Driven to depend?

I recently pulled out my running shoes again.  First trimester exhaustion, four bouts of sickness, navigating seven-kid-craziness, and the busyness of the holidays found my shoes at the bottom of the shoe basket.  I'm not really a runner, but I run.  I'm not fast, or particularly motivated by long distances.  I'm sure I don't even have the right gear, but I run.  I've learned that its the place my soul grows quiet, my mind fixes on truth and my heart remembers again how fragile I really am and how infinitely sufficient God really is.  Its a bit of a paradox.  About the time that my legs start to ache, my lungs begin to burn and I wonder again why I'm running in the first place is usually when the armor around my soul begins to crumble, all the defenses fall, and my heart is laid bare before the LORD.  All the fight I had beginning my day desperate to do it all well, takes to the wind like dandelion seeds at the slightest breeze.  And there I find freedom.  The truth sets us free and here is the truth: "I'm not enough.  I don't have what it takes.  I'm pretty broken.  I mess up constantly.  All my attempts to do better and try harder fall laughably short."  And there is a lot of freedom in knowing that, admitting that and reveling through anguished tears in the steadfastness of God's love for me because of the person of Christ.  It's okay.  I can admit my great need because it is not really about me.  Jesus is the Son in whom God is well pleased and I am in Him.  He declared, "It is finished," and my debt was canceled and my righteousness secured through the complete, willing obedience of Christ.  My outcome is secure though the circumstances of my life ebb and flow like the waves of the ocean threatening to drown me.  Yet, in that place of gasping for breath wondering if He actually knows what I can bear, the gospel echos deeply in my soul.  I wasn't promised a quiet home, or mild-mannered children.  He never guaranteed that I would have answers for every difficulty.  I wasn't assured comfort, ease, or a pain-free existence.  God granted me forgiveness and gave me the righteousness of Christ.  He asked me to live by faith trusting what He accomplished and He promised that He would always be enough.  And He is.  That reality alone is enough to cause to tears to flow all the harder.  To be so loved on no merit of my own!! And there in the midst of desperate dependence, raw need, overwhelming grace and love; a deep drive grows, not to do more or try harder next time, but to know Him, to remember my need and to glory in my Redeemer!  Dependence is not a natural state for most of us.  We fight hard against it and avoid it at all costs.  But the truth is we are all needy and dependence is the only thing we can really bring God anyways.  So, I am learning that I have to fight to be dependent.  There is a growing drive in my soul to press deep into dependence on Christ as uncomfortable and painful as it may be.  Dependence on Christ is freedom.  It is peace and rest and joy because it is where we stop striving to be god of our lives and rest in the God who gave us life and Himself that we might be fully satisfied in Him alone.  So, as I enter the New Year and look to the days before me, my resolve and drive are not ultimately to alter the circumstances of my life more to my liking, but to know more deeply and depend more completely on the One who sovereignly, lovingly holds all the circumstances of my life in His hands.