Seattle Marathon 2014

The Seattle Marathon was this morning bright and early, and it was such a gift to run in honor of Jens and Abby.  I started training on March 4th and tried to use the time of running to pray for them and come alongside them across the miles.  It's been an incredible past 16 weeks.... during this time, Abby left her job and had to find closure in the spring with her students,  Abby and Jens have packed up and moved to Pittsburg, found a new apartment, settled into a new city, Jens had a double lung transplant and even went home from the hospital this past Monday.  They are trying to settle into a new normal with Jens' healing and recovery at home. 

 It became a spiritual discipline of learning to listen for any nudges, insights, lyrics, or scriptures that came to mind.  My eyes and ears were open as I went into each run with the question and prayer of "God, what do you have for them today?"  Each day after my run, I took some time to journal on a blog I created just for them (http://run4jens.blogspot.com). Whenever I posted something, an email would automatically be sent to them with the reflection.  

Over one hundred blog posts later, it was time to run the race today (June 21st). 

I wrote a detailed description of the race here if you are interested. 

My Facebook post below after I got back this afternoon: 

Last night, before I went to bed, Abby sent me this text so I promised not to read her post until I had finished the race. I've included it below as it made me cry such happy tears after finishing the race today...

Victory Lap

For those of you who have followed our story, you’ve heard about our friend Emily Huff. (If you’re new, go back and read a few of the blog posts about her.) Tomorrow, she will run a “victory lap” in the form of a marathon in Seattle. She included a log of her training miles in our daily email yesterday. To date, she has run 580.52 miles in her “Run4Jens” quest. Ironically, that is the distance from our place in Nashville to our apartment in Pittsburgh- plus a round trip visit to UPMC.
During those miles, Emily has been so gracious to intentionally, selflessly, and faithfully pray for us along this transplant journey. There have been so many times where her email has been spot on with what we were going through- even though Emily and I rarely had the chance to chat these past few months. Emily prayerfully listened and tried to be present in whatever we were going through. Training for this marathon has come with a more aches and pains than in any of her previous trainings. Emily used these tangible, physical reminders to enter into our pain; each little hurt served as a symbol of the things Jens was physically going through, as well as our mental, emotional, and spiritual pains.
Now it is time for the “victory lap.” Once again, we marvel at God’s perfect timing. As she and I talked the other day, I wondered how differently this run would feel if we were still waiting for “the call.” This is the end of her training. This is the race. What if we were still waiting? Would we have felt more alone and more desperate for new lungs? Thankfully, those questions are irrelevant. This weekend’s race is perfectly aligned with Jens’s discharge from the hospital. While Emily’s training is over, Jens’s training is just beginning. We have so much hope going into this season. Through her training, her prayers, her encouragement, her friendship, we are strengthened for the road ahead.
Emily is always so good about symbolism, and as I was going through the things we brought home from the hospital, I came upon the yellow stethoscopes from Jens’s hospital room. Because he is on “contact precautions” while in the hospital, there is a stethoscope in the room so that it is only used with Jens. “A stethoscope is used to listen to the internal sounds of the body. It is often used to listen to lung and heart sounds.” There cannot be a better symbol of Emily’s journey. As a gift, one is in route to Seattle to hang as a medal of honor for her commitment to us during this season.
Emily has tied us in her shoelaces every morning. She sent us these fun “Shwings” to tie in our laces on race day. We hope that you will join us in tying her up in our shoelaces and cheering for Emily as she runs this race with such gratitude and joy. Thank you, Emily. TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE!


PS- In case you’re only following the blog, you’ve missed some incredible news. Be sure to check out the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/lungs4jens