The meaning in life is found in the curves

​A few weeks ago, when I was trying to finally complete the Georgia Jewel Ultramarathon after two previous failed attempts, I remember getting discouraged the last few hours of that race. It seemed like every time the trail straightened out and I found any sort of a rhythm - the trail suddenly turned. It turned and I was sure it was taking me far away from the finish line I'd been dreaming of for years.

I found that finish line, though. I'll never forget the feeling of sitting in a chair on the other side of it and reflecting on what I'd just done. I felt sure of one thing. The winding and unpredictable trail that led me to a third attempt at that finish line, the 37 miles of taunting trails that too frequently twisted and turned me away from that finish line - daring me with every step to lose sight of where I wanted to be - those trails made the man who was sitting there.

Yesterday, I led a two hour online training about our brains and trauma and resilience and what's at stake when we do and don't understand all of that. In trainings like that, I come alive. Passion pours from me. Even through a screen I can see people embracing the message. I feel them looking at their lives and the lives of the people they serve with new hope.

Often, when I finish a training like that, I lean back in my chair and exhale. It's like sitting in that chair at the Jewel finish line. I sit there and look back on my life and consider with awe how crooked the path was that got me there. In one of those rare moments when life seems to make perfect sense, I'm reminded that the path that got me there seldom made any sense at all.

If I think about it, I probably spend too much of my life trying to make sense of things - too much time trying to make the path to wholeness a straight line. Trying to make sense of things makes it easy to forget every meaningful finish line I've crossed in life and running has come at the end of some of the most squiggly lines ever drawn.

I remember one race when my buddy Tracey kept screaming at me: you need to run the tangents - meaning, from turn to turn, he needed me to run the straightest line possible.

You know, maybe there are some straight lines in running (although I rarely find them)! But I'm not sure life has many of them. And maybe that's the point to life?

Maybe life isn't about finding the straightest path, but instead discovering the beauty in life is found in the curves.

Maybe life is about meeting one another in the switchbacks and being the encouragement to one another that says, this is just a curve - the finish line is still there.

Maybe it's in those reminders - those moments together - where we come alive - our passions pour from us.

Maybe it's in those moments together that the lines in life feel as straight as they ever get.