12/12/19, Missoula - Water Works, MT

The second hill

When I see a hill, one side of me wants to lean into it, welcoming the challenge ahead. The other side of me wishes to take the first offshoot trail I see going downhill. The real challenge is not to lean into the first hill, but to lean into the one after that, and the one after that. By hill two or three, I usually choose the offshoot trail, telling myself I put enough work in already. Lately, I’ve been trying to change that about myself.

Normally, when I go on a run from my house it’s a five-minute jog down the street, then up seven or eight hill switchbacks, and after jogging it back downhill I call it good. I knew that today was not going to be a one of those normal runs. I knew I needed to go a little farther today to give myself some time to think through some things. I started out with the nice five-minute jog down the street for a warm-up and took a left towards Water Works when I got to the base of my usual hill. The rest of the road leading to Water Works is all slanted down from this point giving me a few more minutes to get in the right gear. I was reaching the Water Works parking lot with one sharp decline left followed by an instant regain of elevation into the lot then followed by a sharp incline up the main Water Works trail. I knew once I hit the parking lot it was going to be a hot second before my legs would catch a break. A bit of fear crept up inside my chest as I lifted a short prayer up to God to keep me from quitting.

Freshman year of high school I said a similar prayer while my anxiety shot through the roof as the night of my first wrestling match approached. Freshman year of high school I thought it was a good idea to try out for wrestling, since I didn’t make the baseball team. I quickly realized how much more courage it takes to walk onto a mat with one other guy who wants to beat you silly versus walking up to the plate to face off against the pitcher. The first wrestling dual meet of the year was more like a real-life practice match, because we would only be wrestling our own teammates. I wrestled the top JV spot in the 120-pound weight class that year and the coach put me up against the top 126-pound JV wrestler. We went back and forth with each other for six minutes trying the only two moves we knew, but since we both knew the defenses to those moves, they didn’t seem to work very well. My first match of the season and I was going into overtime. The score was 0-0 and whoever got the first point win would win. I knelt down with my hands on the mat assuming the bottom position as the other wrestler covered over top of me to keep me from escaping. The whistle blew and I shot up to my feet. All I needed to do now was break away from his grip and I would win the match. I pushed down on his hands with my hip out to add some pressure and his grip broke giving me one point and the title of victor. Winning that match was one of the best feelings of accomplishment I had ever felt to that point in my life and I couldn’t wait for more.

I came up to my next wrestling meet still feeling anxious, but also full of excitement for another win. Our junior varsity team wrestled mostly in quad meets which meant I would get to wrestle at least two matches that night. I went up to wrestle my first opponent fully expecting a good fight and a chance to celebrate the win afterwards. There was one problem with my plan, I didn’t win the match. It was okay though, I had the “you win some you lose some” mentality and there was always the next match. I lost the next match too, and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that. Soon my anxiety started to build higher and higher to the point where before every match as I was envisioning how my next opponent would embarrass me on that mat. I walked up to every match totally afraid and I walked around the halls of my school afraid of all the pain I would have to endure in practice that day. Losing was becoming normal, and it seemed like it would be a while before I caught a break.

The season was ending, and my record wasn’t looking any prettier. Coach decided to have part of practice out on the track on one particular day, which I always hated, because it almost always meant running. Coach had us line up in the individual lanes and I immediately knew what was coming. Wrestling can be similar to sprinting in the sense that you are giving it everything you have for the time allotted. A wrestling match is three periods long, so for each period we had to sprint a lap. Once the periods were over, the running was over. We lined up and the whistle blew. My lungs were usually shot by the time I made it to the 200-meter mark, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the lap wasn’t equally as debilitating. Everyone made it back, lined up again, and the whistle blew. Once everyone made it back for the final lap, we were encouraged to give it everything we had, to finish strong. I ran the final lap and finished feeling like I had nothing left. As I collapsed on the ground, I heard a familiar word: overtime. One last lap that I wasn’t expecting, and I had no idea if I could sprint at all. I stood up, paced slowly to the line, and had one quick thought before the whistle blew one last time. “God, I don’t care if I ever win a wrestling match for the rest of this year or for the next four years wrestling at this school, just don’t ever let me quit.” With that thought the whistle went off, and I ran the final lap.

Six years later and believe or not I am still running, except the ground isn’t so flat anymore. Good news for me was my uphill battle was coming to a brief close as I rounded the curve on the side of the hill. My legs were beginning to get the break they desperately needed. I got onto flat ground and ran past the radio tower by the trail. The next hill summit was in sight and quickly approaching. The break almost didn’t seem long enough. I kept my pace up and left the flat ground as soon as I was really starting to appreciate it. A couple crows were flying around the summit. I wondered if they were waiting for me to collapse.

When senior year of high school ended, it also felt like quick relief till the next hill. Believe it or not, I had this thought that the rest of my life was going to feel comparatively easy to four years of wrestling. I decided to attend college at the University of Montana to study wildlife after falling in love with God’s green earth. The plan was simple; apply to go to school at UM, apply for an ROTC national scholarship, be awarded the scholarship to pay for school to go to Montana and live happily for the rest of my life learning about bears and wolves. By December of my senior year, I knew I was accepted into the university. Now I just had to wait for someone to tell me that the Army would be paying for school. There were three rounds of considerations for national scholarships. The first round went by and I didn’t receive any congratulation letters. I was passed over the second and third rounds as well. On the inside, I was hoping that the award of this scholarship would be God’s signal to me that UM was the right choice. Despite this, there was still hope. I could still spend my freshman year of college in the ROTC program competing for a campus-based ROTC scholarship, so that’s what I did.

To be at all eligible for the scholarship you have to pass the Army physical fitness test, which consists of a minimum of 42 push-ups, 53 sit-ups, and a two-mile run time under 16 minutes. Coming out of wrestling, I believed I was the fittest human on the planet. This test would be a breeze. Turns out it wasn’t a breeze as my muscles gave out five sit-ups short of passing the test. This wasn’t too big of a deal though, because there was another test the next month that would make me eligible for the scholarship. All I would have to do is go to one month of remedial workouts and then I would be ready. I still wasn’t ready. I failed the sit-ups again by a pain-staking single sit-up. Another month of remedial PT was now waiting for me. I had thought if God had truly called me to go to school here, He would make things run a bit smoother. The story of Joseph starting in the book of Genesis chapter 37 often popped in my head throughout that year. I read verses like Genesis 39:2, “The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master.” It was easy to read verses like these and question God’s goodness towards me and forget that Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers or that a short time after this very verse he would be thrown into prison for a number of years. I wanted all the success but wondered why I felt like I was stuck in prison. I eventually passed the PT test, but more unexpected trouble was coming my way.

I had spent the last eight months of college competing for the ROTC scholarship, and after a few setbacks there was only one thing left standing in my way. I needed to get medically cleared to someday be an officer in the U.S. Army and part of the medical examination is a color blindness test. I knew that I was color blind before this exam, but I did not expect it to hinder my path towards the Army whatsoever. Once again, I was surprised with more setbacks. Three setbacks to be exact. I was medically disqualified three separate times from two different doctors, and the last rejection was during finals week of spring semester of my freshman year. I left Montana that week to drive home to Colorado and prepare for a missions trip to Kenya believing ROTC was not in my future. A few days before I left for Kenya, I was walking through a Wal-Mart with my mom grocery shopping. Near the entrance there was a small glass door with the title eye-examiner. I walked in and asked what the earliest day was I could schedule an Army eye examination. The lady at the front desk seemed a little irritated and confused with my demand, so I walked out with no appointment scheduled. I told my mom of my impulsive decision and she was nice enough find an eye doctor for me not located inside a Wal-Mart. An appointment was scheduled with an eye doctor referred by the Army Medical Department for the day after I would return from Kenya about six and a half weeks later. For the next six and a half weeks, I told God that wherever I ended up I would trust him, but there was one thing I prayed the most. “God whatever happens I don’t want to give up.”

I passed the first crow flying near the summit. I was almost up the second hill. Something weird happens when you get close to the end of a race or a hill. You realize that you had a lot more strength left in you than you thought you did. About halfway up a hill, I normally am questioning what in the world made me want to go torture myself, but once I get close to the summit it’s like everything before was just a warm-up. I can almost sprint the remainder of the hill with a new spirit of courage I wish I had all along. I picked up my pace once I reached the summit and ran downhill towards a trail that would lead me home. Once I reached the trail intersection, taking a right meant one last hill then a short jog home, but on my left was a trail I had never seen before.

Running down this new trail would mean adding another incline I had not anticipated running that day and another hill that I had to climb. I’m tired of being afraid of hills. I’m tired of the side of me that wants to take the easy way out of things. I want to be full of courage, unafraid of what lies ahead. I want to lean into Christ and stop giving up when I feel like I don’t hear His voice. So, I took a left. The trail was covered in mud to slick to run on forcing me off the trail. I ran down the trail for a minute or two then turned around at what I felt like was a good stopping point. I turned around and looked up at the steep ascent I just created for myself. It looked longer than I was thinking it would be. I paused for a moment to take a breath and then started running with a smile across my face.

I made it back to the intersection and started running towards the last hill. My legs felt strong and my spirit was full of courage. I hopped on and off the trail to dodge the mud and reached the summit knowing it was all downhill from there. In a few minutes, I reached the bottom and made the short jog home. When I got home, my shoes were covered in mud, but it didn’t bother me so much.

“So give me the hill country that the Lord promised me. You will remember that as scouts we found the descendants of Anak living there in great, walled towns. But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.” – Joshua 14:12