"Ughh...ten more miles to go... C'mon Tony! Ignore the biting winter wind. Ignore the aching legs. Push through the burning in your lungs. Keep pedaling...just keep pedaling."
I was pedaling my Surly Crosscheck along the snow and ice flanked country roads near my house earlier this week when these thoughts began running, or more accurately, throbbing, through my mind. This day the winter wind was especially brutal, making my normal twenty-four mile training route feel more like fifty. If the physical discomfort weren't enough to make me question my sanity, the looks of passers-by gawking at me from the comfort of their heated car seats certainly did. "Why, exactly, am I putting myself through this torture again?!"
But as fast as that thought flooded my mind another thought, or rather an image, pushed it aside, strengthening my resolve to pedal harder. The image of a guy, three-hundred pounds and counting, sitting on the edge of a kayak on the muddy bank of a winding, secluded river, certain he was about to meet his Maker.
The source of that image? I took my kayak out alone (my first mistake) on what was supposed to be a leisurely two hour scouting trip to check out a route for an upcoming men's group outing. Somewhere around two and a half hours into what turned out to be a four hour ordeal, just having pulled my kayak out of the river for the fifth or sixth time, up a muddy slope, through tangled brush and weeds around yet another of the many snags that had blocked my progress, I began to experience symptoms of what I feared was a heart attack. They were all there: shortness of breath, tingling in the arms and legs, a tight feeling behind my breastbone, cotton dry mouth...and fear, lots of fear...fear of dying...fear of my kids growing up, getting married, having their own kids, my grand children, without me. Fear of not seeing my wife again. Fear of dying...alone...here in this place.
It's amazing how believing you are about to keel over can bring clarity to your thinking and sharpen your resolve. Sitting on the edge of that kayak, I determined that if I got out of there alive I'd do whatever was within my power to never feel that physically helpless again.
Needless to say, I lived to tell the tale. After a half an hour of resting and fervent prayer, I summoned the strength to climb back in my kayak and paddle the mile or so, thankfully snag free, to the pickup point and call my by now very worried, and very relieved, wife.
The next week, after having been reassured by the guy with the stethoscope that what I had experienced was not a heart attack, but more probably physical exhaustion compounded by dehydration, I pulled my old mountain bike out of the rafters of our garage and began pedaling like there was no tomorrow.
That was three years ago. Today, seventy pounds lighter, feeling healthier than I have since my college days, I'm still pedaling. What started out as a herculean sweat fest just to churn out a couple of miles around the neighborhood has turned into an average of sixty miles per week all over the county...wind, rain, snow or shine. When weather or darkness makes it impossible to ride outdoors I ride indoors. I'm preparing to ride my third Ironman bike ride on May 1st, this time tackling the hundred mile route.
I'm not trying to toot my own horn, though....okay, maybe a little toot...After all, it was a lot of work! The reality, though, is that my climb back from the brink of a health disaster had a lot more to do with the love, support and encouragement of others than it did with me. I have a lot of people to thank. My wife, who, though worrying every time I leave the house that I'll end up as road kill somewhere, says a prayer and lets me go anyway. My kids, who support and encourage me while suppressing their horror at the spectacle of dad in Lycra. And my good friends, Pat, Jeremy and Doug, who, rather than roll their eyes at a Lance Armstrong wanna be...have pulled their own bikes out of the garage and pedaled along side.
It's not only the image of the guy I was three years ago that inspires me to keep pedaling another mile, and another, but also the memory of all those who've shared, in one way or another, those miles with me.
It strikes me while thinking about the last three years how this physical journey I've had mirrors the spiritual journey we all walk. I've tested my limits, struggled to be disciplined and committed and resisted temptation to go back to my old ways.
In Philippians 3 Paul tells us "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
As a rule, Paul tells Christians that they should focus their attention forward. Forward to God's Kingdom. Forward to the return of our Lord. Forward to the joy that is set before us. Spending time looking back, re-living past failures, past defeats can keep us immobilized, unable to see, much less experience, the good things God has in store for those who love Him.
But there are times when looking back, remembering, can actually give us the resolve to keep going forward. Times when we get discouraged. Times when we get weary. Times when we question whether it's all worth it. These are times that we can draw tremendous strength from remembering.
In fact, God, knowing the power of memory to re-energize and re-focus our commitment, gave us an entire season to do just that. The Spring Holy Day season is all about remembering.
Jesus, in Luke 22:19, after taking the bread, symbolic of His body which would soon be broken gave thanks and said to His disciples, and us by extension, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
In the symbols of the Passover we bring to remembrance what Jesus did for us. We remember His body that was broken and His blood that was spilled that we might be saved from our wretched state apart from Him. We're reminded of where we began.
Ephesians 2 paints an even clearer image of where we once were without Jesus.
Ephesians 2:11 - 13 - "Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."
We were, all of us, afar off, without hope, figuratively sitting in our kayaks in the middle of a wilderness, facing the prospect of eternal death.
Yes, Passover is a season to soberly take stock of the road ahead and how far we have yet to go, but it's also a season to be encouraged in remembering. The strength to continue the journey sometimes comes from looking back at how far we've come down the road but also reflecting on those who have traveled it with us. People the Lord has put in our lives so that we might grow to become more like Him. Those who have comforted us and encouraged us to persevere through hard times. Those who have modeled Godly marriages, Godly parenting, Godly responses to suffering. Those who have remained faithful when it's hard to be faithful, and whose examples have strengthened and grounded our faith.
I'm thankful that these last three years have been free of anything like the fear I felt sitting on my kayak on the edge of that river. Worries about heart attack, diabetes, stroke, though never certain, for the most part I left somewhere many miles in the wake of my Surly's rear tire. My health still isn't quite where I want it to be. I'm still looking ahead, focused on conquering the next hill, seeing what lay around the next corner, and testing what this forty-five year old body can do. But I know there are always going to be times, whether on my bike or along this Christian walk, when the long road ahead, the biting wind in my face, the weariness of mind and body may prompt me to question if it's really all worth it. Those are times that I never want to forget to remember.
This Passover season, my prayer for all of God's people is that none of us will forget to remember...and that in doing so we'll each find the strength and encouragement to keep on pedaling.
What memories inspire you to "keep on pedaling?"
What memories inspire you to "keep on pedaling?"