Steady.

I started marathon training today. Training for the Chicago Marathon, to be exact. I lived in Chicago for three years during law school. We love the city and try to make it back once a year. Adrian ran the marathon in 2018 and in a moment of what I can only think now must have been an hallucinogenic, sleep-deprived lapse in judgment, I signed up to run this year. I am NOT a runner. Yes, I exercise, but running is not the same. At all.

Anyway, I got about half a mile in and was pretty sure I was going to black out, slide ungracefully off the end of the treadmill, only to be found once my husband realized I’d been out there far longer than the turtle’s pace of time it would normally take me to run that mile and a half…so basically like midnight. (Did I mention I’m not a runner?) Thankfully, though, the music blasting through my ‘pods refocused my attention.

It’s been a stupid week. Like, the world is totally bananas and no one really knows what’s going to happen from day to day. There’s panic. There’s hoarding. And for many of us who already fight a daily battle against anxious energy, it’s a time of expending even more energy on the battle. And did I mention that stress lowers your immune system?

So what do we do?

Steady in the boat.

A storm raged all around. The story says that the boat was being swamped by the waves. Taking in water, with a very realistic threat of capsizing. The men were absolutely freaking out. I hate water. Drowning is my worst fear. I sympathize. And where was Jesus? Knocked out in the front of the boat. They couldn’t believe it. They went to him and were like “Dude…don’t you care that we’re about to die?!” And you know what he did? Woke up, told the wind to chill, and went on about his business. Y’all…he was totally unaffected by it all. Like, no urgency, no worry, no NOTHING. Mad.chill. The storm didn’t change his personality. The storm didn’t raise his blood pressure. The storm didn’t change whether he worried about whether they’d make it through. He was completely steady.

So I got to thinking today…well…if that’s his character, if God is steady, if nothing surprises him and nothing shakes him or makes him shift like the wind…and God lives in me, then I can be steady too. Because it’s not me…it’s Him. None of what’s happening right now is a surprise. None of it will alter his purpose for this Earth, and none of it changes the fact that we are, after all, only on a sojourn here and our actual home is promised to those of us who choose Him.

To others out there who need to hear it as much as I did, I encourage you to ask yourself at the start of each day whether you’re choosing to be steady in the boat. Are we choosing to decline to indulge in the fearful thoughts the Enemy is trying to perpetuate? Are we choosing to decline to be moved all around like the changing wind? Are we choosing to be steady, no matter what? Not because you think you can, but because the one who can dwells in you. It’s a marathon, but I feel like if I can do that, one day at a time, then maybe I’ll get through it all a little more healthy, sane and free.