By some combination of foolishness and stubbornness I find myself committed to running the Belfast Marathon in its entirety next May. As we sat in a staff meeting discussing how we should celebrate next year’s 10^th anniversary of Storehouse my mouth wrote a big old cheque that my body is now in open revolt against and all would have been fine if I didn’t have a friend/co-conspirator against poverty as bull headed and quick to speak as myself – thanks Matt. Once two stubborn people have said “let’s do it” neither can bare to back down and so running it is!

I am not a fan of the blog, neither am I a fan of disciplined training on my own but why have one painful thing in your life when you can have two? For me this experiment into the discipline of articulating my chaotic thoughts in written form has a couple of different purposes. Firstly and unashamedly, I hope (though we shall see), it will force me to train as I’ll need something to update on and even if it’s only Laurie and my mum (hi ladies) who read it at least the external pressure will be there. More importantly it seemed appropriate to me to take some time to pause and reflect on the incredible journey of Storehouse over the last 10 years and all the things that have gone before. It is so easy for me to forget that it’s been a decade already, it’s easy to see the unmet needs of our city, the undone things in the endless lists in my notebooks and phone and head and feel like we’ve barely started and yet it’s been a full 10 years. Much has been done. So many people have jumped on board with willing hands and open hearts to do what they can, to give what they can and in 100’s and 1000’s (and possibly 10’s of thousands) of small and seemingly unnoticed ways our city is different because of it. We would do well to remember.

Remembering is hard, pausing to give it time is even harder. Slowing down, taking my focus off the next hill and the next challenge and the next project is not something I relish, it does not come easy. But there is something released in the remembering that cannot be grasped any other way. There is a thankfulness that I easily forget to exercise. There is an awe in how far we’ve come and the good, good people we’ve journeyed with that is both humbling and encouraging in equal measure. There are ways, so many ways, that I am different because of the journey. I often wonder if Storehouse has been more about me than anything else. If this was the only way that God could get at the broken and stubborn and busy parts of my heart long enough to bring release. Those changes, those healings in me often only become apparent, dimly at first, rising painfully slowly to the surface in the cultivated stillness of remembering.

In Joshua 4 as Israel finally crosses in to all that they have been promised they are instructed to carry 12 large stones from the centre of the river Jordan and to pile them as a marker, an Ebenezer, to all that had gone before. An intentional aid in the difficult act of remembering. A pile that is out of place, against character, does not belong and in so doing stirs up the questions of why and how? A pile that would for generations cause children to poke and probe the forgotten stories from their parents. Remembering, reflecting, celebrating, lamenting – the journey hasn’t always been easy, we haven’t always got it right. There is more ahead of us than there is behind (also how I feel about marathon running but seems more negative there), and to keep going, to keep reaching we need to stop and remember.

I am not a fan of the blog – it is somewhat out of place on the landscape of my life but the story is worth remembering. So if for nothing else than that here begins a big old pile of stones!

Marathon Training Update
Runs this week – 2
Miles covered – 7.6
Average speed – 8.48 min/mi