The Edge of My Strength
By Adrienne Garrison
@adrie.garrison
“Excuse my sweat,” my friend said, leaning in for a hug as we met at the playground. “I wanted to get a run in before it got too hot today.”
“Ugh, I admire that so much,” I said, rubbing sunscreen on my squirming daughter. “I’m not a runner. Yoga, hiking, anything low impact, I’m here for it, but y’all can keep your 5Ks. My body wasn’t made for that.” Thoroughly greased, my daughter bolted off to join her friend, racing to the tallest slide with freedom I had long forgotten.
Watching her tumble down the curly slide and rush back up the ramp to the play gym, I replayed the words she’d just overheard me say, words I’d spoken for as long as I could remember, a truth I’d long accepted about myself: “I’m not a runner,” and felt a stirring of conviction. A still, small voice within me seemed to say: I formed your inmost parts. I know the number of hairs on your head. Are you going to tell Me what My creation can and cannot do? Standing there with my son’s hand vice gripping my fingers as he tried to pull me to the swings, what could I whisper back but No?
In the weeks that followed, pushing the stroller under cornflower blue September skies, a cool breeze would sweep up behind me like an invitation to run. The muscles in my legs itched for the long-forgotten stretch and pull. By November, I surrendered, layering sports bras and hitting the track at the YMCA to walk a lap, run a lap. No big deal.
But, actually, it was. There was freedom on the other side of this boundary I had set for myself, but that boundary hadn’t come from out of thin air. It went deeper than the general discomfort of exertion. Rounding the corner on my third lap one day, my pulse pounding in my ears, I felt my knees threaten to give way. I slowed to a walk, automatically reassuring myself of my safety before I even fully understood that I was fighting a trigger, that my body’s deep association with an elevated heartbeat was beginning to stir up a panic response.
I realized that for years of my life, the sensation of not getting air into my lungs fast enough, the pounding of my own heart beneath my skin brought my body to a dark place in my past I had only recently excavated and begun to heal from. The fear of pushing my body to the edge of its strength held me back because that edge felt too much like a knife. But I had come a long way in two years of intensive therapy, and I knew I could teach my body there was no need to be afraid anymore. I just had to keep going.
So I did. It took three months before I was able to run a mile continuously, but on an unseasonably warm January afternoon, I felt the vibration on my Apple watch and looked down to see I’d done something I said I’d never do. I’d become a runner.
Along the way, that still, small voice continued to show up, to cheer me on, to offer a steady presence and reserve of strength as I pushed my limits. The weather warmed, the pandemic set in, and my morning runs became a time of worship. I wove desperate nets of prayer while crossing my neighborhood, looping benedictions over the homes I passed, pounding my fear into the pavement. I felt strong. I had pushed past the edge of my strength and found freedom.
And then... I stopped.
Our grocery stores became wastelands. Our playgrounds were wrapped in caution tape. The numbers surged, the seasons changed, and moments of solitude evaporated. I foraged for beauty on hikes with my children, learning the names of fungi and wildflowers. There was a different kind of good life for us in those middle months of the pandemic, a resolve and a strength, a simplicity. Then winter bore down with all of its darkness and left shadows under my husband’s eyes as the numbers rose higher and higher. As a doctor, they were never just numbers to him, they were names and lab results and consults and conversations with loved ones who couldn’t understand how their formerly healthy grandfather would never sit down at his place at the table again.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. I set up a bounce house in the basement. I gained ten pounds. Twice a month I retreated into my office and pushed unfinished writing aside to meet with my therapist over Zoom. I memorized John 14. I wove as much wonder into our days as I could, and I strained with every fiber of my being to tread the rising waters.
In March, twelve months into this global pandemic, I sank down deep. I could not get out of bed. My daughter brought me baskets of books about Jesus, handed me as many tissues as I needed, and nodded understandingly when I could no longer see the words through the tears. My son persisted in adoring me, running his hands through my hair, planting kisses on my lips, and rearing back with sparkling eyes saying, “You are one hot mama,” so that I became fluent, again, in laughter. My husband, who steps up to a long line of people each day who need his care, poured from a seemingly bottomless cup of patience and gentleness, never asking me expectantly if I felt better yet, just taking up all of my chores and all of their needs until I could stand on my own two feet again.
Until I could find my strength.
The vaccine helped. Just one dose and I felt hope rising. April returned with sunshine and possibility, and one morning I laced up my shoes and walked out the door.
Just stay light on your feet, I said, willing myself not to get discouraged when I found I couldn’t run as far as I once could. A half-mile in, morning air filling my lungs, I berated myself for quitting, for not fighting to keep this form of therapy in my life. But that still, small voice was there beside me, saying: You have been running a different race this year, daughter. And you have run it with endurance.
Turning down a new street at three-quarters of a mile, I laughed in surprise at the reserve of strength I felt, thinking, I thought I had lost ground. I haven’t run in a year. I didn’t think I could make it this far, but God reminded me of Joshua reclaiming the Promised Land. God reminded me He never loses ground, He can’t, since all the ground is His creation and cannot be lost to Him, cannot be bound by any limits man might place upon it.
That familiar tap against my wrist told me I had run a mile, and when I looked down at my watch, I laughed out loud. It was the fastest mile I had ever run.
I will always meet you here at the edge of your strength. You can find me here. Always.
My heart beat against my shirt with the wonder and blessing of it all, and I ran the rest of the way home.