Walk, Run, Soar: Finding the Courage to Love Again

By Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young

God's Brave Women - Dorina's Story

After my husband Ericlee died from cancer in 2014, I wasn’t sure if I could ever run again. He was my coach, my running partner, and my biggest cheerleader for almost a dozen years. He trained me for my first half marathon and first marathon. He logged hundreds of miles pushing our daughters in the jogging stroller and pushing me to personal records.

I still remember that first week following his funeral when I ventured out to the track for a workout with friends. I laced up my running shoes. Sweat beaded on my brows. My 37-year-old body quivered as I tried to take a deep breath. It might have been the hair-dryer-in-your-face heat of that September evening in Central California. Or it might have been the heaviness of the grief that felt like a dozen bricks pressing on my chest.

Sometimes finding the courage to begin again is the hardest part.

---

"Sometimes finding the courage to begin again is the hardest part."

---

I toed the line and took that first step. I ran once around the oval. Four hundred meters. A distance my body and brain are accustomed to after more than three decades of devoting myself to running.

And then I began to hear it. Ericlee’s coaching voice boomed from Heaven. He was telling me to lift my knees, to steady my breathing, to square my shoulders, and run. My eyes, body, and heart were lifted from grief to hope.

The prophet Isaiah says “…but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31, NIV).