We Truly were Created to give.

Friday afternoon, when I arrived in Dalton, Georgia, I was flooded with emotions. Not to be over dramatic, but it felt like driving by the hospital in North Carolina where my first son was born. Place can be triggering. Because place is often a place holder for some of our most meaningful memories.  
 
When I sat at the Snake Creek aid station for the Georgia Jewel 35-mile race in 2018 - the place where I'd ultimately quit my first attempt at running an ultra-marathon - I had no idea just how different my life would look 4 years later in the year of 2022. I had no idea how much impact and influence that moment would have on my life. 
 
To say the Georgia Jewel has been personally pivotal – life-changing – that would be quite an understatement. I do get caught up at times trying to figure out whether I should blame or thank the Jewel for the direction my life has gone the last 4 years. I’ve decided it’s possible to at the same time thank AND blame the things we love in life.

So that’s where I stop: I love the Georgia Jewel.
 
I’m sure a lot of folks will read all of that and wonder – or maybe judge – how can someone feel such strong human emotions for an event? How can someone compare a trail race with the birth of a child? The folks who will NOT wonder and judge all of that are the folks who’ve had a relationship with the Georgia Jewel.

Because they know the race is not an event. The race is a community. A community full of people with the most beautiful kind of love.

This past weekend that community expanded for me. Until now, I’ve largely identified my Georgia Jewel community by its runners. But at this 2022 Georgia Jewel, I got to meet the volunteers – because I was one.

I decided several weeks ago not to run this year’s race. I just wasn’t prepared for it for many reasons. But one of the race directors – my dear friend Jenny Baker – suggested a different race experience for me. She suggested I come volunteer at one of the aid stations.

So, I did. And that aid station I’d volunteer at: Snake Creek.

God has a sense of humor. Or, he just has a keen sense of how to use place in the stories he wants to tell us. In the lessons he wants us to learn.  

First, I got to spend the better part of 24 hours with some very dear people. Many of them were indeed runners – runners like me who’d experienced the Georgia Jewel through the lens of running – but this weekend they were there to serve other runners.

Actually , it was fellow runners. Because that’s an important distinction when it comes to serving – we’re not serving OTHER people – we are serving FELLOW people.

One of the beautiful things about watching runners approach Snake Creek in search of nutrition and encouragement and direction this weekend – I have been there. I have approached that aid station in need of all those things.

I was comforted and loved by people when I quit there in 2018 by people who knew what it felt like to quit in that moment. I was encouraged to go on there in 2020 by folks who knew all I needed WAS their encouragement to ultimately climb Mt. Baker and finish the most meaningful physical accomplishment of my life.

I realized this weekend how important it is for us to be able to predict what others are feeling and going through in our attempts to serve. I realized what a gift it is for those who are the great predictors of such.
And I realized how those of us who aren’t so great at predicting what others are going through – maybe an answer to that is working an aid station. Volunteering. Serving. Looking into the eyes of the struggle approaching you. Holding back the urge to help while embracing the opportunity to feel – and hear – and honor the struggle coming your way. Humbly accepting it’s possible that I don’t know what you’re going through, but I want to know.

Because empathy is something we can learn. It’s something we can all get better at.

I’m so thankful to my friend Jenny for inviting me into a new place this weekend. I’m so thankful for the beautiful friends I go to serve alongside. I’m so thankful for the runners who came to be served, and for their gratitude that at the same time I was serving made it feel like I was being served in some beautiful way as well.

I’m so thankful for the entire Georgia Jewel community – the runners and the servers – you are why Dalton, Georgia is an emotional trigger in my life. I don’t know whether to thank you or blame you for that.

But I know this. I love you all. 
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