I took the plunge and have retired my running shoes. That is for a couple of weeks, to heal my injury so I don’t cause any more serious damage. I am hoping it doesn’t take long to heal and I can be back to running soon. I have had the injury for nearly a year, but I felt I couldn’t go without running. I couldn’t take a break. What would I do?
I have always said running doesn’t define me as a person, and my identity isn’t in running. As a cross country coach, I have encouraged the girls on the team to find their identity in something more important, not in running. Not that running isn’t important, because any runner knows how important it is to them, but if our identity is in running it falters. It’s unstable. What happens when we can’t run because of injury? We would then lose our identity, because we aren’t running any more.
For me I have battled with balancing my running life and my identity. I struggle with trying to convince myself, I haven’t let myself lose myself in thinking running defines who I am, and completes my identity. I may say that running has become my identity again, so you could imagine how much it hurt to have to give it up. I felt I was giving up my identity, thus I kept running. I ran on an injury for months on end. There was no way I could give it up. Who would I be?
If we put our identity in material things or even running, our identity won’t last. Running can end because of an injury, because of the weather, because of a sick child, or other life problems and situations. My identity doesn’t come from running, just as much as it doesn’t come from being a mom, a wife, or my job. These things are all unstable, some days better than others, and at times full of disappointments.
Learning to find my identity in something strong and stable, has helped me. My identity in Christ is more important, and who I am in Him helps to keep me balanced and whole. Remaining strong in Him, means I won’t falter when I can’t run or have a weak moment in my marriage.
Not to say that being a wife, a mom, a coach and a runner aren’t important to me. They are apart of who I am, but my value and my worth do not come from my performance as a mom, runner, coach, or wife. Instead my value and worth comes from who I am in Christ and how much He loves me. Knowing this helps me feel more valued and worthy.
For years, I thought that by running a certain time, and getting a certain place, performing to the standards my family or friends thought I should, defined me and gave me value and worth. This mindset made me feel pressured to have to perform well enough to be loved or valued, and the result was a hatred towards running. It was no longer fun when I put my whole identity into it. When I lost or ran poorly, I therefore thought I as a person was a loser or a poor runner, a weak person. Destructive thoughts came in, and I lost myself in running to be the best.
It’s a thin line I walk now, in understanding my value and worth, my identity doesn’t come from my performance on the track or the roads, but in Christ. No matter how slow I run, or what place I get, I am still worthy of His love, still valued. I can now rest assured, that in my break from running to heal an injury, that I haven’t lost my identity. I am still loved and valued. I am still strong, and a child of God.
My identity is not determined by how I perform, but rather how I love and serve God, my family and friends and myself. It’s determined by how I understand what God says about me and how He sees me. Running no doubt has helped teach me many things, has drawn me closer to God, and has made me stronger. It is a talent, gift, and passion He has given me, but He never wanted me to use it for man’s approval, rather for His.
He loves my passion for running, but He doesn’t want it to distract me from His love and His purpose for me, and from my identity in Him and relationship with him. As of late it has. I still have my dreams of making the Olympic trials one day and completing certain marathons, but if I don’t meet certain goals, I won’t feel my identity has been stolen or broke. At the end of the day I am a runner, a mom, a wife, a coach, but most importantly a child of God.
Until Next Time Be Whole and Be Fit
Where do you find your identity? Would you agree our identity shouldn’t be in running, our job, our marriage?
I find my identity in the thousand little things that make up me and in the drive that pushes me to run, not the act of running itself. Thinking of you over the next little while – I know how hard it is to take time off.
Thank you Jessica!!