6/25/2007
Running the Race. . .Or Not
My husband filled in for our out-of-town preacher last week and not surprisingly--since he loves to run--his sermon was titled Running the Race. He did a beautiful job of blending scriptures with his own real life experiences. In the meantime, he's been training to move beyond his normal 5k runs in order to participate in a local event this past Saturday - the K8-8k. Slated to take place at Craighead Forest Park in Jonesboro, Arkansas and sponsered by our local ABC station, KAIT Channel 8, it promised to be a great race.
We'll never know.
Even though I'm on a killer deadline, we loaded up Friday night and drove to Jonesboro to spend the night at his mom's (3 1/2 miles from the park) so Kevin could be there bright and early Saturday morning for the race that was scheduled to start at 8 a.m. I took my laptop and worked late, but he got up at 6:00 and got ready. Since he'd already pre-registered, he went ahead and did his pre-run warmup mile near his mom's house so that he didn't have to fight the crowd at the park. Then he made the short drive over. When he arrived at the park gate at 7:32, there were trucks parked sideways across each gate entrance and guards were turning people away. "No entrance to the park after 7:30 a.m. NO Exceptions!"
Kevin came back to the house, disappointed and upset. We didn't have internet access so all the way home (1 1/2 hours) we wondered if that information had been on the website and we'd missed it. But no. When we got home, we searched the site and it is nowhere. Race starting at 8 a.m. is the only info listed.
By noon, Kevin had gotten over his disappointment for the most part, accepting that things happen and that it probably worked out for the best that he didn't run the race. He's already looking forward to the next event. But I've been thinking about it a lot since then, especially in light of his sermon last week. It's no fun when you're doing what you're supposed to be and someone changes the rules without telling you. That's a good thing about running the race God has set before us. We have the Bible to go by and if it's not in there, we won't be held accountable for it. We may get confused, we may wander off course, but God doesn't switch things on us at the last minute.
So get on your mark, get set, GO!
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We'll never know.
Even though I'm on a killer deadline, we loaded up Friday night and drove to Jonesboro to spend the night at his mom's (3 1/2 miles from the park) so Kevin could be there bright and early Saturday morning for the race that was scheduled to start at 8 a.m. I took my laptop and worked late, but he got up at 6:00 and got ready. Since he'd already pre-registered, he went ahead and did his pre-run warmup mile near his mom's house so that he didn't have to fight the crowd at the park. Then he made the short drive over. When he arrived at the park gate at 7:32, there were trucks parked sideways across each gate entrance and guards were turning people away. "No entrance to the park after 7:30 a.m. NO Exceptions!"
Kevin came back to the house, disappointed and upset. We didn't have internet access so all the way home (1 1/2 hours) we wondered if that information had been on the website and we'd missed it. But no. When we got home, we searched the site and it is nowhere. Race starting at 8 a.m. is the only info listed.
By noon, Kevin had gotten over his disappointment for the most part, accepting that things happen and that it probably worked out for the best that he didn't run the race. He's already looking forward to the next event. But I've been thinking about it a lot since then, especially in light of his sermon last week. It's no fun when you're doing what you're supposed to be and someone changes the rules without telling you. That's a good thing about running the race God has set before us. We have the Bible to go by and if it's not in there, we won't be held accountable for it. We may get confused, we may wander off course, but God doesn't switch things on us at the last minute.
So get on your mark, get set, GO!
COMMENTS: Post a Comment
