Remember the wind...

When I was in high school, during one winter break, I was in a rough spot with someone I knew. At this point in time, we were not on speaking terms. I don't like that fact. I think it's a very sad state to be in. Nevertheless, that's the way it was.

One day, I decided to take a run. There's a pretty big square to run in my neighborhood that is the way I usually take. I put on all my running gear and headed out for my jog. less than half way through, I turned the corner so as to head west. Wind suddenly was blowing hard at me. The wind was gusting east. Also it was snowing. Needless to say, that was a pretty tough spot to run in. I like to pray while I'm running. So I started praying, or really complaining to God.

God, why does this have to be so hard? I just wanted a nice run, some good exercise. But this stupid wind. What's up with the wind? This is dumb. Take the wind away. Or maybe I should just stop running.

I wanted to give up and just walk the rest of the stretch. But I kept jogging anyway, complaining about how hard it was to run in the wind like that. Finally, I turned the corner to head south, and basically forgot about the wind.

I continued south, but as I was nearing the next corner, I realized something. That person I was on the rocks with lived right on that corner.

Oh no.

I started to pray again, this time for strength.

Lord, he lives there. I'm scared. What if he's outside? I don't want to go past his house. But I don't want to change my course now just because of one little thing like this. But this will be hard to run past his house. Please, help me. Help me just get past his house. Give me extra strength to get past his house, please, Lord.

I rounded the corner to run east.

A gust of wind hit me from behind and pushed me forward.

I heard a voice whisper,

Remember the wind.

The same wind that had caused me to struggle before, the same wind that I had complained about, the same wind that I didn't want anything to do with, that same wind was just what I needed to get me past the hardest part in my run. It's what gave me the strength to go past the house that I was scared of and complete my run.

Now when I'm going through something hard in life, I think about that wind. Maybe life is hard now. But in the future, this hard time will be used to bring me through something much harder than just a little bit of wind.

Sometimes you just have to remember the wind.


More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. --Romans 5:3-5