Suffering | Run Journey Podcast

Hey, Chuck here with Justin and Kirsten. This week will be fun. It's about suffering. I don't know if that's fun, but it is about facing hard seasons without assuming failure. And it's about this principle that I know is true for me and for all of us. Suffering brings something out of us and builds something in us that seasons of comfort never do. So think about your lives. What's the season of suffering that you went through that actually produced something positive on the other side? I moved around a ton as a kid. Like I think by third grade, I lived in six different houses, went to six different elementary schools and at the time, obviously I'm like making new friends and redoing the first day of school all over again. And it kind of built like a little bit of suffering in me as a kid. Like I just didn't have relationships. I was alone most of the time and that didn't stop. Even all the way up through high school, I moved another dozen times. But it's so funny that even though that was really hard on me as a kid and my siblings had to go through the same thing and that's hard watching. You could probably figure out how to deal with it, but watching your siblings go through it. And you were the oldest, right? I was the oldest. So you're watching your younger siblings go through this. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I just was like, man, this sucks. But looking back on it, I would never be the leader, the mom, the wife that I am now without

having... It sounds so simple, like meeting new people every few months equals social skills. But that is what happened for me. And I totally think it was like a blessing and totally got all over it. But yeah, I think that's where it was really, really hard on me as a kid. And it turned into some of the best skills that I could have gained as a young kid. That's harder to do as you get older. So it came to mind. Yeah. Thanks, Kirsten, for sharing that. Yeah. Yeah. What comes to your mind? Man, I think about the times when I've been injured. Oh, yeah. Which, as you guys know, I got a couple. Has that happened a few times? It's happened a few times. It's happened a few times. And I will tell you, there's something about... If you don't know, I have broken many things. And every time I've been physically injured, it's a reminder that I have to embrace limitations. And I do think there's something about that that has changed the way that I approach life. That has me realizing that not just physically, but emotionally. I have injuries, and I need to embrace my limitations emotionally. I have spiritual injuries, and I have to think about the ways that that heals me. And so the thing that I think it's helped me most with is it gives me a lot of empathy for others. Like when you suffer, it does help you empathize with people who are in a hard spot. One of the best books I read recently is a book that is simply titled, What Happened to You? And the whole shift in the book is instead of when something...

We see it all the time. People are acting out. People are angry. And instead of saying, what's wrong with you? Ask the question instead, what happened to you? And I think my own difficulties have allowed me to kind of ask that question to others. So that's a place where suffering, I think, has produced some positivity in my life. Yeah. Yeah. You're a different person after it. You are. You are. You get to a different place. I... And we're talking about running in this whole journey. I started doing triathlons two years ago because somebody out there invited me on one. That sounds terrible. Yeah. It was. It's brought a lot of suffering. It's voluntary suffering is what it is. Mainly suffering in my life. Could never be me. But I've... But I've... Man, I've like found a joy in it, started doing it. Last year, my second one, I was cruising along and had a time that I was happy with and like, okay, I'm feeling great. I'm feeling great. And I start the run part and I just out of the gate off the bike, just immediate sprint,

not realizing how fast I was going right out of the gate and immediately got a strain in my calf. And a part of my calf I didn't even know existed. It's called like the soleus or something, you know? No, it isn't. And I had to run the rest of the race with that. What that's done for me, that moment, one, taught me how to pace myself in a race and not just go for broke when I was feeling good, but to go for the long term. But it's also, I'm now doing strength training. I'm now like building and knowing my body and knowing my strengths and my weaknesses and expose the weakness and expose some things in my training that were lacking. And so now I'm going about it different as I prep for the next one. And stronger than ever, I'm different because of that suffering. And that suffering didn't break me. Right. It just has produced a new me in this way. Yeah. And that's so well said. It didn't break me. and you're parallel, it's really cool. I love that, didn't break me, produced a new me. Man, that'll preach, that'll preach, it will. We need to write a song about that. Yeah, that's right, write a song about that. Oh my gosh. You know, it's interesting, I'm sure that there are people who are watching this who are suffering, you're in a tough spot right now. And again, it's easy to ask the question, what am I doing wrong? Does suffering mean that something has gone wrong

or that you're doing something wrong? And no, not always at all. Because suffering, sometimes we hit, suffering comes out of nowhere at no fault to us and life or our enemy, who I believe is real, throws something at us out of nowhere. And those are probably the deepest parts of suffering that hit emotional and things. In my story, yes, I was doing something wrong by not looking and not talking to somebody who knew the way better than me and could help me train. But some of my deepest parts of suffering, whether it was losing my mother out of nowhere when she passed away suddenly or miscarrying two children that we have, and we didn't do anything wrong, but we had to learn how do we cope with this? How do we go to God with this? How do we go to our friendships with this and walk through this together? Yeah. Right. I've been told often like, oh, suffering builds strength. Suffering builds strength, right? And when you first hear that as a young person, you're like, no, this sucks. Like, it's not fair. Like, no one should have to suffer. The world shouldn't be as broken as it is.

The longer you live, like, yeah, that's true. And I really have always come out stronger, always. There's never been anything I've suffered in that I did not come out the other side with a stronger marriage, with a stronger family, with a stronger faith. And how can you deny that it's a good thing even though it sucks? That's right. That's right. The key verse we're looking at in this series is Romans 5, 3 through 5, and it says suffering produces character, character, perseverance, and perseverance, hope. And so whatever the races that you're running, there is going to be difficulty. And part of that difficulty is, I love how Brian says it, that the greatest work God's doing is the work he's doing in you. Part of that is building our ability to suffer well so that we can run the race that he has for us. So this week, you're gonna lean into suffering and just know it's gonna produce good fruit. That's right. ♪♪