Mr. Young was a short man standing not much taller than five feet and weighing no more than 130 pounds, but was built like an Olympic sprinter and carried a power of intimidation unlike any other high school biology teacher. Also the cross country coach, he modeled the sport for everyone on the team – running up to 70 miles a week and benching well over twice his body weight. In the summer of 1994 he planned a trip for some daring students that would involve running from our little town of Tulare
To say that the trip was dangerous is an understatement – we would be running a stretch of land that normally took backpackers three days to traverse with little more than our shoes and shorts. There would be no way to communicate with the outside world once we began the journey, and any number of things could go wrong. I was deeply excited about the trip, but at the time didn’t realize that I was clearly the weakest link in the group running over the mountain. I had never run further than 10 miles, and had only been running consistently for about six months. Although Mr. Young never openly shared his concerns about my ability to handle the mountain, he tested my enthusiasm by assigning me the most difficult 10 mile leg of the journey – the infamous Deer Ridge. All of us shuddered at the thought of Deer Ridge – because it was the only leg than even Mr. Young had to walk when he ran it years before.
Mr. Young… walk? For Mr. Young to walk any portion of anything it must have been nearly impossible to run. And yet, somebody had to run it – and I happily began the task without even realizing that I was being tested. The last year of my life had been so amazing, as God had transformed every part of my life both physically and spiritually. Filled with faith and confidence in God’s power, I was quick to share with everyone, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” –Phil. 4:13 Sure enough the road began with the most ridiculous incline possible for a public road, causing me to take rabbit like hops to make any progress. Not long into the run a park ranger moving up the hill saw me running along the shoulder and laughed at me from the vehicle…”Haha… you must be crazy.” Maybe I was, but I was determined to run all ten miles of that ascent without stopping.
As I bunny hopped up that mountain God spoke into my heart one of the most important lessons of my life – ‘Do what you can do’. The task ahead of me wasn’t the entire 10 miles, it was the step that was right in front of me. God was giving me the strength I needed for every step, and I needed to use that strength for that moment. If I looked up at the summit of the road ahead I found myself overstepping my strength, and lactic acid in my legs would slow me down to a near standstill. Slowly moving uphill God taught me how to climb mountains! In order to climb the mountain, I needed to find a pace that I could sustain and not be ashamed of it – regardless of how slow it felt to me. Letting go of my pride, I found that as I fixed my heart on the moment my legs began to adapt to running uphill, and I became more efficient with time.
It was no small surprise to others when I finished the entire 10 miles without stopping! Several days later instead of being the weakest link in the group, God made me one of the strongest. I will never forget standing on the rocky summit of the Sierra’s 20 miles from where we began looking down deep valleys at lakes that we passed earlier that now looked like small puddles. Gasping to myself I thought, ‘Wow – did I really go that far?’ I knew there was no way I ever could have done that on my own, but Jesus had given me the strength I needed for every step of the journey.
