story, I was encouraged as well. God definitely used that to show me my ability to be satisfied in Him has an effect on others and gives me the push to continue pursuing Him in order be filled up to help others.
My struggle with running is still a work in progress. Just these past couple of days I have realized that my lack of self confidence in my self overall has greatly affected my ability to run, along with other aspects of my life. In my own self-doubt I also doubt God and His plans for my life, which is a hard pill to swallow for me. I place my worth in my performance on the track a lot of the time, which will never consistently satisfy me. My self-confidence plays a lot into how well I feel at practice that day or if I do well in competition. The problem with this; however, is there is always going to be a faster time I want to achieve. There is always going to be a way to improve and get better as an athlete. There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve and I think it is great and I am blessed with the ability to push myself and discipline my body in order to try and run to the best of my God-given ability. What is of concern is placing my worth, satisfaction and happiness in something so fickle. I could break my leg and never be able to run again. If I let running define who I am then eventually when that is taken away I will feel lost, incomplete, and inadequate. Placing my image and identity in the Lord, there is no way my satisfaction can change. No matter what else changes in my life, I will always have that one constant to be reminded of my worth: being a child of God.
In order to overcome this struggle with self-confidence and my struggle with running, I turn to prayer and conversation with God. I pray for peace of mind and wisdom in what to do regarding my feelings and actions. I also refer to God’s word because I feel that is directly how He speaks to me and it was written in order for me to digest and help guide me in my walk. I also think it is important to have a church community, whether that means through church on Sunday, a Bible study, or just solid friends who understand your will to live for the Lord and want to help you with that choice. One common misconception about Christians is that we have it all together and everything is perfect in our lives because we have Christ. Nothing could be farther from the truth. For one, no one is perfect besides Christ so there is no way that everything in our life can be perfect. Another thing is in following God’s word we are held to the standards of the Bible, which means God, will test us in order to see if we stand firm and glorify Him through our struggles. What better way to show how much you trust someone than to thank them even in times of despair. It is a learning process, and I have definitely had to swallow some hard pills along the way, but that is life. If you never have to take a hard look inside yourself and pull out the icky stuff you will never grow as a person and be able to experience the most out of life.
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