The Race of Faith: Resiliently Running with Perseverance for Hope and Healing in a Hurting World
What 13.1 miles taught me about running the race of faith and why we keep showing up for healing!
I, Emma Rose, have been training for a half-marathon for the last 8 months. On September 7th, I finally ran the race. Several of you generously gave towards the causes I ran for (THANK YOU!).
There were so many emotions during the race itself — excitement in the beginning, awe running through Disneyland park, and difficulty as cramps I had never experienced in training crept from my toes to my knees.
Towards the last few miles, my mantra became: “Just finish. Just finish. Just finish.” Crossing the finish line was a great relief, and I lifted my hands in praise for God’s strength. But honestly? It was a little anticlimactic. The euphoria I expected was replaced by a quiet sense of finality.
As my body slowed down last week, recovering from the race while processing dark headlines in the world, the Lord reminded me of 1 Corinthians 9:25 (NIV):
“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”
Paul wasn’t just talking about a footrace. He was talking about a life’s journey marked by endurance, perseverance, and unwavering commitment to the light and love of God. As I trained while also preparing to do trauma work with Integrate You, I kept seeing the parallels between running a marathon and cultivating a resilient life in Christ.
10 PR Lessons on Resilient Rhythms to Run with Christ
Running this race of faith isn't about one-time commitments. It's about a series of daily choices and practices. Just as an athlete has a rhythm of practicing running, recovering, racing, and resting, we need rhythms to run our lives in Christ from a place of healing, wholeness, and wellness to reach a “PR” or Personal Record, also known as a personal best, upon our own very personal finish line on earth and starting line into eternity. There were at least 10 lessons God gave me, and it just so happened that they all started with a “P” or “R” (I didn’t even try to do that!).
1. Run on Purpose
When committing to a race, or the race of faith, we choose to be active participants, not spectators. 1 Corinthians 9:25 says this training takes strict discipline or other translations say, “disciplined” or “self-controlled” training. Running on purpose means remembering your commitment and why you’re doing it.
For believers in their race, it’s remembering that Jesus paid it all, so being self-controlled through your life’s training and running your leg of the race of faith, in the lane that God put you in, is part of picking up your cross in your generation.
2. Proactively Pray & Converse with the Prince of Peace
In sports, you listen to your coach. In the race of faith, our coach is Jesus. Prayer isn't just for moments of desperation; it's a proactive conversation that grounds us in His perfect peace. In John 14:27 He says, “Peace I leave with you; My perfect peace I give to you.” This is a gift, and it's one we access through open communication with Him throughout the day.
Starting your day with prayer, even for a few minutes, sets your course. It’s like a warm-up — calming the heart and mind so we can run our race with focus.
3. Prioritize Your Goals Based on Who He Made You to Be
The world has endless expectations of us, but Paul urges us in Romans 12:2 to "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." After connecting with God in prayer, the path He has ahead for the day feels clearer.
God helps us prioritize our daily goals in each role based on His purpose, not the world’s pressure. For me, He helped me think through my tasks related to my roles as a child of God, a spouse, a clinician-in-training, a friend, a student, and a nonprofit co-founder.
When He leads our priorities, we can run with intention and a pace of peace, not a frantic pace of pressure.
4. Practice Running with Preparation
Running isn’t just about putting one foot in front of the other. Training required pre-run rituals – fueling, dynamic stretching, and warming up.
In faith, this means moving forward with what we’ve been equipped with while trusting Him and how He prepped us for it. It’s about doing the faithful thing God has put in front of us right now, with how he has prepped us. It’s not perfection, it’s His perfect presence as we run our race.
5. Progress Forward, Practicing Healthy Love in All You Do
As we move forward, we are called to run with love. In Luke 10:27, Jesus reminds us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
This isn’t a call to burn ourselves out for everyone. It’s an invitation to practice healthy love — nurturing our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being by being connected to God in all of it, so we can pour into others from wholeness, not depletion. This is what makes running the race of faith with others sustainable.
6. Recover with Him
After a run, active recovery makes us stronger. Just as a runner needs to end a run rolling out the knots with a foam roller, stretching, resting their muscles, and massaging them to be stronger as the muscle micro-tears heal, we need to recover the micro-tears of our heart muscle regularly with God. This is called self-care as we find rhythms of rest in Him.
We recover with Him by rolling out the knots of our heart by asking Him to "Search me, God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139:23). Regular rest and recovery with the Lord is an invitation with His presence through worship, prayer, and His Word towards sanctification to continue each run and race stronger with and for Him.
7. Race Amidst the Natural Pains
Every race includes fatigue and discomfort. The days leading up to a race often feel calm, known as the tapering phase before the storm of the run. Spiritually, this calm before a race or test is a peace that only God can provide. Similar to how Jesus had the peace of pleasing His father during His baptism in Matthew 3 before being led to the wilderness to be tested in Matthew 4.
The key is to keep running amidst the natural pains and fatigue, letting your body do what it was trained to do. Keep moving and focusing your breath and your pace. Such is the case spiritually: keep moving in the race, connect to the breath or ruach of God, and move with His pace of peace.
8. Pain from injury? Create Space, Seek Safety, Pursue Support
Any athlete knows that pain is part of the journey, but there is a difference in that pain when you’re injured.
When you feel it — whether physical, mental, emotional, or relational — the worst thing you can do is ignore it.
In the midst of injury, acknowledge the pain, create space for it, rest, and seek support. This is what we do with trauma at Integrate You. Avoidance coping only makes things worse. By actively coping with God and the help of a therapist, a spiritual director, or a trusted friend, we can heal and grow through our pain, rather than being debilitated by it.
9. Run until You’re Done
During the race, my inner cry was: “Just finish. Just finish. Just finish.” I felt like God was reminding me that finishing strong means crossing that finish line. After all the training, all the injury healing, all the natural pains, the goal is to just finish.
The words of Jesus that resonated to me as I was reflecting on all God had walked me through to run the race, not just in training but also in grief healing was John 16:33b (AMP) “ In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.”
Knowing that Jesus said this world would have trials and tribulations made me feel seen, and that He invited me to be courageous to keep running my race with JOY, now that felt audacious. That is what He calls us to, running our race of faith and savoring the joy in our life’s journey.
10. Rest Productively & Balance Play
Just as an athlete needs rest before a race to be energized to compete, you also need to productively rest after a race. Rest isn’t laziness; it’s strength. A restless spirit leads to a weary body.
Sabbath rest is more than just not working; it's an intentional practice of entering God's peace and joy. It’s a moment to balance our work with play, to enjoy the beautiful life He has given us and trust Him enough to rest and enjoy it.
When we rest in Him, we run our race from a place of gratitude and hope, and we’re able to train and run our race with joy!
A Dream of Racing with Joy
Almost a decade ago, I dreamt of an outrageous, gruesome obstacle course. Everyone from my church at the time was running it, experiencing intense pain — grimacing, sweating, hurting — and while doing so having FUN with REAL, DEEP JOY.
The joy was real and expressed while deep in the painful race, not after it.
That dream came to mind during the race as I ran with the other racers. We were running in our silly outfits with our fatigue and our pain, massaging out cramps, and attaching ice packs to our burning legs.
This is what it means to run the race of faith with joy; it’s a defiant act that shines His light in a dark world. It’s the joy that comes from knowing Christ has the final word, and His presence, hope, and healing is sweeter than anything the material world can offer.
As I reflected on this during the heavy news cycle last week, amidst launching our trauma-informed story-work ICU class, I was also reminded that real pain and real joy can co-exist.
This is why we do what we do at Integrate You. We focus on addressing the pain, so the joy of the Lord can give us strength to be intentionally present to what’s in front of us.
So, one day we can victoriously celebrate what Paul declares in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
Why do Trauma Work in a Traumatizing World?
Because light goes upstream from a fallen dark world.
Because love in a world full of hate is courageous.
Because joy amongst despair is defiantly audacious.
Because healing in Christ teaches us to swim intentionally against the current that wants to sweep us into fear, numbness, and division.
Last week, while my body demanded naps and my emotions tangled with sorrow and anger at evil, God reminded me of why we do the hard work we do:
We run this race because we’ve committed to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27).
We run with joy even when it hurts and there are trials, tribulations, darkness, evil, and death all around because His light shines in darkness, and darkness doesn’t get the final word.
We run with hope because Christ will finish what He started, and the crown He gives at the end of our race does not fade (2 Tim. 4:8).
We run like Jesus — moving toward people in their darkest places with presence and compassion while speaking life, healing, and hope into their situation.
This is the heart of Integrate You.
Trauma work can be painful, but we step into it so people can heal with Christ and others, become present to the moments in front of them, and move from reactive survival to intentional, integrated living and thriving!
