When Quitting is Holy
Why stopping my half-marathon training last year was the right decision.
One year ago, with great excitement and fanfare, I announced on social media my commitment to walk in a half-marathon.
In August, I abruptly stopped my training. At the time, I only told a handful of people about my decision.
Didn’t I owe social media an update and explanation when I didn’t complete the task?
I wrestled with the question — even had an email cued up to send to my subscribers — but ultimately decided to keep my journey quiet.
Until today.
Last week, my friend, Jeannie, shared this honest series of posts on social media:
Reading what Jeannie wrote, I felt impressed to finally share about my decision to stop training and break my commitment to do a half-marathon.
The following is the gist of that story.
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As you may know, I spent a large chunk of 2024 writing a study on the body.
In the process of writing the body study, my heart and mind began to shift in ways I never anticipated.
Some of the remaining damaging mindsets of my past began to surface and be exposed for God to break, heal and give me deeper clarity and freedom.
As I’ve said: He built my body theology last year from the ground up, brick-by-brick.
One of the things that a whole body theology does not allow for is a worldly “yoke” mindset — the kind that is restrictive, legalistic, rule-based and brings feelings of oppression.
As someone having healed from broken mindsets that have not produced freedom in their strict rigor/legalism surrounding food/exercise (and even things like work and rest) in the past, learning a whole body theology gave me the keen ability to become deeply in tune with how this now feels when it comes on.
And yet, with something like a half-marathon, important training is simply required to accomplish that goal without injury to the body. There is no harm nor foul here. In this physical requirement, you have to walk or run a certain amount of minutes/miles in order to acclimate your body to a certain goal mileage.
The risk, however, for someone with body history like me is in what it can (doesn’t mean automatically will) become: the demands of this type of process can begin to become a yoke that injures the soul.
Such was my personal cross-roads during my half-marathon training, as I began to sense a yoke mindset coming on: do I continue to train in such a way that honors my commitment but threatens to set me back into an oppressive place…or do I break my commitment but honor wellness in me, from the inside-out?
I wrestled with it, because I knew it could disappoint some folks I care about, and I faced the embarrassment (and my own judgment), as well, of being “that person” that simply isn’t committed.
But my whole body theology made the decision for me. Though I still had to weather the human emotion of quitting, the decision was not difficult like it might have otherwise been.
That is one of the greatest gifts whole body theology gives us: the tools to make decisions about what things are good and right for our body and soul without shame or confusion.
(ps: So many experts. So much body talk. So much advice. So much past body trauma, yet much hype online. What body goals are even good, anymore? People are so tired and confused, and I have so been there. I never thought I’d be free. This is why I can’t stop talking about this body stuff that I once never wanted to talk about.)
I don’t take quitting lightly. I’m a very committed person.
The plot twist is: that’s why I quit my training for the half-marathon. Because my highest body commitment now is to my whole body theology, not one event.
So when that event didn’t line up with how WBT informed me, it was crystal clear that it was time to let it go. When I signed up to the half-marathon, I couldn’t have yet known that.
How we approach food, moving our bodies, our work, sex life, rest and everything else we do needs more than just our willpower and want to. We’ve gone that route for a long time.
Because though many of us have gotten off track, glorifying God — not fitness goals, jeans sizes or how we look in a picture or even in the mirror — is what our body was really created to be and do.
(PS: Cannot WAIT for you to learn all about the whole body theology (WBT) in July when the Body & Soul Bible Study releases! I am trusting and praying it will help your body decisions will get much clearer.)
*For 3 signs that something is becoming a yoke, Core Circle Community (those who invest in this Substack financially! Thank you. :) …keep reading!
