Stilettos in Quicksand

I love my dad. He makes coffee just the way I like it, always has an encouraging word, rarely misses a question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and yells at the TV just as loudly as I do during college football games. He is an incredible resource in most areas of my life....EXCEPT for running. And fashion.

He just doesn't get them. He doesn't understand how I could possibly ENJOY pounding pavement until my feet are numb, waking up at 5 am to train, or sprinting with a 15 grade incline at the gym just to see how long I can take it. He doesn't know that a marathon is not 26 miles. (You run one, and then tell me that 0.2 miles doesn't make a difference!)

Fashion has him equally baffled. He calls my sister's Louis Vuitton bag "the alphabet purse." He thinks COACH sells sports merchandise. And that Guess changes what they sell every week. He just doesn't get it.

That's why his life advice with a running/fashion analogy had such an impact on me. I knew God was speaking through my dad to communicate with me in a way I would understand. There's no way my dad could have given this advice on his own knowledge.

I was sitting in my parent's kitchen. I got a job in pharmaceutical sales, gone to sales school in Indianapolis for six weeks, and bought a three-bedroom condo on my own within three months of graduating college (at the age of 20. I graduated both high school and college a year early.)

In December, my manager told me the company was undergoing a "corporate re-shuffle." Already under conviction that I should have gone to seminary after graduating, I turned down three other positions within the company, took a severence package, enrolled in graduate school at the University of Tennessee, went back to my previous job as a personal trainer, took a volunteer internship position in the student ministry at my dad's church, put my condo on the market, competed for the title of Miss Knoxville, and won. Now, it was back to Miss Tennessee.

In March, I was so tired of wrestling with God about coming to seminary, I scheduled a campus tour of Southwestern. My dad and I came to Texas, I immediately felt at home on the campus, and decided that was where the Lord wanted me to pursue my seminary degree. If I won Miss Tennessee, I would defer a year and enter seminary a year later. If I didn't win, I would move to Texas three weeks after the pageant.

The pageant came, and the crown went to another contestant. The time had come to show Texas that at 5'3" and 110 lbs, it doesn't always have to be bigger to be better in Texas. Or was it time to hold off on the move and take online classes for a year before I took the plunge?

I casually brought up this idea of web-based education with my dad, thinking he would immediately jump on board. I mean, he wouldn't have to watch his little girl move 16 hours away from home. ANY father would be estastic, especially when you're as close as we are.

My dad took a deep breath. "Michelle, how important is picking your running shoes to you?"

"What" I asked. My dad never mentioned running, unless he was telling me that I needed to give my body a break.

"How much time do you spend researching a shoe before you purchase it? And when you find a pair that you like, do you stay loyal to it, waiting for the new one to come out? Or will you just run in any old pair of shoes?" he asked.

"No way!" I said, passionately. "Picking your running shoe is critical to performance. I mean, I have a narrow foot. I can't wear just any shoe that comes in a normal or a wide width. And racing shoes are different from training shoes. Trail running shoes are different. And this!" I said proudly, lifting up my right foot for him to admire my 2006 Nike Air Pegasus. "This is the best running shoe out there. It's the only one I buy."

"So you consider the terrain too?" he asked.

"Of course."

"Does the distance matter for your pace?" Now, he was smirking a little bit. I hadn't quite figured out where he was going, but he was definately going somewhere. "If you're going to do a long run, do you start slower than if you're going to do a shorter run?"

"Absolutely. If you start out too fast for a long run, you'll never make it. And if you're too slow for a short run, you won't get a good workout," I shot back. Two could play this "Know-It-All" Game.

"Well, all I'm going to tell you is that your life would be a lot smoother if you gave it as much thought and consideration as running."

Yeah, I'm sure that's all you're going to tell me. "Go on," I said.

"When you run, you have a plan, and you stick to it - how far you'll run, what you'll wear, how fast you'll go. In life, you try to run a marathon at a 5K pace without stopping to think about the terrain you will come across or what shoes you should wear - which is why half of the time - you end up sprinting in stilettos on quicksand."

What? When did he learn what stilettos were? And I don't remember teaching him about pacing....

But he was so right.

Ask yourself the following questions.

1) Do you give as much prayer to life decisions as you give consideration to your training log?

2) Do you make decisions at a sprinting pace and discover you can't finish the race because you get burned out?

3) Do you make "in the moment" decisions without considering how it will impact your future?

This conversation with my dad is what inspired my life verse - 2 Timothy 4:7. "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith."

**Fight the good fight.**
Only fight the battles worth fighting. Just as you must train regularly, train smart, and challenge yourself, you must keep a consistent walk with Christ, cling close to Him, and accept the tasks He gives you.

**Finish the race.**
He put you here for a reason. He has a purpose for your life, and it is your job to be obedient to fulfill that purpose.

**Keep the faith.**
Never forget that Christ is worth living for...and dying for.