Where Will You Run? (a response to flight)

” Lord, to whom else would we go?”

John 6:68

The Lord can speak to our hearts in places where we least expect it. Today it was in a Walgreens parking lot, waiting to pick up my sister from Karate.

The Threat

I was completely overwhelmed by impatience and disappointment at the time. I had had a good day overall but there had been little moments of being late to this or that, or feeling behind that I had let fester until they had become all consuming. Until everything was wrong, and everything was late, and everything was disappointing.

I felt empty. angry. abandoned. alone. And it wasn’t the first time I felt like this. I knew it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze?

When things feel difficult or threatening, it can often trigger a response of fight, flight, or freeze. For me, when it comes to the feelings of disappointment or failure, my default is almost always flight.

I’m a runner. Always have been. Probably always will be.

And so as I felt the emotions of the day consume me I though “This is where I run”. I even spoke it out loud- alone, in a Walgreens parking lot, to absolutely no one. I wasn’t expecting a response, I just wanted to acknowledge my own reality. But the response came anyways. Not aloud of course, but I perceived in my heart four words: “where will you run?”

A Convicting Question

The words were convicting. Not in a condemning way, but in a tender and compassionate way. I thought about my answer to the question. I thought of all the places and ways I had run before. I thought about the relief that came with each but how it never lasted.

I thought about how, even when I wasn’t necessarily running away from the Lord, I was almost never running to him. The conviction of the words quickly became an invitation: run to me. If you must run, run to me.

And so I did.

A Different Kind of Flight

I took out my notebook, made the sign of the cross, and ran with my pen as far from disappointment and despair as I could. I ran straight to gratitude. “Thank You Jesus for…” I wrote at the top, and then I let it all spill out: one thing after the next, after the next.

Sunsets, Beauty, Soft clothes,
New friends, Old friends, Opportunities to Connect,

Your Word, Your Spirit, Your Body, Your Love, Your Hope,

Chocolate chip cookies,
Reading, Books, My Family,
Work that pays,

Laughter, Lights, Music,
Creative Spirit,
My People, 

Retreat, WACY, Silence,
the warmth of my own bed,
the things I do not know yet,

My chickens, good food,
Parking lots,

All the empty space,
The give instead of take,
The am instead of need.

And when I was finished running in this way, if felt different. There was still relief, yes. But there was something else there -a grace perhaps- of knowing there would be no more running away. Only a running to.

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Always with love,

-me ♡ (elijah jane)