Yesterday was the Twin Cities Marathon. This time I was on the sideline cheering for friends and relatives running, scuffling, wheel-chairing, limping, charging to their finish line.
I’ve run (read: scuffled) races myself, and other times like yesterday, I’ve cheered and prayed like crazy, feeling like part of a team with all humankind who are doing the best they can to run a good race.
When daughter Katy ran the Marine Corps Marathon a couple years ago I had the opportunity to be a cheerer.
I anxiously kept scanning the crowds of runners and praying for Katy, like the father of the prodigal son, willing him to come into view from afar off.
And when she came into sight I went crazy: IMG_8597
Is this a tiny bit of what our Heavenly Father feels as He watches us running our race of faith? Is He picking us out of the crowd, fully aware of the miles when it’s going to be harder to keep putting one foot in front of another?
Sometimes proudly pointing, like “That’s my boy! That’s my girl!”, and other times yelling, “You’ve got this because you’ve got Me!! You’re not alone!”
We are all runners. We are all cheerers.
We all have hard races to run and we need each other.
As cheerers we get to be the megaphone of God for a world full of weary marathoners.
I knew that miles 19-22 would be the hardest for Katy and so I got to jump on the course and run with her for that stretch. Just like the year when she ran alongside me, and John cheered, and friends prayed and supported.
Two years ago in D.C. when Katy came up that last tough hill into sight, approaching the Iwo Jima Memorial at the finish line I had no shame. I went crazy jumping, screaming, crying, waving.
And somehow above the voices of thousands of others, she heard, she turned, and found me. She smiled and waved and as she passed me and ran to the finish line there was this picture – the bright turquoise runner in the middle of the frame – tiny in the grand scheme of things, but unmistakeable to her earthly parents and her Heavenly Father.
And this is you too. Know that you have a heavenly Father who is crazy about you, cheering you on today.
