I had my six-week evaluation with my doctor about my leg yesterday morning. I went in confident that I was coming out of the boot (so confident that I carried my right flip-flop in my purse). After reviewing my x-rays and examining my leg, the doctor gave me the all clear! Before I could even ask, he commented, I guess you want to know if you can run again. I responded, How long? Much to my delight, he said I could start running in limited increments on a treadmill because he didn’t want me immediately pounding the pavement.

Now I’m not a treadmill kind of girl, so I just made the assumption that he meant I could start walking on pavement and build up to running soon. So I put on my running clothes and shoes yesterday afternoon and hit the track. I can’t even tell you how excited I was to be back in that attire and moving! However, it was definitely a little frustrating to only walk. I wanted to run so badly, but knew better since my leg was tingling and weak from lack of use.

I was talking with my husband after my walk about how eager I was to run. He said, You’ve got to walk before you run. It’s true. I’ve got to strengthen my leg by putting limited amounts of stress on it before I can take off running.

We often view stress as negative. But I’m learning it can be positive when we allow God to use it to make us stronger. If we never deal with stress, we never learn how to do things better. We’ll remain weak and never realize the full potential God intends for us.

Little by little, we can walk through stress until we’re strong enough to run.