(Continued from “I want to be a runner… pt. 1)

So what is the turning point of identity? When does one’s brain go from not identifying with something to embracing the identity?

I’ve had another month and many, many miles of training to ponder my running dilemma, meanwhile still wearing my runner’s clothes, reading my runner’s blogs, studying my runner’s strides. Doing all the things I know to do to look like a runner and blend in with the running crowd.

This last Friday, I set a personal distance record of 16.11 miles! And somewhere along that long, lonely road in the middle of a rain shower the mystery of my much-desired-running-identity hit me.

I can’t be a runner
until I give up my former
‘not-a-runner’ identity.

That’s it.

The realization hit me like a ton of bricks and I began to weep.  What is my former identify? (and I type this gently, because it sounds so harsh…)

Slow. Non-Athletic. Fat. Girl.

I can’t be both. I must choose.

I’ve spent ten years working on my health (physical, spiritual, emotional) after a lifetime of obesity that started in childhood.  I’ve shed almost 100 lbs, but thirty years of being that girl was going to be hard to shake.  Words, realities, capabilities, activities… a whole lifetime of things tied to an identity needed to be ripped out of my brain and replaced with the new.

Where is Jesus in all this craziness?

More to come next month.

Leah
Director of Worship & Media