Most of my cross country or track
seasons, there is a theme. And it never fails, the theme I set for the kids
ends up being a mechanism for growth in my own life. I never intend for that to be the case, I don’t
try to create it for myself nor do I expect or even look for the theme
manifesting in my own life… yet it always does. In fact, at this point I think
I may be a little more careful of what theme I pick (though to be fair, most
years, it’s not so much me picking it as it is God revealing it. And I guess I will try to continue to be
obedient in that.) But after this year I’m
a little wary… This track season’s theme
was ‘fearless.’ And while I was calling
my runners to be fearless in their training and racing; I myself was being
thrust into facing a much more real and personal fear: a fear of inadequacy.
So the timeless fear-overcoming
strategies involve encountering the fear in the most intense ways (i.e. fear
heights – you should bungie jump; fear spiders – you should hold a tarantula) and
that is essentially what happened to me.
In the past I’ve never really found myself in a situation where I couldn’t
at least be competent (if not good) at whatever I was needing to do, be it school,
sports, my job, or even being a good sister/daughter/wife. And to be honest I’ve never really pursued
something that I didn’t have some confidence in my abilities for. But here recently I’ve been what I can only
best describe as “flailing.” I hadn’t
drowned, but it sure felt like I was waving my arms about and not helping
matters in anyway. Sinking felt like it could happen at any moment…. Due to circumstances outside of my control, I
was put in a teaching situation I didn’t feel equipped for. I found myself clueless as to how to manage
some of my CFO duties at my gym. Things
came up in my family and personal life that I was completely unprepared for. And all of those were preventing me from
coaching at the level my extremely talented runners deserved. I was working 15-16 hour days; I even pulled
a few all nighters, something I’d never done before in my entire life. My friends thought I was mad at them; my mom
often wondered if I was alive since she wasn’t hearing from me like usual. Yet the more I tried within my own strength
to juggle all my responsibilities and to perform well, the more obvious it
became how inadequate I was. However, I’m
still here. And in the same way that a spider-fearer
holds a spider and doesn’t die, or a height-fearer bungie jumps and doesn’t die…
I was completely submerged in my inadequacies and yet I’m still here. And that’s really what overcoming fear is:
being in the very midst of the fear and realizing you’re ok, realizing there
was never anything to fear in the first place.
The truth is we’re all inadequate.
And the truth is we’re still all ok. That’s
what the cross represents. You have no
reason to fear, not to fear spiders or heights, and not to fear inadequacies,
failure, perceptions, or anything else, not even death… because Jesus overcame death. So if you feel like you’re flailing, or even
sinking… trust me; you’re ok. He’s got
you.
