Our meaning in life is to finish our races and begin new ones.
There is always that someone in that race that forgets to tie their shoe and feels the burn from their small mistake as they fall to the ground. Even some of the most advanced runners still forget that they can't wear their brand new shoes to race the next day, as they suffer the consequences of painful blisters along their toes. That Mexican food that your mom made last night, that doesn't sit well trying to finish a race. And there's always that jerk at the starting line that thinks he owns the road and tries to prod people out of his way, which can cause a domino effect of racers crumbling to the asphalt.
It's how these incidents are dealt with that determines how we finish our race. Some fall at the beginning of the race, some at the middle, some fall right before the finish line. But it's not about how hard we fall, nor is it about "who saw us fall", it doesn't even matter where we fall. What determines our standing is how we recover. How much faster can you get up, and chase down the person in front of you. At times we fall, we break down in tears, we tell ourselves we can't do it. All this time we spend on the ground, do we realize the clock is still running?
I ran a race today, and as I was coming up on my second mile, I watched one of my opponents step in a hole. It was a pretty decent sized hole, causing her ankle to roll one way, then roll again the other, resulting in a pretty painful injury. Her facial expressions went straight to pain, she tensed up, and she looked like she was about to cry. But one thing didn't change about the girl after she stepped in the hole, was she was still moving.
Her steps became smaller and smaller as I began to catch up, but she didn't stop. Even if she slowed down to walking speed, she didn't stop. With every step we take, may it be a small step or a leap, we are moving forward. Moving forward is more beneficial than sitting still. With each step our finish line becomes closer it may take us longer to get there, but we will get there eventually if we keep taking steps. When we reach trials in our life, it's so easy to say "I am done, I wanna go home, I don't want to do this, why is this happening." Every time we fall, we get up stronger than we were before. God only puts these trials here to make us strong. He knows what we can endure, so he puts us to the test. A test no one wants to fail. When we fall, we can sit on the ground pouting and stewing about how much we hate life. Or we can stand up fast, shake it off and get that adrenaline pumping again.
We are not perfect, everyone falls sometime in their life, but don't be the person that stays down, be the one that stands up stronger and finishes the race.
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| Because our team got third the other day, it was a happy day for this chick. |
