A Willing Ant

My first race is in approximately 36 hours. 

The bags are packed, the snowboard rests against the door frame, new goggles sit in their case, and the prayers have increased tenfold. I think I owe an update:

During my two months of silence, miniature trials filled the empty space. I fell into new commitments that suddenly filled my training time. I discovered I'm lactose intolerant. I found out I've developed metatarsalgia in my right foot. 

None of this felt like spiritual attack. Actually, it felt more like God saying, "This is for My glory, remember? So now I'm going to weaken you."

I was like Gideon who set out with a large army and God dwindled down the numbers until 300 men remained to fight, only instead of an army He's shaving away my own capabilities and opportunities. I've learned over the years that God is the most evident in my life when I admit my weakness and allow His strength to dominate. 

These days of trials have chipped at my confidence, which tells me my confidence is ill-placed. It needs to be redirected into God. Do I believe He's greater than my inability to train? Do I believe He's greater than metatarsalgia? Do I believe He's greater than days of illness when I indulge in milk and cheese?

Do I?

My first race is the day after tomorrow. The cherry on top of my trials came when I looked up the ski hill online to get a feel for where I'd race. 

It's a sled hill. No, worse than a sled hill, it's an anthill.

The vertical drop from top to bottom is 150 feet. The ski hill I grew up on is 2,600 feet. This...this feels like a joke. When I stared at the picture of the "park" (as they call it), my stomach sank as if the ski hill of hope inside me started melting. How in the world can I learn anything when I'm racing down this?

Where will they even put the course? 
Ten people would cause a traffic jam on the lift. 
I could hike this hill faster than the chairlift.

When I finally straightened up from my moping and entered into prayer with my husband, I saw the Raging Buffalo Snowboard Ski Park as another stamp of God's insistence to prove His sovereignty. He's sending me into nothing...so when He pulls me into something, it will scream His doing and not mine. His reputation and not mine.

And isn't that what I prayed for in the first place?

So, with my first race finally here, I step into it with a fresh acceptance of nothingness, weakness, smallness. I'm willing to be an ant. This isn't for my glory. If God wants to take a Wyoming-turned-Missouri girl from anthill to Olympics, I want to be the one He picks. He can do it. He's God. He's our God. He's my God. 

And we have a race to win.