Hey there,
I’ve started running again. I wasn’t always a runner. When I first started in college, I could barely run a mile, but slowly I began to build up. I found a kind of peace in it. The steady motion of my feet hitting the pavement. Catching those first morning rays. Seeing how I could push my body faster and farther. I ran in almost every country I traveled to and loved getting the lay of the city before anyone else. Scoping out the little cafés and markets I wanted to visit later.
Three kids and a few injuries later, I’m starting out again. A lot slower than I used to be, but running nevertheless.
There is this whole running philosophy that, to improve your endurance, you have to run slowly. It feels so counterintuitive. I’m shuffling my way down the road, trying to keep my heart rate down, wondering why it can be so exhausting when I’m barely moving faster than a walking pace.
It’s uncomfortable and awkward, revealing all the ways my body is tight or stiff or sore. I can’t distract myself with speed or simply power my way through the rest of the run.
If I’m honest, slowing down in life is also incredibly uncomfortable.
There is this idyllic morning I have in my mind where we have no plans. Everyone lingers around the breakfast table, then runs off to play or read books on the couch, relishing the openness of the morning.
In reality, those mornings with nothing on the calendar look more like breaking up sibling fights, dealing with big emotions, pestering everyone to finish their chores and trying to breathe through the mess creeping its way across my counter. Putting up with “I’m bored!” and “He’s looking at me!” My first reaction is to get out of the house.
But what if the point of slowing down isn’t to have the perfect Instagram morning, but instead to notice the heartbeat of my home? The needs that surface as boredom and bad attitudes. My own impatience rising as the noise grows and the mess spreads. Maybe those things were always there, but I was just moving too quickly to notice them.
I love how Jesus never seemed to hurry or rush from place to place. In Mark 5, Jesus is on His way to the home of Jairus, whose daughter is dying. This need is clearly urgent. The crowd is pressing around Him as He walks, and in the middle of the commotion, a woman reaches out to touch His clothes, desperate for healing. Jesus could have continued walking. He could have healed her without ever acknowledging the interruption. But instead He stopped. He saw her.
I am sure that to everyone around Jesus, this looked like a distraction from the mission. After all, a daughter was dying! But Jesus was not worried because He knew that His Father had a plan. He could be interrupted. He could take this time to heal and connect. He called her “Daughter” and listened as she told Him her story.
When I slow down, I become aware of every tight muscle and uneven breath. In my home, I begin to notice the quiet cries for attention beneath the rude words. The discomfort beneath the complaints. The weariness beneath my own impatience.
The answer isn’t always to sprint past it or hustle everyone out the door. Sometimes the answer is to stop. To notice. To listen. To pay attention to what the slower pace has revealed. It may not look peaceful or productive. It may not look like much at all. But maybe this is how endurance is built, one slow step at a time.