I run in the dark.

Not alone. That’s always the first question.

We are around ten strong with about five to six showing on a regular if rotating basis. A church of women from different everythings. Some work full time, part time or stay at home and some have done all three at different times. We represent over 20 kids among us from preschool, public, private, homeschool, college and graduate schools. We have with us the kind of woman who can surf with the big boys and the kind whose bedazzled bikini stays out of the water. There are extroverts and introverts and inbetween-verts and one from New Jersey (yes, that deserves it’s own category). Even our heights cover it all- one would never admit she hasn’t hit the five foot marker and another pushes the six foot line.

Between all the different lifestyles and schedules, the best time to run is before the world wakes up and starts dumping quarters in the rat race machine.

My husband checks in the night before and says, “you racing tomorrow?”

It works almost every time.

P.S. We don’t race. If swift was slow, that would be us. But that question is his subtle nudge to prep my clothes and get to bed and text an all-call to the crew, “Runners tomorrow?” I go to bed with solid intentions even if there is no reply.

The hardest part is getting up.

I have a split personality when it comes to pre and post sleep. Before bed I’m a committed, reliable human. My clothes are ready on the bathroom counter, shoes by the front door. The keys are on top of my wallet placed so that when I pick them up they won’t jingle and wake the natives.

But when the alarm sounds, particularly after a short night, I don’t care about running. I don’t want to live to be old and still be able to walk stairs. Predictably, overnight I will morph into a heavy-lidded zombie whose main goal is to be reburied beneath a mound of blankets and pillows. Pillow is my BFF. We shall not be separated.

But that stupid alarm. Who’s idea was it to put it all the way across the room next to those silly spandex pants? I hate stretchy pants right now.

I get up to stop the racket of music belching from my phone. It’s at the same volume I could barely hear the night before when I was wide awake. I pray that everyone has sent texts saying they can’t run because they are exhausted or barfing or trapped in a pit with alligators. I’ll take any excuse as valid, but a quick look at my screen and I know my fate is sealed: “I’m coming,” it reads.

Dang it.

Someone is waiting.

Sometimes it’s me.

So I rally, “Come on, girl, wake up! You are running today.”

“Ok,” I text back.

I’m up. It’s on.

I never, ever regret it. We see shooting stars and moonsets, owls and fantastic sunrises. We’ve seen a pod of dolphins waking up and and the ocean in every one of it’s beautifully different moods. Once we ran through an icy rainstorm, the wind threatening to toss us from our path above the cliffs– it was so severe we just laughed. We may have legitimately raced that day.

With the rhythm of our breath timing each step, our little group falls into sync.  All of those differences I mentioned? They stir together as we find common ground in light weight lace ups and lycra.

Oh and Jesus.

Our bodies are healthier for it, but that’s not why we run. The real reason we run is because we pray. We pray because we can’t not. We are a moving church, skirting our city’s neighborhoods and parks as the world sleeps. We talk to Jesus about the new day, praying over our own trials and triumphs, over our community and over anyone who has heard what we do and asked us to pray for them specifically.

While we run we talk about life and love and loss. We tell stories and jokes. Sometimes we cry, too. We’ve seen miracles of healing, impossible relationships mended, babies born to the barren, hard children soften, divisive employers become open-handed and more. Way more. We don’t make things happen, we ask the one who can.

We run because Jesus. That’s it.

Someone today shared a followup about her friend we’ve been praying over this week. He suffered a massive brain trauma and is healing so fast the doctors don’t know what to make of it. Because they are out of answers, they are asking questions. Questions about life and miracles and Jesus. Her friend’s dad is a pastor and shared this weekend about his son’s accident and how Jesus triumphs over darkness. I can’t remember the rest of the conversation because I got lost in that thought, “Jesus triumphs over darkness.”

You can’t overcome something that you haven’t gone through.

The words rolled around my head. Even though Jesus knew the outcome of his darkest hour– that  death couldn’t hold him and that it was for the redemption of humankind– it was still agony to get through. Like childbirth or opening a stubborn bag of chips, but times a million.

Jesus triumphed over darkness because he went through it, not around it. He didn’t hit the snooze button.

I thought about how we run through darkness on these mornings, wrestling with everything that’s been thrown at us and doing our best to leave it at the feet of the God of the whole universe. I thought about the year my family has had and the hard things we are going through now, wading through the fallout of three deaths- my father-in-law, a friend, and my dad just a few weeks ago.

God doesn’t make bad things happen. He knows what’s coming ahead of time and has planned for it. He knows the way through if we will just ask him. So we do. And we keep running in the dark, trusting the sun will rise– because we know it will.

That’s called hope.

Truthfully, there are a few weeks each year when the sun is already stretching it’s golden arms toward the sky as we set out, but for the most part we run through the quiet of pre-dawn where the sound of feet on pavement is strong and the prayers are even stronger.