A Steady Pace

My oldest son was around five, and I was determined to be a good mom. I’d be a different mom. I had new and robust ideals. I raced through the house, gathering keys and bags. We were headed to the library for a show. My son had no intention of hurrying that morning. He sat on the floor, slowly putting on his shoes like a turtle crossing the road. I could feel the frustration building. “We’re going to be late.” My son didn’t seem to mind. Once we got to the library, my son pokily got out of the car, unconcerned about the “good mom” event I was arranging. We were late, and I was frustrated. 

I’ve always done things fast. I’ve raced through life like the unimportant is essential and the important (God, people, my dreams) are trivial. Living daily like my to-do list is an emergency rather than acknowledging the sacred in my moments. As a kid, I was a sprinter, and as an adult, I ran marathons as fast as I could, always seeking a quicker pace. I loved it. I was good at it. Speed, adrenaline, and the race put life into my bones. It was my superpower. 

Yet, to run a fast marathon (which is not like running a short-distance race), I had to learn a slower, more steady pace. I couldn’t launch out at full speed.

At the beginning of a race, I had to succumb to a slower, steadier pace than my body wanted to. A slower pace was necessary if I hoped to hold my position and finish. 

We might need this same perspective to grow in the areas God calls us to. Our lives are consumed with business. We move from one activity to the next. God places dreams in our hearts: a deep, intimate marriage, closer relationships with our children, a goal, or health/fitness plans, but we store those dreams deeply away as we run the race of our all-consuming life, never finding a moment to breathe or nourish those dreams. 

My goal of being a “good mom” caused me to miss the dream of a deep relationship with my son. 

A fast pace is necessary for a short sprint, but God calls us to the marathon in life. If we desire growth, we must slow down and address the emergent thinking in our busy schedules. Our plans should be full of purpose and importance. If we slow down, our dreams might slowly inch to the forefront of our lives. Often, the pain we feel is the pain of change. It’s hard to address the habits that eat away our time. It’s easier to numb out with TV and red wine evenings. 

Whether we fill our time with speed or a numbing lifestyle, our dreams will never have a chance to grow. Shauna Niequist states it well, “I want you to stop running from thing to thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I'm coming to believe it's in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.”

My son recovered from my emergent desire to be a “good mom.” All of my kids have. But these days, I’m running marathon style at a slower, steadier pace. A pace that finishes strong, acknowledges the important, and has time to uncover the dreams God has placed in my heart at a slow, steady pace. 

What are you running away from, and how can you allow God to enter those spaces?