Running Shoes

I’m lacing up my running shoes, literally and figuratively. It feels to me like the starting gun will go off when I enter the cancer center. I’ve met with surgeons before, but never an oncologist. It’s getting real.

Hebrews 12:1 says so much, but what sticks out to me this morning is this: “let us run with endurance the race which is set before us.” I think the race referred to is our Christian walk in general. However, I think we can apply it more personally as well.

Over the last 20 some years, my races have been motherhood and farm wife. Farm life. Several different income generating businesses. Friend. Daughter. Sister. Each of these has required different things of me and honestly, some of them have been obstacle courses.

Today, all of these races disappear into the background and a marathon appears. It occurs to me that perhaps God has used the other races to condition my heart and soul so that I will have the stamina and endurance for this big one.

I’m so glad for verse 2! “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Someone I trust implicitly has run an infinitely more difficult race. He is the One who will help me, guide me, train me. He will perfect my faith through this. My part is to look to Him.