Seth Godin says, "All of us struggle when our identity doesn’t match the reality of the world around us. In the face of that confusion, it’s tempting to abandon possibility and to walk away from an opportunity simply because it doesn’t resonate with the person we are in this moment."
Godin's words made me think of my running journey. Years ago, I hesitated to take up running. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't see a runner. I wasn't built like one. I didn't feel like one. And really, looking at the guy in the mirror - nothing about him seemed the least bit interested in becoming one. But still, because a lot of friends were doing it - as well as people who I thought could become my friends - I gave it a try. When I did, I ultimately became someone new. I figure there's two ways of looking at life. One is to believe we can ultimately become who we are made to be. The other is to believe life is always about exploring who we can become. More and more these days, I believe the latter. Because the moment we start believing it's possible to become some ultimate picture of ourselves, it's possible to believe we're already there. And that's the day we stop trying new things. That's the day we stop believing in the possibility of new activities or hobbies. We stop believing in the possibility of a new job. We stop believing in the possibility of new people in our lives. Don't get me wrong, I believe anything can become a fixture in our lives - some things we NEED as fixtures to our identities. I just don't believe anything should become such a fixture to our identities that we stop considering the possibility of becoming someone new. I'm no longer a big believer in "this is who I am." I'm a much bigger believer in "I'm fired up to discover who I can become." Beth Moore says, "if God put you there, that soil is fertile." I think I've spent a lot of time in my life examining the soil. Often, I decided this isn't the right soil to try something new in - I'm just going to sit here in the middle of this field and wait and pray that God puts me in a new field. A new field with more fertile soil. I guess lately I've been hearing God say, this IS your field, and trust me, that soil IS fertile. So get up and start growing. We're not always in a field that matches our picture of life. That doesn't always mean it's time to abandon the field. Sometimes it means it's time to try something new.
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Yesterday was a day of reflection for me.
I'd originally scheduled the day off for my birthday. Then I told my boss, never mind - I don't have big plans - why waste a vacation day. But by late afternoon - I realized I'd done nothing but sit - and reflect - and do exactly NOTHING work related. Hey boss, it's me again. We'd better count that as a vacation day after all ?♂️. Yesterday was a perfect storm for someone prone to reflecting. Nothing makes you do a more thorough accounting of life than birthdays and death. Yesterday had both in my world. My friend Melissa passed away yesterday. I spent a lot of the day reading posts and messages from hundreds of people she'd impacted. People who'd had interactions with her that left lasting impressions. Melissa, it became clear, had a way of marching into people's lives and time-stamping a memory on a heart that would never fade. At the same time, I had friends reaching out to me with birthday wishes. Many of them with pictures and memories of interactions we'd had over the years. Interactions that in many ways had left memories time-stamped on their hearts as well. Birthdays and death both have this power to make us believe that time flies - that life is short. Maybe it does. Maybe it is. But I went to bed last night summarizing my day of reflection with this belief: Time flies. But it doesn't have to leave without us. My friend Melissa - she is gone. But that girl is literally time-stamped on hearts all over this country. She has days and weeks and months dating back decades that she simply owns in people's hearts. In many ways, she tied a moment of time to people's hearts and said, time - you stay right here. You're not leaving without me. I think I wake up today more committed than ever to do that - to tie moments of time to people's hearts. Moments that years from now will leave people standing, maybe on a trail out in the middle of nowhere, holding a piece of time like a balloon, shouting ha! You thought you got away from me time - but I held on to a piece of you. The biggest problem with time isn't that it flies like a plane. The biggest problem with time is it can disguise itself as a snail - a creature that crawls along in no hurry at all, seemingly never reaching its destination. The biggest problem with time isn't that the tomorrows come all too quickly. The biggest problem with time is that it can lure us into believing that tomorrows will always come. The reality is tomorrows don't always come. Time does reach its final destination. The real question is how many time-stamps will we leave behind. Here's the thing - these time-stamps - they don't have to be 'save the world' gestures to leave a stamp. Many friends yesterday were recalling conversations, timely messages, a meal or a run together. Some of them recalled simply witnessing someone doing something inspirational. I had a friend tell me this yesterday - "This last year has definitely taught me quality is so much better than quantity." I fear that some days I'm a quantity collector. How many friends do I have? How much money do I have? How many miles have I run? How many years left until I can retire? I fear some days me and maybe we are too into the numbers in life. But quality - quality is about the stories. Quality is the narrative in life. It's possible to have 2000 friends in this world who don't have a single time-stamped story to tell about that friendship on your birthday or when you pass on. It's possible to run 2000 miles in a year, yet not have a meaningful story to tell about those miles other than I did it. It's possible to have 2000 zillion dollars in the bank yet not have a meaningful experience to share about any one of those dollars. Maybe that's when time flies - when we are collecting numbers and not stories. I don't know - I just know today I'm a little more committed to time-stamping something on your heart. Today, more than yesterday, I want your reading this article to tie this moment in time to your heart more than I want you to be the 20th or 50th or 100th person to hit the like button. And today, more than yesterday, I want you to go time-stamp something on someone else's heart. Time flies. But it doesn't have to leave without us. We can keep a piece of time. As time flies off, we can always make time feel like it rushed off and left something behind. Something tells me that's how time was designed to feel. 4/27/2021 0 Comments God Says I'll embrace those flawsI was speaking to a youth group once. On a chalkboard I wrote the first year of every decade I've ever been alive.
0 10 20 30 40 50 Then I told them, if God gave me a magic eraser, and let me walk up to that chalkboard and erase the decade I most wanted to just disappear from my life - and then like magic everything associated that decade would poof into the air like it had never happened - oh, I told them - as I stood there erasing the number 20 - the decade of my twenties would be gone forever. So. Loooong. Gone.... But then, I told them, what I've come to learn is, that if God could put a great big smiley face - maybe a heart emoji or two - next to the decade on that chalkboard he wanted to most keep in my life, the decade he was going to work his own magic with, well he'd put that smiley face and those hearts right beside the number 20. Oh how God loves that decade of my twenties. I'm reminding myself of that this morning. As I sit here reflecting on another birthday, and looking back on my most recent trip around the sun, I'm tempted to look for that eraser again. This past year has been a tough one. But as I stand here poised to attack that chalkboard with my eraser, I can picture God standing there armed and ready with his smiley face and those heart emojis. He's thinking, haven't we been here before... I spent the decade of my twenties hiding from my flaws. Hiding behind them with unhealthy habits and hangups and addictions. And that whole time, God was in the background scooping them up, saying I'll embrace those. I'm going to build something out of those. I dare say that he did. Most of my work these days is built on that decade. Most of what I write comes from a heart that formed in that decade - it's the foundation of the compassion I try to have for every person. The more flaws you discover in your own life the easier it is to feel the pain of others wrestling with theirs. And there is this -most of my love for God comes from standing back on a daily basis and seeing how beautifully he re-wrote what I tried to erase. This past year was tough - but I think there's one thing that separates this past year from that decade of my twenties. This past year, I made a lot less effort to hide my flaws. In fact, in many cases, I just let them all hang out there. Maybe because of what I've learned looking back on that decade of my twenties, I'm trying to beat God to the punch. Instead of waiting for him to work a miracle out of flaws I'm trying to hide, I'm saying here they are God. This is me. I'm damaged and broken and flawed, but I know you've got some plan for that. Can I at least help you with it? This morning, in my prayer, my first words were thank you for another year. I said thank you for keeping that eraser out of my hand, and thank you for the smiley face and the hearts. Because I know on this first day of this next trip around the sun, just as sure as I'm sitting here writing, one day I'll be talking to a group of people and I'm going to tell them about a year in my life when I wanted to pull out the eraser. And God stopped me. He said oh no, this is good stuff, I'm going to embrace these flaws, we're going to build something beautiful out of this. I have no idea what that will be, only that it WILL be. Because that is who God has been in my life. He's been a God who has always loved me in the flaws. Given how difficult it is for us humans to love one another in each others' flaws, that makes God's love pretty special. Clearly one of a kind. It's a love that makes it easier to see the value in every number on the chalkboard. It makes it easier to want to keep writing, not erasing. Last night, I gathered online with a few dozen friends to reflect about the life of my friend Melissa, who is in hospice care. Friends from all over the country. Friends, for the most part, who'd had limited interaction with the friend we were reflecting about.
There were a lot of tears. There were stories. And in the air of this online room - there was an unmistakable and deep admiration. I reflected on that when I went to bed. What was it about her that made so many people love her, made so many people want to gather and sit together and share. We talked about Melissa for an hour and a half. If I were to put one theme to the stories - a theme to what it was about Melissa that people will hold on to - maybe even work a little harder to make a quality about themselves other people will admire in them - it was the way Melissa joyfully pursued giving her best to every day. It's true. Most of us know Melissa from our running community. None of us ever saw Melissa run in the 'traditional' sense of the word; Melissa has spent most of her life in a wheelchair. But all of us have seen Melissa wheeling her chair through a street crowded with 'traditional' runners - looking like she belonged - often with the biggest smile of them all that she was out there competing. I think the secret to that smile was Melissa had this capacity to focus on what she was doing in the moment - on what she COULD do - and not on what wasn't possible. Melissa was always so focused on doing the best she could with her day that she refused to waste energy worrying about what she couldn't do with it. I think that's where the admiration comes in. I look at Melissa and realize I don't have nearly has many things in my life to think about when it comes to considering what it is I can't do. And yet, I'm afraid, there are probably a lot of days that I see more obstacles in my life than Melissa ever saw in hers. There are too many days, I think, that I'm frowning about what I don't have or what I can't do. Those are days - obviously - not spent joyfully doing the best I can with my day. Alexi Pappas says, "What is crucial is to give one hundred percent of what you have every day, whether it's one hundred percent of crap or one hundred percent of gold." I think too often I sit around waiting for the gold days to come along - days that will make it easier for me to give it all. When the reality is, some days, if not MANY days, there is some crap. Maybe the key to smiling while we give our best is to shovel the crap aside and give our best anyways. One thing that will always strike me about Melissa? From the the outside looking in at her life, it looked like she had to deal with a lot of crap. But you know the one thing that NEVER made it look like Melissa was dealing with a lot of crap - Melissa. I think that's what happens when you get to watch someone who is joyfully giving her best to every day. It makes it really difficult to see if they are dealing with crap or gold. I want to be more like that. Based on our conversations last night, I think a lot of people want to be more like that. The good news is we don't have to wait around to start. There is today. And today will have crap or gold or both. Who knows. The only thing we truly control is how much of ourselves we give to this day. I went to bed last night feeling like people deeply admire someone who gives it all. I know I do.... 4/25/2021 0 Comments don't worry about being inspiring. Worry about doing what god has given you to doIn the summer of 2016, I ran the Patrick Henry Half Marathon. Well - I ran the first ten miles of it. Then race officials pulled me off the course because I couldn't meet the cutoff time.
One of the more comforting voices in my disappointment that day was my friend Melissa Betkowski Platt's. Melissa also ran the race that day. And finished. In a wheelchair. Melissa was born with a condition called spina bifida. The only running she's ever done has been in a wheelchair. But the running she's done in that wheelchair, it's inspired thousands of people like me to give it our all in everything we do. In running, certainly - but moreso in life. So that next summer, when I lined up to tackle that race again, determined to get redemption - and ultimately GET it - there was no more meaningful "I'm proud of you" than my friend Melissa's. There's no question, my running journey has brought me new strength and a much needed path to healing. Being able to see life through the eyes of my friend Melissa has been a huge part of that. So today, I'm sad. My friend Melissa has been battling cancer this past year. This weekend she is under hospice care; it appears that battle is about to end - so I'm sad. The Sunday after that 2017 Patrick Henry Half Marathon, I'd arranged to meet Melissa and her husband Doug at their hotel to interview Melissa for a podcast I was doing at the time. I'd been sick for a couple of weeks leading up to that race. Then the race itself left me feeling tired. So I didn't feel like doing that interview like we planned. I started thinking of excuses to use to get out of it. But God would have none of it. He would not let me come up with an excuse that felt good enough to call Melissa and say let's do this another time. God made it clear to me - that day WAS the time. This morning, I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful I have that conversation recorded. To always go back to and listen to. When I do, there's one part of that conversation that will always speak to me. I'd suggested to Melissa in our interview that she was inspiring. Melissa would have none of it. She didn't want to be called inspiring. In her eyes, she told me, she was only doing what God had given her the ability to do. This God that Melissa and I love. I don't get him some days, I confess that. I dearly love him - but I don't get him. I don't get why our friends have to die. I don't get why so many people will have to hurt and cry. I don't get why people who are so breath-takingly strong have to have their last breaths stolen from them by a disease. I don't get it. But I know this. Most of us who know Melissa, we woud have never met her if it hadn't been for the death of Meg Cross Menzies. It's Meg's death that ultimately brought together the running family that is hurting for Melissa today - and for her husband - and the family that is rallying around them both to fight for and with them. I don't get my God some days, but I have come to know in God's eyes death always means new life. New life doesn't always feel good to us - it hurts - but miracles happen in the midst of new life. I know that's what Melissa would be saying to me right now. You have new life today - embrace it. Don't worry about being inspiring, worry about doing what God has given you the ability to do. I'm praying for my friend Melissa, her husband Doug, and the countless friends Melissa has made and touched along the way - friends I know who are deeply hurting. 4/23/2021 0 Comments Surrounding yourself with 'no' people is the quickest way to becoming a 'no' personA friend of mine shared this quote from Judith Bright yesterday:
"Be mindful of the things that nag, for those are the things of destiny." Last week, I was having a conversation with a friend about writing books. I told her there are a lot of books I want to write, but there is only one I need to write. It's a book that's been on my mind a long time. I wake up in the night with it 'nagging' at me. For a lot of reasons, it's a hard book to write. So I stall. I wait for just the magical time to write it to magically appear. In the end though, I know I can't stall away the reality that writing it is a door to destiny. It's a roadblock standing in the way of more destiny. My friend offered encouragement. But it was three simple words in that hit me the hardest. She said, "don't say no." I was sitting in the parking lot of the local pizza place when I read those words - don't say no. I was caught off guard by how such a simple sentence could evoke such emotion. How 'don't say no' could suddenly have 'YES' stirring in me like a volcano ready to erupt. Don't say no. It can make all the difference - who you share your naggings with. A few years ago, I mentioned to a friend the idea of running my first ultra - The Georgia Jewel. A few minutes later she emailed me her registration confirmation for the race. I think she decided to skip 'don't say no' and jumped right to 'heck yes.' For two years, that race said no to me. I couldn't get it done. But last year, on my third attempt, fueled in large part by that email, I finally got a yes out of the race that seemed determined to convince me no was the right answer. In many ways, we are built to believe 'no' about ourselves. We are built to be hesitant and skeptical and maybe even fearful of what we can do - what we can become. It's like no lives on the edge of our tongue, constantly begging us for a chance to come out and show off and hold us back from the world. And it does so in such a noble way, like it's trying to protect us or something. And you know what that 'no' living on the edge of our tongue loves most - it loves the people in our lives that tell us no. That 'no' loves having allies. Sitting in that pizza parking lot, reading those words - 'don't say no' - I think that's why it created quite a stir in me. Our entire being feels a fight coming on when it hears those words. The 'no' living on the edge of our tongue, when it hears don't say no, it clenches its fists and let's out a big whistle to desperately gather the no people in our lives. "Hurry you all, come quick, he's about to say yes to a nagging." It can make all the difference who you share your naggings with. So when you hear that whistle, run. Run the other way and let out your own whistle. Whistle for the yes people in your life. Yes is your destiny, not no..... 4/22/2021 0 Comments your mercies are new todayI was driving the other day when I heard the song 'New Today' by Micah Tyler. I'd heard it before, but this day I heard it in a deeply personal way.
I heard it in a way that sounded like it was personal to the singer. I heard it in a way that made it feel personal to me. When I got home, I researched the back story to the song. Several years ago, Micah Tyler's grandmother was battling blood cancer. He describes that as a challenging time. Then, in the middle of it, he lost his house to Hurricane Harvey. And just when the recovery from that loss seemed possible - maybe life was finally turning in his favor - his younger brother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. After reading that back story, the song became even more powerful to me. In the chorus of the song, when you hear Tyler passionately crying out the words to that chorus, you hear a man singing about a beautiful discovery: Your mercies are new today Your mercies are new today I can rest on Your shoulders There is grace to start over Your mercies are new today That back story has me listening to this song a lot lately. Because the truth is, I'm battling my own struggles. I think we all are. We've had this pandemic upend our lives for over a year. In the middle of it, I'm going through a marriage breakup. Both of my jobs look totally different in a virtual world - a difference that often makes them less fulfilling; more challenging. On top of that - running - which has always helped me feel connected to people, has become a sport that is largely disconnected from people in this virtual world. I say all that for a couple of reasons. To say I get you Micah Tyler. And to say my guess is you get Micah Tyler too. Our struggles aren't about comparison - a struggle is a struggle. If you have one it's real. It doesn't matter if on paper it appears to be more than or less than someone else's struggle. A struggle is a struggle. When I think of the biggest challenge of my struggles - for me - the opening words in Tyler's song speak to me: I've been hard on myself lately Every morning I feel the weight When it's hard to just get out of bed Tell my heart, 'cause sometimes I forget That Your mercies are new today "Every morning I feel the weight"....... In the bible, in the book of Lamentations, God reminds us: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. In this song, Micah Tyler is really singing out loud to God, asking him: remind me of your faithfulness God. Remind me that every day is a new day. Remind me that I don't need to be strong enough to face this day - you ARE my strength. I simply need me to rise. I simply need to get out of this bed and tackle this day. The beautiful part about this song? Micah Tyler is on the other side of those struggles singing about the lessons learned. He isn't singing a song hoping there is truth in God's promise of new mercies every day. He's singing from a place of having experienced that truth. When I find myself singing along with this song these days - that's the place I'm singing it from as well. Every day I sing it is a day God has showed up with new mercies. Every day I sing it - in spite of the weight, I'm up writing and tackling the morning in the midst of new and beautiful and life-giving mercies. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the chance to remind you too, that no matter how heavy that weight, it IS a new day and there ARE new mercies. There IS grace to start over - each and every day. There is hope in that, and I'm here to tell you, there is truth in that. I had a zoom meeting with my work team today.
Actually - I'll correct myself - this is more appropriately called my work 'family'. Early in the call, my boss was talking about a meeting she'd had this morning. She told us she shared a picture of our team at the end of the meeting. Someone commented that we are a diverse team. We are diverse. We have several people of color on the team, including my boss. We have old timers and new timers. We have a little bit of everything. Most of us have been together many years. We had a couple of consultants on the call who've been working with us on a project. And the truth is, we've adopted them as family too. I think they could sense some of the emotional toll yesterday's Derek Chauvin verdict had taken on the team, and one of them asked if we wanted to process it for a bit. So we did. You know, I've said zoom calls take away from the personal connection we feel when we're actually in a room together. But today, even through a screen, I couldn't have felt any closer to my team. Because as one after the other the team talked about how they were feeling, you could look into the eyes and into the hearts of all of them at once. Every face - every look of fright and frustration and hurt - and thanks to yesterday's verdict, a few faint glimpses of hope - they were all collapsing through the screen and onto me at once. Uncomfortably so... I wanted to look away from my friends of color, but I couldn't. As I watched them talk and I watched them listen - it all hit me. The emotions overwhelmed me. And as I took my turn to talk, the tears came. I told the team how blessed I was. That over five years ago when I joined this family, I would never have argued that racism isn't real; intellectually I knew it was at some level. But it's a very different thing when you intellectually know something and when you watch people you love hurting because of that thing you know. Over and over and over the past several years - I've witnessed my work family hurt because of something I and many others have owned up to, but not deeply felt. In my tears today, I deeply felt it. In my tears today, I realized something. I've experienced a ton of hurt the last few years. And whether someone believes it was for right or wrong reasons, whether people believe the hurt was real or not, I still experienced that hurt. It was and forever will be real. And when I looked at my work family today, it struck me. It struck me with the kind of violence so many of them have experienced or lived constantly threatened by all their lives. They don't care what I think about racism. What they want, what so many people of color want, they just want to stop hurting. I think it's time we all start considering the pain too many people around us are experiencing. It's time for us to get beyond the debates about right or wrong or real or not and start letting some faces stare at us. Because I'm pretty sure that you and others, like me, you've experienced enough pain to know pain isn't debatable. Oh, if we get close enough and look hard enough, we recognize pain. That's why some days, I think we're afraid to get close enough to see that pain in our friends' and in our work family's eyes ... Today, I realized more than ever why the last year or so I've fought harder than I ever have in my work and in my personal life to make sure we all get equal treatment in this world. And why sadly, most of my life, I could have cared less about that equality. It's because when you start to feel someone else's pain, you're far more driven to do something about it than you are when you simply snarl at the source of it. Seeing someone wronged - it's easy to say, that's life. Seeing someone hurting - especially someone you care about - well for me, there's just nothing easy about that one. Especially if you've ever wanted to stop hurting. 4/21/2021 0 Comments trying to please the masses interferes with our need to make something that mattersLast night, I had dinner with my sons. I asked my 8th grader, Elliott, how track practice was going. The middle school doesn't have track this year because of COVID, so the 8th graders are running with the high school team.
Elliott gave me his pre-programmed answer to every question I ever ask: "good." Some days I wish my world was as pre-programmed good as he leads me to believe his is every minute of every day..... But I pressed on. I asked him if there were any older kids who were making the young guys feel like they belong there. He immediately told me about a 10th grader who has been working with him. He said this kid was on the 8th grade basketball team when Elliott was a 6th grader trying out for the team. This kid took a special interest in him back then - he remembered Elliott - and so he was taking an interest in him now. The power in that answer was how quickly Elliott could identify one person in response to my question. I think some days we ourselves get so caught up in trying to please the masses that we can forget just how powerful it can be to impact one person. Seth Godin says, "the practice demands that we seek to make an impact on someone, not everyone." I think I'm guilty at times of letting my desire to impact and/or please everyone stand in my way of impacting someone. I've talked before about how I used to write based on what I thought the most people would read. And I've written a few things that a lot of people did read. I've found, though, that a lot of people reading something I've written that didn't come from the heart - that doesn't feel as fulfilling as writing something that one person says after reading it, "I needed that today." Some days I forget that lesson. Some days I still long to be a crowd pleaser. I think we've all been a part of crowds before. I think we've all clapped and screamed for the entertainers pleasing the masses - and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Until, maybe, the goal becomes to always BE that crowd pleaser. Because maybe that's when we start to lose sight of the power of someone being asked if there's anyone out there making them feel like they belong, making an impact on them, and without hesitation - they respond that person is you. A someone who may have forgotten most of the sold out concerts they've ever been to - remembers you. Your day is calling you to make an impact on someone. Not everyone. Today, don't let your desire to please the masses interfere with your ability to make something that matters. Maybe it will only matter to one person - but I assure you - when that one person is your kid - that's a big daggone deal! A lot of my struggles have happened in the hallway of life.
They've happened as I've roamed up and down that hallway, looking and wondering what door God was going to open. They've happened as I've sat on a floor in that same hallway - sulking and sad and impatient - dear God, when on earth are you going to open one of these doors. And I suppose there are times I've stormed back out of one or two of those doors, into the hallway, angry, because God mistakenly opened the wrong door. As I'm reading that this morning, and writing, it occurs to me all of those struggles come about because I have some expectations around the doors in life that I want opened. When my buddy Solomon and I were running in the woods all day Saturday, more than once we commented about the peace. We talked about how easy it is, in spite of the challenge of the experience, to be out on the trails, away from the noise. The hallway seemed easier in the woods. This morning, though, I'm wondering if I misunderstood those woods and that peace. Maybe that peace wasn't because I was suddenly less aware of the doors - maybe the peace was because I'd actually walked through a door. Registering for that race was very last minute. In many ways, doing so was inexplicable. Registering didn't look or feel like a door at the time. But I sure charged through the process like I'd just picked door number three on Let's Make a Deal, convinced there was a new Chevy Silverado behind it. I experienced a lot out on those trails Saturday. Saturday trail experiences are now forever memories. Memories that did and will continue to shape me. In sharing the story of that race, I had people say our trail experience inspired them. In addition, folks reacted to the story in ways that also inspired me. I can't help but ponder this morning - does God even have hallways? Maybe hallways are OUR creation - spaces we create to wait until we see just the right doors open in our lives. And maybe because in our minds we're always waiting for the perfect door, we get good at believing we're in the hallway killing time when we've actually walked through an open door. A door God was happy to see us pass through. Too often we associate doors with rooms. We dream of God opening the perfect door to the perfect room where we'll settle in and forever live life in peace and contentment. Maybe God doesn't see it that way. Maybe God sees life as one big hallway. There are no rooms. Every door is simply an opening to the next hallway and to the next door. Behind every one of which God is waiting on us. Maybe we're never to be sad or mad or impatient in that hallway, we're simply made to keep moving - walking or running or crawling -moving through that next door. We move through those hallways praising God the whole way, because we know in his eyes there is very little difference - if any - between the hallway and the door. It's all life. And it's always up to us whether we walk through a door or not. I've missed that point for a large part of my life. I've missed it while I've been waiting in a hallway for God to open the perfect door. It's Monday. No waiting for doors to open. It's the perfect day to choose to walk down the hallway and through the door. And then through the next one.... |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
November 2024
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |