Of Confetti Weights and Tales to be Told

Posted on April 3, 2013 | 6 comments

Or, A TALE OF TWO 5K JOURNEYS

It was an accident, you see. I started running, and it was an accident.

I went to the gym to try a circuit class a few weeks ago.

I got there early with a friend, and we walked a little to warm up on the treadmills. People began to trickle in for the class. I cast furtive glances back at them (“Aha! So that’s how to not get tangled beyond the point of rescue in that thing!”).

When the small class gathered, my friend and I dismounted the treadmills, took a collective and precarious step toward them… and then I froze. Like the proverbial deer in the headlights- wide unblinking eyes and all. Pretty sure my heart rate was already up to “endurance training” zone, just watching.

You see, I’m not entirely… athletic. Not at all, actually. For proof of my athletic prowess- or distinct lack thereof- read this post. Things have only gotten worse since then. And I’m clumsy, to boot. I’ll spare you the stories.

But- although I couldn’t bring myself to join in the group of toned folk tossing weights about like confetti, I knew I still needed to break out of my comfort zone and do something.

My work-out friend, either experiencing a similar level of discomfort as me at the prospect of joining the weight-jugglers (I exaggerate. They weren’t juggling. Yet.), or just really, really kind and compassionate when she perceived my state of paralysis, had a stroke of brilliance.

“Couch to 5k!” She proposed as we inched our way back toward the safety of the treadmills. It was perfect. Something to stretch me, give me a time-bound goal, a schedule that I can cross off (My fingers tingle! A list! With items to cross off!) workouts from once completed. (If you’re reading this… thank you, work out friend!)

And?

Something I can tie to my writing goals, too. Any of you writers out there know it well, the word count lingo. The 5k days, the miraculous and elusive 10k days, the -3k days because you just re-read what you wrote at 4 a.m. and died a little inside (…cue “delete” button and mournful dirge…).

Here’s the thing. I’d laid aside my work in progress for a season, in order to polish a different manuscript and allow some heart-tuning to be done inside of me. Now, I’m ready to pick my characters back up, unfreeze them from their months-long suspended-animation states, and live this story out until it’s bound in words and breathes between lines.

So. I’m gearing up to run a 5k, and in between those workouts I want to sprinkle in several 5k installments per week on my WIP (work in progress). There will be weeks where life happens and this isn’t possible, and there will be weeks when I can make up for it. But this story is stirring in my heart, and I’m aching to tell it.

Most of all? I want to tell this tale for our Lord. For my Jesus. It’s all about His healing, the way he gathers up the broken pieces and, with strokes of grace and an embrace of the strongest love…he mends. Restores.

This blog post is a little out of the ordinary, not quite the norm around here. But I do so covet your prayers, most especially as this story takes shape. Can I ask for them? For your prayers? That my heart would be tuned to His calling here, that I’d be strong and teachable and mold-able in His hands, that this story would one day bless somebody—perhaps just one single person—with the hope of our God’s restoring, tender love?

Thank you, my friends. I cherish you.