{running}

i have always loathed and dreaded running.

i swore i'd never turn into a runner, not even to save my life...running has always seemed to me to be, in every way possible, pointless, painful, and overrated. 

what 'good' is running? go do fifty pushups a day instead, and at least then you'd have abs to show for all that work! 

plus, i can't run. I'm not the long-legged athletic type, and that, coupled with my disdain for running, has left me on the sidelines (or in the dust) a good many times during any and all activities which involved running. 

*cough* races *cough* soccer *cough* frisbee *cough* dodgeball *cough*... you get the idea.. 

if I recall correctly, the last time i actually 'ran' was....iGovern of last year and that was..umm..distinctly not pretty. 

But, just recently, the younger kids joined the track team, bringing the whole running thing back up for debate. 

'Asha, you should join the track team!' 

'Absolutely not. School/work/finals/i don't run, remember?' 

however, it's been a few weeks, and my younger brother and i have started taking walks in the evening around the neighborhood which somehow morphed into runs, and i am learning to see me how He sees me, how reality is, and I am learning to walk confident in Him, and i have discovered that I enjoy the wind in my face and my hair streaming behind me. 

so, this morning, i pull on leggings and an old t-shirt, track jacket because it is cold, and i join my siblings lining up to run 

i love it. 

i've officially joined the track team, and shocked myself with my own ability. 

i have always loudly declared that 'I don't run!' and now? I get to run three days a week, school is finishing up so i no longer have that worry, and i have been exercising and eating cleaner and Spring is upon us and I can run. 

Dad drops my brother and I off at the library on the way back, and we walk home, discussing the morning's events. 

he begins to speak, words pouring from his heart. 

'Sometimes, the only thing that keeps me going is the finish line. I get to a point where i think i can't go any further, but then i think, I've come so far, i can't give up now, so i close my eyes or look up, and i just run' 

He is wiser than he knows. those words sink inside me, linking with memorized verses which now come to the forefront of my brain. 

'not that i have already obtained this or am already made perfect...but one thing i do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, i press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus' (Phil 3:12-14)

'therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patience the race which is set before us, looking unto Jesus' 

fixing our eyes on Him. 

i forget what lies behind, i strain forward to what lies ahead, i keep my eyes fixed on Christ. 

so 'I'll be running the race'

....even while i wait.