A great accomplishment..........that takes lots of training!

This past weekend Tim ran his first Marathon!  This is just as he crossed the finish line.  All I can say is WOW!  We are all so proud of this great accomplishment.  Less than 1% of the population has ever completed a marathon.  And he did it well!  I can not imagine running for 26.2 miles.  It seems just impossible to me that people set out to do this in a few hours!  Our whole family came out to watch him cross the finish line.  Doug and Susie and Ken and I got there in plenty of time to  watch this happen.  Gwen and the kids had been sort of following Tim around the course to catch a glimpse of him at various mile markers.  Gwen had the kids make these signs and they loved cheering for daddy at each stop along the way.  And they were there when he crossed the finish line!

There is something so positive about the kids seeing their mom and dad finish these very difficult races.  The kids have watched as mom and dad have trained for months in preparation for these runs.  All of the kids have biked or ran or ridden in a stroller on some of these runs.  This was truly a family accomplishment.  One that the kids will not forget anytime soon.

Today when I was with the kids, we got to talking about the race and just how special it was to be there to see their Daddy complete this event.  Even Anna had many, many words to say about the race and just how good it was to see Daddy run.   This conversation ran into talking about the Bible verse "with God all things are possible".  It was an interesting discussion and they all concluded that I should be able to run a marathon because of this verse!  Of course we had a bit more talk about exactly what that Bible verse could mean.  It was good to explain that if God needed me to run a marathon, THEN he would make it possible!  It is an entirely different thing to just think I could set off and do the race without training and preparing for it, expecting God to take care of me.  I'm not sure how much of the discussion they actually understood, but it was good to talk with them about the actions required of us when we are seeking something from God.  

Today Anna wanted to look just like Lia.  So they both had pigtails in their hair.  They both had purple shirts and both wore "tutus" (skirts to the rest of the world).  Anna is suddenly so old.  She holds long conversations about so many subjects.  She remembers everything!  And she copies all of her older siblings!  Today she spent the better part of two hours riding her tricycle up and down the sidewalk.  She has mastered the art of the peddles!  Once she figured out that she could actually do this, she did not want to stop!  In followup to our conversation about the race, I reminded the kids that Anna was in training for the time that she would be able to ride a two wheel bike without training wheels!  All of this time riding her trike is helping her muscles and her balance.  Ellie and Zeke spent some time on their roller skates today and I reminded them that this is just practice for those roller blades that they would like to have.  

Yes, there is so much in life that takes lots of practice and often tedious training time.  Even as I sit here at my computer, typing away, I am reminded of just how hard it was at first to figure out a computer.  But after years and years of practice, it is easier now.  The thing is, tomorrow my computer will be out of date and then there will be another new thing.  And I will need to practice with that until I have mastered it.   It seems like with each new "update" things change and you have to get used to doing something a bit different.  But you just have plug along and soon it comes easy.  

We need these times of really extraordinary accomplishments to remind us all that we can set goals and meet them!   We can look beyond our day to day routine and shoot for that higher target.  I know that I am guilty of selling myself short.  I don't think that I can reach a goal, so I don't even try.  Tim's race reminded me that all you need is a plan and a set of steps to work towards a goal.  This was a message that I really needed to hear right now.  

Maybe you also have been thinking about an idea or goal or vision and it just seemed......impossible.  Today I believe that if you make that blueprint, if you take the time to build a solid plan, you can take small baby steps towards that goal.  Just like Anna on that trike, we can practice and practice at a much smaller scale than our completed project/goal/vision.  But we will get there!  All in due time!

Jesus, thank you for the reminder that there are steps that we need to take to reach those goals set before us.  Holy Spirit, help us all to see where we are right now, as a stepping stone towards that higher goal.  Give us grace to practice, faith to continue, and hope for the outcome.  Amen