SPC Championship and Short on Relationships

i'm truthfully tired and...confused, i guess. it feels like i'm just gonna try to get through this next week, like i'm just doing all of the different things that i have set aside for this week, and i don't like when things are like that because then that can take up your whole life because it has no end. but anyway, i'm gonna tell you a story:

we were in Dallas for the SPC championships in track, the one thing that we had been planning for and thinking about for essentially the entire track season, the last two or three months of my running life. so when we got there Wednesday night, you could imagine that i had trouble sleeping, also knowing that this would be my last races and i had to run my heart out for us to do well. so, due to the gloomy circumstances that one of our best and most gutsy runners had sprained his ankle two weeks prior to the meet, they ended up putting me into the 2 mile relay, which was the very last event on Thursday.

and you should know that i was freaking out. i am pretty sure that, for about 24 hours, all i thought about was the little over two minutes that it would take me to run the half mile i would be running at about five o'clock. so when we finally got set up to the track, i was the third leg, and i was freaking out. our second leg was over on the infield throwing up, and everybody was sorta watching him throw up and almost doing the same in response. when the first leg got down, this guy who goes to Church on the Move and i had known as a Christian, we were about in fourth or fifth place, and i was getting more and more nervous. and i had been thinking why i really wanted to run well in this race. and when i figured what it was, it was ultimately because i wanted to please God. i wanted to glorify His name, but mostly, i wanted Him to be able to say "this is my son, in whom I am well pleased."

so that was mostly my motive for how i would run that half mile. and the guy who ran the first leg came up to me right after his run and said something to the effect of this: "you're a man of God. He's really blessed you with His favor, so just go out there and use it all, leave it all out there." and, being nervous, i didn't think that much of it, but i just kind of let that reinforce the whole idea of pleasing God. they were coming down the back stretch and our guy had gotten us into third place - medal position, which i do have to admit to think a lot about. and when i got the handoff from him, i took off, and i was crazy nervous.

i was supposed to be pacing myself, but i had absolutely no idea how fast i was running and i am pretty sure i had absolutely no control over myself. but i do know that for at least the first fourth of the half mile, all i was thinking about in my head, over and over again, was "Please God, please God, please God, please God..." over and over again. and that continued for a while until a guy totally just sprinted past me...which was weird, because i was assuredly not running slowly at all. well, anyway, i pretty much died on the second lap, and i felt terrible, and once i finally handed it off to the final leg, i just kind of stumbled around and lowered my head down with my hands over my eyes because i thought i had failed God.

i didn't think i had run hard or fast enough, i didn't think i had run in such a way that was pleasing to God. i didn't think it was good enough. cause that guy had passed me, and it was over so quick, and i hardly had a kick, and i knew i was supposed to be getting faster, but i wasn't, and i had spent 24 hours thinking about how i would give it everything i had once i got done with the first lap and how the last straightaway would be like running through hell, but i didn't do any of that. so all i said was "I'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry..." over and over again, because i felt like i hadn't been pleasing to God.

and it's funny because when we got done, i found out that i hadn't run a slow time at all, and that everybody else thought it was a great time. but i looked back and realized that...i had been pleasing to God. i truly had been. to have lived my life in such a way that someone could call me a "man of God"...that must have been so pleasing to God, so much more pleasing than any half mile i could ever run. and... i'm glad things are that way. because if i had to run a faster half mile to be pleasing to God, if i had to run faster and faster times, if God's love and approval really depended on me being good or fast enough, then i would be so screwed. and i would never get to hear God say "you are my son, in whom I am well pleased."

since it was the last event, we all smashed into the bus and went back to the hotel to shower before dinner. and...it was great feeling so physically tired. it was great feeling like i had actually done all of this for something. i like our coach because he connects track to life. he says that track isn't about the winning or the medals or being faster or better than other people. he says it's about signing up to do something, something that is hard, and trying your hardest to do it well - essentially, having integrity. and this is life. because life is hard, but we have to rise to its challenges, we have to rise above all of the inconveniences and really try our hardest. we have to honor our commitments to do what we said we would do and when the whole season is over, we look back and we don't remember our times and necessarily all of the different things we did and what happened. we remember the people we spent it with and whether we were satisfied with our performance, whether we gave it all, what it felt like at the end of the day. and to feel so physically tired, i'm not sure i'm ever going to get to know what that feels like again. but it felt good... it felt very good.

and he talked about unity and how he wants us to be the best looking team at the track meet and how he wants us to be the ones held to the highest standards, with the most true commitment and discipline. he was so proud of us when all of us showed up on Senior Skip Day just so that we could go to track practice later that day. and when we got back after the first day at the track meet and he said that we were the best looking team there, i thought he was just saying that. but the next day, when i was watching the girl's race their mile and i saw how much heart was going into it and how well all of them were running... we really were the best looking team there. and when they finished and all of them were crying because it had hurt so much and they had still done it, we were the best looking team there.

the part that is "something worth saying"...i am not sure whether it will be or not. because whenever we drive around on a bus at night, it is a time for all of the boyfriends to sit with their girlfriends and fall asleep in each other's arms. and... i know i want that. i want to feel someone's touch, to hold someone's gaze or fascination, to have someone's unconditional interest. and i know this is wrong, because God is the only one i should be looking to for things like that, the last phrase at least: to have someone's unconditional interest. but truly? i don't like waiting. i want to be with someone. so that when i run my heart out and i am so tired at the end of the day, i can fall asleep in someone's arms. maybe that is wrong to want those arms to be a girl's... because everyone or everything seems to say that all you should even be thinking about is God being the answer to all of your problems. but maybe it's not exactly like that. you can find God in things...you can find Him in relationships. it's just whenever those relationships get to be for the sake of the relationship and not for the sake of God when they start to become questionable.

well, i don't know. and that's why i'm pouring myself out onto the Internet instead of just calling a girl up and talking to her. because i'm scared that i will be turning to her just so i can hold her attention and instead of because i want to talk to her.