In Training

I have a couple of friends who run marathons. On purpose. They train for months and months then they pay hard-earned money and often travel to other states to run nonstop for four to six hours while their toenails fall off and their muscles seize up and they chaff in unmentionable places.  They post things like "15 miles in the rain makes me feel 50% more hard core as a runner." They think this is fun.

I think this is borderline psychotic.

I have run a few MINI-marathons, so I know whereof I speak. Running 13.1 miles straddles that line between God-only-gave-me-one-body-so-I'm-going-to-take-care-of-it physical fitness and I-am-a-bit-sadistic-so-I'm-going-to-run-until-I-throw-up insanity. Anything beyond that is completely-over-the-edge crazy.

Not that I would ever say that out loud. No, out loud I'm all, "Good luck on Saturday, Rick! Twenty six point two - Woohoo!"

What seems crazy to me gives the estimated 1% of the US population who run marathons a sense of accomplishment, of challenge met and overcome, of peace, of honor, of physical and mental endurance, of spiritual connection. Also it's a good excuse to buy top-of-the-line running shoes every three months.

Sometimes the adoption journey feels like training for a marathon. It's mentally and emotionally and even physically grueling. It seems to take FOREVER. I haven't lost a toenail, but I have broken out in hives. ON MY FACE. I know there are people who think I am crazy ("she already has a perfectly good family, why does she want to go through this bureaucratic nightmare and travel overseas and potentially throw their entire life into turmoil?") even if out loud they are all, "oh, you're adopting, that's so wonderful." Because, yes, it IS wonderful, but it is also messy and painful and ragged and raw and quite possibly borderline psychotic.

But even if they think I've gone completely off the deep end I'm thankful for those friends who don't actually say this but instead continue to figure out ways to support this crazed pre-adoptive mama. Those friends who listen to THE SAME prayer request week after week and who actually pray for me and Trent and Sam and that little boy in Africa week after week. Those friends who are okay with my frustrations and my doubts and my grief and who even enter into those emotions with me. Those friends who have never even met me yet take the time to love on our little guy and give us glimpses of his life. Those friends who have or who are running their own adoption journey but who manage to respond to my many, many questions. Those friends who invite me to the Melting Pot for a girls night out.

Because even if our journey seems crazy this is exactly where God wants us. We're in training for something, something big, so step-by-step we'll pound it out. We will run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of faith.