Time to Start Running Again

Something is happening inside me. I am waking up from a slumber I didn't even know I was in. A friend prayed for me a month ago and said, "It's time for you to start running again." He meant figuratively. I felt like I was "running" during college, before the days of debilitating anxiety and bed-ridding depression. I so badly wanted his prayer to come true the moment he spoke those words. Joyfully I can say I think it's starting to happen. I feel my step quickening and a trot coming on. Before I know it, I could break out into a full on gallop.

This summer at Young Life camp with my high school kids I had a brief near death experience on the back of a horse. Our scheduled horseback ride kept getting delayed due to lightning, but after an hour of waiting in anticipation, we finally saddled up and set out on the trail. Not five minutes into the ride, the downpour started. Typically the ride at camp is a slow walk with brief, planned stretches of trotting. But with the rain, our wranglers broke the group in half allowing the first eight or so of us to speed ahead. What resulted was an adventure through a North Carolina forest in a torrential downpour that I will never forget. The rain was so heavy it blurried my contacts and rendered my sight blind at times. To keep up with the wrangler, our trail horses took off in a speed not typical for them. I kicked and kicked and felt the stride beneath me change. The bumpiness of the trot had transformed into a rhthm I had never felt before. I am an inexperienced rider, but had heard our wrangler describe the speeds of her horse while waiting out the rain. This was a smooth, graceful rhythm. This was a gallop. It took me a moment to recognize it, but it was just as she had described it. So there I was tearing through the mud, my jeans heavy and soaking wet, half blind from the rain, hanging onto my leather reigns not to steer my horse but to keep from falling off. It was loud in the woods with the thudding of hooves to the ground and the beat of the rain. And at the same time, though impossible, I remember it as quiet. In the midst of the chaos, surprise, and adrenaline my thoughts somehow cleared enough to form a prayer and make my peace with God. I remember feeling at any moment my horse could throw me or take a wrong step and we'd tumble down into the rivine together. And I spoke this to God, "If I'm going to die right now, I'm going to die happy...really, really happy." I remember thinking, "What a cool way to die. People will remember me as cool." The danger felt very real at the time and as inexperienced of a rider as I am, it probably was just as dangerous. I can't think of any other experience I've had like this that can be described as an adventure. I was terrified and rejoicing at the same time. Nothing comes close.

That's my fondest memory of running. It happened not on my own legs, but on those of another. I was not in control, but rather letting another lead and carry me. In the midst of the chaos and confusion I'm feeling in my current circumstance, I would love to hop on the back of that horse and let it carry me out of the woods. So yes I want to run again. But maybe to be more accurate, I want to gallop again.

Did I mention my horse's name was Hattie? (Technically it was Hatteras, but the wranglers called her Hattie.) I wouldn't want to share this experience with anyone other than a namesake. And I fear that by posting this dorky picture of me pre-ride instantly takes away the coolness of the story. If anything it gives you a better picture of the mismatch of me and galloping gracefully on the back of Hattie.

I found this the other night from Phil Borst. He has done some videos for Standard, but I'd never visited his site before. This video nailed how I've been feeling and even mentions the phrase, "I can run again." Something is a stirrin'.

Home from Phil Borst on Vimeo.