Lessons from a Marathon

Today I had one of those moment that only parents can have.  It came quietly and gently in the midst of the kaos of almost two hundred and fifty kids running the last mile of a marathon.  There are 26.2 miles in a marathon and over the last four weeks, my kids have been in a run club that ran one or two miles everyday after school.  As I watched my kids line up and get ready, I could see the determination in their eyes as they both mentally prepared for the run ahead.  They were both nervous and yet excited.  The whole group of kids were.  The air horn sounded and off they went, one kid lost his shoe and another tripped, it was like watching the running of the bulls in Spain, yet instead of terror there was unbridled happiness and excitement, and that was just from the parents.

We waited cameras in hand and watched them run out of sight, then we waited nervously hoping that they would finish and that this would be a good experience.  Then all of a sudden we could see a kid in the distance, a lone runner ahead of the pack on the far side of the field. As this kid got closer we could see others coming and running. The excitement in the crowd grew as the girl got closer and closer until finally her name was called over the loud speaker and tremendous applause broke out. This applause did not stop until all two hundred and fifty kids were across the line, the last one a three year old who was being helped along by his mom.  He saw her and did not want to finish.  It was cute.

My moment happened, though, when I saw my son Spencer running with all of his heart; racing another kid to the finish. He wasn't going to let him win and as he crossed the finish line my emotions mixed and swirled until I was laughing and cheering and crying at the same time. I realized that my son had just accomplished something that I had not, he had run a marathon; my daughter too.  My daughter Emily did not really enjoy running at the beginning of this process, but she stuck with it and with her mom's encouragement and running beside her; Emily learned how to run and pace herself and she finished very strong and sprinted to the end.

Having your kids accomplish things that you have not is an awesome thing. I am so proud of them and how they stuck with this and how they have found something that they like to do. This experience will serve them well in the future. They both want to run some more and enter a 5K run in the future and now they are trying to get me, the guy in the family who hates running, to try. Watching my kids cross the finish line may just have been the motivation and inspiration I need; all my excuses and reasons for not liking to run disappeared when I saw my son and daughter race to the finish.  Life is too short to be in the cheering section forever, we need to get in the race.

That reminds me of one of my favorite verses in Hebrews 12:1, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." We are called to be in the race of life, not in the crowd, or like the back of one school's shirts said,
Run if you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must, but never quit.  That is good advice.  So it looks like I get to buy some new running shoes.