Photo by John Brundage

Six years after I dislocated my shoulder, I fractured my foot. Long story short, an awkward fall less than three feet off the ground taught me a painful and costly lesson: always wear proper shoes when climbing! The rehab period was mercifully short; after six weeks, a doctor cleared me to leave my walking boot. 

Unfortunately, that was still long enough for me to fall out of shape. I’d made a respectable effort to keep active by lifting weights and pedaling on an exercise bike. These workouts kept me from starting from square one. But they never matched the intensity of my runs, and they didn’t stop various muscles from atrophying. Eight weeks after my fall, I laced up my running shoes and stepped out onto square three.

I wanted to go three miles, but the jog ended after an exhausting and humbling mile and a half. Having to stop so early reminded me of the time I tried to run through a wooded area shrouded in forest fire smoke. I grudgingly recognized that it would take time to break my body back in. I started my next run, determined not to stop until I had gone three miles. I had to gut this run out too; I felt tempted to quit many times. But on this run, the pain management techniques I’ve learned from mindfulness meditation kept me going. 

Physical pain has a way of shoving itself into the driver’s seat of our conscious awareness. It can feel like an overwhelming force that exists everywhere and will never go away. Its job is to harass and discourage you until you stop doing whatever is causing the pain. Sometimes your pain is a loyal servant, prophetically calling your attention to a problem that urgently needs to be addressed. Other times, pain is a lazy, spoiled brat trying to bully and bluff its way out of doing a strenuous task. Mindfulness has taught me to pay careful attention to my pain—where exactly is it? How big is it? How bad does it really feel? Why am I feeling this? In my experience, it’s easier to determine whether pain is bluffing or not when it’s narrowed down in this way.

On this run, I realized and began telling myself, ‘I don’t have to stop. This is not going to kill me, and it’s not going to hurt me. I might feel very uncomfortable, but I will come to no true harm.’ After a short prayer, I kept going, and I finished the run. There aren’t many better feelings than finishing a run like this. Knowing that I was driven to the brink of quitting but decided to keep going anyway, I was filled with great joy. 

Reflecting back on this run, I think the joy I felt was a taste of the joy Christians will have at the end of their lives. When we belong to God, nothing can truly hurt us. The pain I felt in my run served as fuel for the joy I felt when I crossed the finish line. That joy is worth everything. Jesus asked his disciples in Matthew 16:26, “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” We could flip his statement around: For what harm would come to us if we should lose the whole world yet keep our soul?

Are you suffering or tempted to quit something? Write down exactly what it feels like and where you feel it. How would you feel knowing you persevered? Whatever you come up with, know that God is with you every step of the way. He sees you, he understands you, and he’s here to help.

John Brundage is a seminarian with the Companions of the Cross. He also writes a Substack Newsletter called Integrated Prayer.