Race

Race

Last year I ran my first half-marathon by accident. Really. I never, ever ever thought I could. I committed to go to the training sessions while we were in San Diego because I didn't imagine we would still be around for it to happen.

But it happened. Week after week I kept running a little more and a little more. A friend suggested to me a few months in that I did not decide what I could or could not do a few months down the road, but to keep running it.  Our work project ended right in time for me to run the race and leave the next day.

People call it a race. "When is your race" or refer to it as "race day". But I never raced anyone except the wonder in my head as to whether or not I could do it. And I did it. I wept and hugged a total stranger, a small, jumping black woman at the finish line,  hugging me, yelling, "You did it! you did it!"

And it is good for me to remember as we are in a season of waiting, living in the waiting, that other people might call this life a race,  but to me it feels like a marathon. I have meditated on this verse often in this season:

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame,and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.