by Kat Silverglate ©2024

We’ve all said it. Under our breath.  In our heads. On our knees. To a trusted friend in whispered tones.

We’ve heard it come out of our mouths involuntarily as if from some stranger in the cavernous abyss of our unfiltered inner core.

 At the start, we genuinely want in. At the signed up, we have that all-in rock star enthusiasm because our eyes are fixed on the goodness or the rightness of the endeavor; or the possibilities for the future; or the hope or promise or prize; or just something better... we sign the dotted line with a flourish and an I-want-to-remember-this-beginning-photo.

But then it gets hard. Or impossible. Or inconvenient. Boring. Or shocking. Or just plain ugly. And suddenly, our big picture focus becomes narrow. Microscopic even. We struggle to see anything other than the challenging moment, as if that particular rung on the ladder encompasses the whole of the original endeavor.

That’s when that little phrase starts to march from the interior of our brain, down our tongue, past our lips, into the audible atmosphere – “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Years ago, with better knees and younger lungs, I decided that it was time to do the oh so urgent middle-age-better-run-a-marathon-before-I-can’t-do-this-anymore bucket list item. More pointedly, I was finally cashing in on a promise I’d made to my 18-year-old-self after surviving a craniotomy. Dreams of running like Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire rolled relentlessly around in my head while I was sick. “When I get to a place where I can run, I am never going to complain about exercise again. I’m going to run and be grateful that I can.”

But I didn’t. Not in my 20’s. Not in my 30’s. And then in my mid-40’s something jiggled the vow loose from the trunk of un-kept promises and sent it directly to the repeat cycle in my brain. A friend’s son lost both hands and both feet to a rare infection. I’d taken pictures of her kids running on the beach not long before the tragedy. Looking at those images, the siren of mortality nearly gave me permanent hearing loss: “If not now, when?”

I don’t really run. I drag my body in a way that looks more like slogging than jogging. So, the book “Marathon Running for Non-Runners” became my constant companion. The promise of the authors? If you faithfully follow the steps outlined in the book, you WILL finish a full marathon. The author-runners had street creds to go with the bold promise. One a physician and the other a psychologist, they’d designed and repeatedly taught a college course called “The Marathon Class.” If you finished the full marathon scheduled for the end of the semester, you got an A. If you didn’t finish, you got an F. All class members who followed the instructions to a T, passed. All of them.

I read it like the Bible. Followed it more faithfully than the Apostle Paul at the peak of his Pharisee career. If the book said run 3 miles, I ran it. If it said break, I broke. If it said eat goo, I forced it down.

It wasn’t pretty, but sure enough, 18 weeks after the start of the training, I stood on the grounds of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando Florida with 13,000 other lunatics dressed in tutus and costumes ready to finally empty our buckets.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” the runner behind me declared at the pre-race-day trade expo. He wasn’t alone. Most first-time marathoners had chosen Orlando because it was A) flat, B) inside the Magic Kingdom, and C) characteristically warm in the winter. A and B were not going to change absent Armageddon, but C… let’s just say it was one of the coldest days in Orlando history.

Most of the I-didn’t-sign-up-for-thisers were from warm climates. We’d never run in below freezing temps. We hadn’t trained for it. And we certainly didn’t have the proper attire. The sound of the expo cash registers ringing up sweat shirts and hoodies was epic. But the complaints about the weather was deafening. “This isn’t the race I trained for.” “I don’t know how I’m gonna finish.” “I wonder if they’ll give refunds?”

And then somewhere between the Run Girl display and the Nike shoe fitting station, I heard this inner voice:

We DID sign up for this. We signed up for a race in February in Florida not knowing what the Lord would allow that day. We signed up knowing that only God would know the circumstances, the struggles, the joys and the surprises set before us. We signed up hoping for the medal or the victory or the miracle. He knew the desire of our hearts but also the endurance required and the sanctification needed and the time together with Him in dependence and prayer. He saw it from beginning to end. The Author of Life saw well beyond the flourish of the ink in the sign-me-up-coach launch moment to the crisis of our own self-sufficiency.

 Recently my daughter-in-love called to share the surprises of her day with two of my favorite humans – my grand-kiddos. Her cubs. Just as I was about to dispel some wisdom from the archives of my motherly been-there-done-that library, she said, with confidence “I signed up for this Mama Kat!” It wasn’t cynical. It was a declaration. A choice to remind herself of the truest thing she knows – God was with her when she ached to be a mom, when the desire of her heart was exploding with craving, when the news of her pregnancy filled her with joy to the point of overflow, when she carried those little munchkins in her womb from the size of a Le Sueur pea to the weight of an award winning watermelon, and then through the miraculous delivery of their beautifully folded forms out of her body and into her arms.

He knew how hard it would be, how much help she’d need, how she couldn’t possibly do it in her own strength, how much she’d need Him, but also… how glorious the transformation would be – hers and theirs.

The author of Hebrews cheers us on with these words: 

Before you ever said yes to whatever it is that causes you to say, “I didn’t sign up for this” the Author of Life knew you’d be facing this crisis. He knew that you’d come to the end of your self-sufficiency and wonder from whence the strength would come. He knew that He made you to be needy and dependent - in need of dependence on the author and perfecter of faith. He knew this letting go of self would be hard. Impossible. A crisis. So He went before you. Suffered. Died. Rose. And sent the power of the Holy Spirit. And stories. Clouds of them. True stories of others who rested in Him. Others who endured with the reality of this power not of human determination or sheer will. So, when it gets hard we can declare with confidence, “Yes, I signed up for this” trusting the One who has power that is made perfect in our weakness.

Our February Mission Challenge:

In your Mission Pack, you will find four yellow “Sign Here” stickers and four red “Sign Here” Stickers. You’ll also find a gold sticker that says Signed by the Author. Take the gold sticker and put it in a place you can easily see it all month long. The Author of Life knew before you faced a crossroads that you’d struggle with self-sufficiency. He made a way for you to die to self-sufficiency and rise in Him. Hebrews teaches us to focus on the work at the cross at a crossroads. Can the sticker remind us?

 For each of the four weeks in February, take one yellow sticker and one red sticker and write down:

      1)    something you signed up for that is going well at the moment (yellow), and

      2)    something you signed up for that is hard (red).

Are you needy and dependent in both circumstances? In plenty and in want, do you see your self-sufficiency, or lack thereof, as the cause? Can you use those stickers to re-sign, ready to run the remainder of the race in dependence on the power of God? Will you say the words, “I signed up for this” with a confidence in the One who is made perfect in our weakness? Will you surround yourself with true stories of those who have endured because of His work? His strength?

You are, after all, signed by the Author of Life with the words... I love you!