[one chance. one gift]

Since August, I've been voluntarily tutoring a seven-year old Sudanese refugee on Monday nights for an hour. Her mother never made it past third grade. Her father had moved out for a while there, and she struggles in reading, math and all things that mean school. Tonight was the first time that I got a chance to visit with her father, though, and I was incredibly humbled.

Because he told me he's hoping to go to school. Not for a certain major. Not to fulfill all these lofty dreams. Not to gain titles, fill a resume or earn status. He's going to learn English - his third language. He's going to master the basics. He's going simply to know more and is hoping it will help him get a job. Any job. He applied to Wal Mart, but they haven't called back. He worked at a meat packing plant, but that was extremely hard work for little pay and was away from his family. So he wants to start free English classes and find a way to pick up school again where he left off after high school in Sudan.

And wow. It just continues to amaze me what we take for granted in this country. I would never apply for a Wal Mart job - mostly because I hate the store and corporation and the way they pay their employees - but yeah. I was looking for a different job earlier in the semester because I was discontent with my current part-time one, yet I didn't even consider a place like that. And to him it's a job. It's money. It's a way to provide. It's work. It's not about social status or forming an opinion or worrying about hourly wages.

We had just a simple conversation about simple things, but it truly humbled me. I worry about student loans and grades and forget it's a privilege to go to college. I get caught up in thinking about what I want to do, where I want to go and what my goals are and lose sight of the privilege it is to dream big. I complain about homework, tests, papers, projects, boring classes, stressful schedules, meetings, long to-do lists, practicum hours, work, demands, demands, demands. Yet everytime I go over there on Monday nights, life is somehow simpler. We read "Cat in the Hat." We have a tea party. We do word searches. We count money. We make puppets. We play memory games. I get a chance to share the gospel with her. Her dad gets a chance to share the basics of life with me.

Somebody once said, "Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have," and I think that's what internationals continue to teach me every time I set out thinking I'll teach them. I first started working with the international ministry at Memorial Lutheran Church here in Ames in October 2006, and my life has been changed and put into perspective time and again these past few years.

Many of the Sudanese refugees I've met have experienced a lot of painful things. They've been forced from their homes. They've seen war and death. They've lost the ability to live near or with their families - one of the core parts of their culture. They are living here in a society that most of them never chose to come to, many don't understand and others have no desire to stay in. Yet despite all of this, they see so much good in the things we only complain about.

It reminds me of the time I spent over two hours listening to another refugee woman's story. I was interviewing her for a project, and this is what she had to say about education:

“I asked my son ‘what are you going to be when you grow up?’ and he says, ‘I don’t know’. I tell him ‘you have a choice. You have a perfect life and go to school every day which is a very important thing. If you don’t take advantage of it you will end up in the streets. Don’t throw your gift away. When God gives you one chance it’s a gift. God gave it back to me here because in Sudan you don’t have chances but here you do.’”

Wow. Here we have choices. Here we have blessings in abundance. Here we have privileges most of the world only dreams of, and I pray that I can keep that in perspective the next two days as I attempt to crank out another paper I'm dreading. I pray that I can see it as a blessing, and I pray that I can use my chance, my gift, for God's glory.

[by faith]

Sometimes in this race of life we're not sure where we're heading. I mean, we have big ideas and want to do noble things, but we don't have all the answers to life's big questions. We don't know what's around the next curve. We can't see super far ahead, and that's frustrating, confusing, hard.

But I think that's also what faith is about. Trusting in the future despite not understanding it. Planning on the faithfulness of God rather than ourselves, and realizing that we don't have to have the answers or the details worked out. The past few months I've asked God for a lot of answers to big questions, and some have been answered. I know where I'm supposed to be this summer. I know that I have peace about the future after college. But I'm not so sure on some other things, and I'm constantly learning contentment, trust and faith in all of my frustration and questioning.

There's something about music that always seems to hit me when I doubt what I know to be true too. It has this way of describing my thoughts and giving me comfort when so many other things don't, and I've had the song "Faith is Living" by John Waller on repeat the past couple of days. It seems to describe both the person I think I am and the person I want to become. It's where I'd like to think I'm at and also where I'd like to be someday. Living by faith is never going to be something I will be able to check off my to-do list and say "done!" but I think that's also the beauty of it - a constant, life-long process. A neverending area of growth in my relationship with God. A continuous part of every mile in between.

So here are the lyrics to the song. You can probably find it on YouTube if you want to listen to the song itself:


"Faith is Living" by John Waller

I wish I could see just three steps in front of me
But the lamp unto my feet, it only moves when I take a step
And believe Your Word to me, Lord You have a history
That proves You're worthy of my faith

It's the evidence of things I cannot see
And faith. . .it's the confidence that You are holding me
It's the stepping out, it's breaking through
All my doubts and all I thought I knew
'Cause you've never lived until you've lived
You've never lived until you've lived. . .by faith

I want to be a man like Abraham
He went to a foreign land 'cause You said go
He trusted You by faith
Of a tiny mustard seed to mountains we can speak
Believe and move them by faith

[the reason for my title and my blog]

I became a runner unintentionally. I ran high school cross country with low expectations in the fall of 2003 and have yet to truly stop. It pushed me beyond what I thought was physically possible. It taught me there are no guarentees in this world - one of the most painful but life-changing lessons I've ever learned - and it later became the foundation of how I would forever look at life.

I ran my freshman year of college to ward off the "freshmen 15". I ran the next year to stay in shape. And then it started becoming my escape. My alone time. My way of thinking through things. Of over-analyzing most everything. Of releasing frustration. Of brainstorming and solving problems. Of relaxation. That last one is weird to most people. I know. But it really is. My three-mile sprints have turned into longer and slower runs where my mind is free to wander, and some of my best ideas have come on these runs.

And you know, I think all of life is like a race. There are uphills. There are downhills. There are curves you don't expect. There are times when you feel like you are flying, and there are others when your legs go numb. When the only thing carrying you on is your heart and internal will not to quit. Everyone gets a set of starting blocks. Everyone has a finish line, and we take nothing with us when we go.

But what about the miles in between? What about the minutes and hours and days and years that make up this thing called life? We are all but a grain in the sands of time, but what makes our grains count? What makes our miles matter? Do we arrive at the finish lines with legs absolutely numb from running beyond our perceived limits, or do we arrive barely short of breath and hardly tired?

That's what this blog is about. My miles in between. My attempt to make sense of the time, talents, passions, dreams and faith I've been granted. I've always felt like I'm seen as this perfect person too, but I'm far from that. I've got struggles. I've got failures. I've made dumb choices. I've got invisible scars. Yet despite all the times I've failed to truly live a life worthy of the calling I have received (Ephesians 4:1), I know the most important thing to do is to not give up, to keep running, to keep serving God and to keep trusting Him for the next stretch in the course of life, no matter what it brings.

Hebrews 12:1-2 says, " . . . let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. . . " and it's one of my favorite verses. Life is a race. Heaven is our finish line. And God knows the course isn't easy, but He never asked us to run it with perfection. Only perserverance.

So how will we live our miles? Slowly plodding along, taking it easy and not wanting to push ourselves beyond our perceived limits or leaving everything we've got out on the course? Will we trust that God wants and is going to carry us when our legs go numb, or will we save our energy, our talents and our potential because it's easier. It's easier than believing in the impossible. It's more comfortable than letting Him have control of our lives.

We've all been given a race to run in this life, and I've definitely gotten off track. I've taken my own path. I've tried to run dependent on my own efforts, my own ideas and my own strength. Sometimes I'm stumbling. Sometimes I'm sprinting, but over and over again I've been brought back to the foot of the cross, and I pray that I would continue to be broken there and allow God to work beyond my perceived limits of myself. My biggest prayer is that I will be able to cross the final finish line and say, "I've got nothing left Lord. I used everything you gave me." And by God's grace, I pray that the miles in between would be lived for that finish.