Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

marriage

Anything for love

Maybe it’s all the “Celebrity Apprentice” I’ve been watching lately, but I’ve been humming Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love” since watching a Royal Wedding special earlier this week. Meatloaf and the royal wedding — kind of a stretch, right? (By the way, did anyone ever figure out what “that” was? You know, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”)

I was captivated by the Royal Wedding this morning. My husband set the alarm for me on his way out to the Y, and I had one hour of uninterrupted fairy tale romance time before the children woke up. (Side note: This bone china mug arrived in the mail this afternoon, straight from England, for my birthday. I’m a little giddy about it.)

Weddings, in general, have taken on new meaning for me since I’ve been married. My husband and I celebrate four years of marriage in less than a month, and it’s been a roller coaster ride so far but worth every crested hill and sharp turn.

During this television special earlier in the week, one of the reporters commented that he thought Kate would prefer that she wasn’t marrying a prince, that she would like to lead a nice, quiet life in the country and raise a family outside of the public arena. That struck me as truly amazing and sacrificial. Despite her personal preference, for the sake of love, she is entering a life she would not have chosen for herself, a life that will have its difficulties in lack of privacy, rules of etiquette, public appearances and possibly even threats to personal safety. All for love. She could have decided it wasn’t worth it, but for love of a man, who happens to be prince, she is choosing to sacrifice her idea of an ideal life and enter a world that certainly is different from what she has known.

In a sense, it’s what we all do when we get married. We join our lives to someone else’s, aligning our dreams, ambitions and goals to theirs, come what may. I didn’t understand this fully when I got married, and I’m not sure I ever will understand it fully, but joining my life to a man preparing to be a pastor has required sacrifice of things I thought I wanted and expectations I had for how life would be. But I wouldn’t change the choice I made to marry him. For me, there was no one else. He could have been a beggar asking me to live in a cardboard box with him or an astronaut with dreams of living on the moon. That’s the thing about love, the craziest of notions don’t seem all that crazy and as long as I’ve got my husband walking next to me hand-in-hand, I believe we can face anything together.

I imagine Kate could be afraid of the future. She will be queen someday. How do you live every day with that knowledge? Most little girls dream of being a princess; she literally is one. All because she loved a man.

Those of us who choose to join our lives with Christ experience this kind of love, too. For love of the one who first loved us, we’ll do things we never thought we could, give up the lives we’ve always wanted for the lives we never thought we could have. Living the Christ-life is scary, risky, unpredictable and difficult sometimes, but it’s also fulfilling, joyful, purposeful, abundant and freeing. Having experienced life with Christ, I hope that we would say we can’t imagine life any other way.

Running for our lives

In high school, our gym teachers had this horrible conspiracy to torture us. It was called “the mile and a half.” Freshmen talked about it as a thing to be feared, and each semester, it was the time of year to be dreaded. At least for the non-running types, of which I was one. I’ve never been in what I would call great physical shape, so running was difficult for me. I wasn’t good. If the weather was hot, I sweated too much and had bouts of nearly passing out. One summer during softball practice (I know this has nothing to do with running), I puked in center field and was seeing white spots because I was overheated. Our hunky high school “coach,” more like an instructor, bought me a Sprite and ushered me to a shady spot on the bleachers. The other girls were slightly jealous, but that didn’t last long.

Enough digression. Tomorrow, despite all my past declarations against the sport, I become a runner.

The gear has been purchased (See new shoes in photo).

The plans for watching the children have been made. The fitness plan has been decided. My husband and I will set out tomorrow morning to begin our journey to run a 5K in late November.

This idea first popped into my head after I saw a friend “like” the “Couch to 5K Running Plan” (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml?cmp=18-1) on Facebook. The idea intrigued me, especially since I would consider myself pretty much a couch potato now. Though two kids do keep a person hopping. But I also cope with bad days by eating chocolate and Cheetos. Sometimes together, sometimes not.

There’s more to this wacky plan than fitness, though. To be honest, our marriage is hurting right now and 30 minutes three times a week running with my husband, without the kids, will be precious couple time that we haven’t sought often enough. The physical benefits will be a bonus, as we both could stand to lose some more “baby” weight. Mine from the actual pregnancies, my husband from the sympathy eating.

Also, I’m realizing that I’m not terribly disciplined nor do I really understand what hard work is. Most of my life, I’ve chosen the easy way. Or avoided hard work altogether. Growing up, when my parents went outside to do yardwork, I more often stayed inside and read a book or watched TV. Even now, I have trouble not being selfish or lazy with how I spend a day. I sit way more often than I should, even with the aforementioned children running, crawling and climbing all over the house. I’m a writer by design, so naturally I’m drawn to sitting at a computer, reading a book or doing more intellectual things. Physical training has only ever been fun for me if it’s part of a game. Like volleyball or softball.

Running is hard work. I think that’s why I’ve avoided it. I don’t have a lot of self-discipline or mental strength to push myself to do something that takes work. I’m impressed by runners because they can push themselves to go another mile when their bodies want to give up. I need that sort of fortitude in other areas of life. The will to keep going even when the going gets tough.

I used to tell people, when dismissing the idea of running for fun, that I would only ever run to save my life. In a way, that’s what I’m now doing, what I proposed to my husband. In a lot of ways, we need to save our lives right now, and running is the answer.

I’ve been thinking about what the apostle Paul wrote about running in his letters to the early church. I used to read over those words. Now I’m paying more attention.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” (1 Timothy 4:8)

We invite you to join us on this journey. I’ll be blogging regularly about our progress and would appreciate any advice, encouragement, tips you have about running, or living a self-disciplined life in general.

Stay tuned.

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