Graduating from college and transitioning into adult life is filled with a lot of exciting changes. While most of them have been positive and an answer to prayer, there are also challenges. After graduating in May of 2022, I jumped head first into serving full-time as a children’s minister. I married my husband Bryce who started med school a couple months later, got a year of full-time ministry under my belt and decided to add being a full-time seminary student to the mix.
A year ago, I thought running was off the table for me completely because I was having heart issues and wasn’t able to exercise without getting extremely lightheaded, amongst other issues. I didn’t realize how much I loved being active until I wasn’t able to be, but after a full calendar year of medical exams, tests, lots of trial and error, and easing back into working out, I was able to start running again in January 2024. Throughout all of this time, I found myself craving a deeper community and began praying for the Lord to open up doors to be able to join in or build this community that I was craving.
This is where Run G!rl Club comes into the picture! Around the time that I was able to start running again, I came across an all girls, Christian run club on Instagram called Run G!rl Club. I noticed that they were looking to start locations in different cities so I filled out an application to start one in my city. By February we were ready to go! Running with this group quickly became one of my favorite days of the week. Who wouldn’t love to start their day running with a group of like-minded women and having a community of encouragement and support. After a few months, the opportunity arose for me to become the new owner of Run G!rl. This was an absolute no-brainer!
Since becoming owner of the brand we have expanded our group to new cities, we’ve grown locally with two very solid groups in the Central MS area. Each week I am encouraged and in awe of the faithfulness of the Lord that He is creating community amongst women in my local area (and other cities) that is centered on Jesus and our common love for running.
The Lord has shown me so many parallels between the process of training to run a marathon and running our race spiritually (which Paul references in Hebrews 12:1-2). Running a physical race requires the discipline beforehand to train with the purpose of building strength, endurance, focus, etc. Running our “spiritual race”, the race God has set before us, successfully requires us to lay aside every weight and throw off the sin that tries to hinder us, slow us down, or stop us from keeping our eyes focused on Jesus who has promised and is faithful to keep us to the end and make us more like Him through it all.
A lot of times, Jesus uses the community He gives us to help shape us and form us to be more like Him. We were created for community, and it is so important to have a group of believers and/or people with similar goals that you show up and “run alongside.” Run G!rl is way more than just a group run during the week. It is my prayer that as our groups continue to grow, that it would be a place where physical and spiritual growth are happening simultaneously through the relationships built with one another.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-12 ESV
By the grace of God, I’m now just a few weeks out from completing my first full marathon, and am building a community focused on Jesus and a common love for running in my local area and encouraging girls in cities all around the country to do the same.
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