Recently while speaking and training Volvo dealers throughout New England, I spent an open evening with my mom at her home along the coast in Connecticut. I ventured out for a run early that next morning and fought through the driving rain which came courtesy of Hurricane Irene's last few hours there. My shoes were beyond water-logged when I finished, so I set them in her garage to dry while I showered and ate breakfast. In my haste to head out for my next session, I left my running shoes behind. Far enough behind that going back to retrieve them wasn't an option. I had several days on the road ahead of me, and simply not running over that period also wasn't an option. I was familiar enough with running stores in that region so I ventured into one of them at the end of my day and asked for what I've been running in the last ten years - Adidas Supernova Glides, size 11.5, a simple enough request or so I thought. The store had the brand/style but not the size. What to do....after considering other alternative options, I asked the salesman if he had another brand in the same style - made for bigger guys like me who have high arches and tend to supinate. He suggested a few different brands and styles which I tried on before settling into a pair of Brooks Launch. They certainly didn't feel like my tried and true Adidas Supernova Glides, but they would have to do. I was far from thrilled at the thought of running in new, untested shoes and longed for my old ones back....
My first few days in the new shoes were challenging. Things just didn't feel "right". Often different feels wrong. I was out of rhythm, out of sync and the runs were far from enjoyable. I ran, but I didn't look forward to it. I'm an extreme creature of habit though so I stuck with it and by the end of the week a funny thing happened....once broken in, the new shoes felt great! My speed picked up, my feet felt better than they had in years, and the quality of my runs improved dramatically. Had I not inadvertently left behind my comfortable Adidas, I never would have experienced or known that there was a better shoe out there.
Sometimes we get really comfortable in life with something - a job, a town, a partner, a lifestyle or standard of living, a set of friends, a church.....and whether it's of our own doing or someone elses, that "comfortable" part of our life is rocked or disrupted. What once was is no longer an option. We're forced to consider alternatives we never imagined; along the way, we run through a range of emotions. Shock. Anger. Disbelief. Dismay. Resentment. Frustration. And finally, we come to accept that maybe, just maybe, the God that created us and knows EVERY hair on our head just may have something greater planned and in store for us. Keeping the Faith along the way, through that change, is no easy task, but the Bible reassures us countless times that our God never forsakes or abandons us.....and that He has greater, bigger, and better things planned for us, and often it is just around the corner. BELIEVE.
"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" - Isaiah 43:19
loved.
ReplyDelete