I have been running down the road before and with little warning, a sharp piercing pain shoots through my lower right side. A stitch. When this happens, you just have to slow down or stop altogether. It is so very annoying.

Baxter tells me that my breathing needs to change. If I will breathe deeper and slower the stitch will pass.

I’ve thought about that stitch so many times. It appears unexpectedly. It is intense. I must be willing to make a change to get through it and keep going.

I’ve found that stitch has taught me plenty.

There is no lack of sickness, accidents, acts of violence, woundings that come along in life. Some of them you can see coming. Others appear out of nowhere. But the chaos and destruction left behind can be monumental.

How does one continue their race, their life walk? How do we keep going with the pain of a “stitch”?

We make a change. We allow for the pain. We breathe in the breath of life, we drink from the living waters and we feed on the Word of God. Maybe we will need to slow down and breathe slower. Allow Holy Spirit to comfort and heal. Perhaps we will find that we are walking in pain for a period of time. But we will discover that we CAN run our roads with a “stitch”. A “stitch” should not bring our journey to a halt.

The example that always comes to mind first for me is the loss of a loved one. We have to keep living. We have jobs, family, responsibilities. We must keep “moving down this road of life”. Grief doesn’t go away. We simply learn to live our lives without our dear ones with us. Grief can come around a bend like a Mac truck and run us down. A memory can spark the grief. The pain resurfaces with the same vengeance as when it was brand new. We still run. We learn to live and run with the “stitch”.

I learned that I would not allow that pain to stop me. I would look to the Father for comfort and guidance. Sometimes pain is a necessary teacher. Arrogance and pride certainly run in terror when pain comes. Some of my hardest lessons were taught in the schoolroom of pain. For some reason, pain is clarifying. We see things with a new eye. Pain has a way of prioritizing. What is most important finds its proper place.

Hebrews 12 is my running/endurance guide.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the
race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews12:1-2)

In my life, the phrase, “run with endurance the race that is set before us” has included “running with a stitch”. I have discovered that you can run with a stitch. HE gives us that ability. His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. We can run our race with a “stitch”…when He is running with us.