Running Towards Strength

This morning as I was getting ready I noticed my tattoo. It's on the outside calf of my right leg so it is not always easy to see. It's Romans 5:3-5 which says:

We rejoince in our Sufferings,

knowing that

Suffering

produces

Endurance

and endurance

produces

character, and

character produces

hope

It was a tattoo designed to get me push through tough training when preparing for my next race. I had long thought it was the perfect Bible passage for a runner. Running is pain. Every step of the way. And if I let the pain win, then I don't make it to the finish line. So I put one painful step in front the other. I suffer knowing that each time I do, I go further, I go faster. That endurance leads to becoming stronger and I am more easily able to see that finish line.

And as I was staring at it this morning in the shower I thought, what is strength?

I began reflecting on my own suffering in my life.

The people who broke my heart.

At first, I thought, you soft hearted fool. And I thought of all the people who hurt me.

High school girls. All those crushes. Any that gave me attention would send my heart soaring. I would spend weeks gathering up the strength to ask them out. Only to get that soul crushing "I only see you as a friend." Oh, that hurt so bad.

Friends who invited other friends to spend the night who didn't invite me. Other friends mocking me for it.

Coaches who yelled at me, called me the "loser of the team", who shoved me, hit me, ridiculed me. Shamed me. Publically.

Bullies.

My college girlfriend who said that she could never marry me.

A fiance who left me along at a hospital.

My siblings. Fight after fight. Mean comment after mean comment.

Teachers. Teachers who never had any patience for me. In particular, my 1st grade teacher who told my parents that I was incapable of learning and that they should institutionalize me.

Every single person who failed to understand that I can't control my ADHD.

My mother. Who failed to be strong when I needed her to be. Who backed down instead of protecting me.

And my father. Beating after beating. Emotionally abusing me even up to the final days before he died.

All that pain.

Where did that get me?

Girls who are now amongst my list of lifelong friends.

Bullies who grew up and are now my friends.

All those people who criticized my ADHD drove my desire to find ways to navigate my impusles and disorganization.

A college girlfriend who is the best Godmother to my daughter.

A fiance who today is still a strong professional advocate. Our vast professional network has made us a fierce professional team.

My siblings, who are now my closest and most beloved people in my life.

My mother, who taught me that my soft heart is my greatest strength.

And my father. Through him I learned even the most broken of people deserve forgiveness because they are worthy of love and forgiveness. Regardless of what they have done. One of my greatest lesson I learned from him. The man is not how he behaves. It how he loves. And he loved.

And the person who hurt me the most—the person who rejected me, ridiculed me, bullied me, abandoned me, and beat me down more than anyone else combined. Through him—through me—I learned to love who I am.

Strength is the ability to remain open-hearted in suferring.

Strength is endurance, not invulnerability.

Strength is character shaped by fire.

Strength is hope that refuses to be extinguished.

Strength is receiving love, not manufacturing it.

Strength is not something you build, it's something you receive.

It's the strength of someone who knows they are loved even in the middle of the storm.

Stregnth is resilience that grows that when suffering is met with trust, honesty, and hope, until love becomes the deepest truth of your life.