Southern Winds

Lots of really, really good things come out of the south. Lots. Excellent food. Excellent people. Really good, down home people that would give you the shirt off their back in lots of cases. Just lots of goodness. There’s a particular church that I’m especially fond of that just happens to reside in the south. Great, great church that is doing amazing things for the kingdom. Starts with the pastor (or reverend as my kids like to call him), his family and absolutely trickles down to the folks that call that church home. I spent the first 12 years of my life in the south. Spent 5 of probably the most important years of my life fairly recently down south. Florida. North Carolina. Great times and great memories. Probably love to go back someday. But today? We’re here and full in. Yesterday was unseasonably cool here. Winds straight out of the north. Cold winds. Had to sit through an early morning soccer game. Just crazy cold winds for this time of year. But not today. Today the winds were out of the south and they couldn’t have been nicer. I mean, it was a little cool, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. So where am I going with this? And what is the significance of the weather report? Well it is very significant. At least it was to me. Especially from about 9:50 CST this morning until approximately 11:30 or so. I was inspired not long ago to run a half marathon. The inspiration just happens to have been the above mentioned reverend. So wind speed is pretty important when considering the day and time to run. For me anyway. Nothing worse than running headlong into a cold north wind on a run. Headlong into any wind for that matter. But the cold north wind? Forget it man. Not happening. So since I was inspired by a great friend from Charlotte to do this thing, I had to just buckle down and make it happen. Today.

I’d been semi-planning for some time now. Trying to get my road legs built up. I run on a treadmill often. Most everyday. But running on a treadmill is not the way to train for a half marathon. Conditioning is fine, but the old legs take a beating on the roads, so it’s a different ballgame. So this was going to be the day. I was a bit worried yesterday with the winds. But the forecast today was for partly cloudy and winds at 10-15 mph out of the south. Since the majority of my run was in a northerly direction, things seemed to be set up pretty nicely. So I could bore people with even more details of the actual run, but I won’t. I will say that it was pretty interesting in many ways. Very metaphorical at times. Struggling to get up some of the steeper hills (yes we do have hills in Nebraska…not many, but they seem to be longer and steeper on a long run). Coasting down the other side. Long straight-aways. All things that resemble so many of life’s challenges and pitfalls, as well as the victories. Had lots of cranking music bouncing around the old noggin and did lots of praying. As much as you can in between gasping breaths!

So I planned on getting downtown just before Robin and the other folks who were coming to help. But the winds pushed me in a half hour early. Nice tailwind! I couldn’t believe it. The guys downtown thought I was crazy. They might be on to something. I very well could be. But it’s something I wanted to do. A bucket list sort of thing maybe. Lots of jokes about how they make medications for runners. They have things called cars with wheels that would have gotten me downtown much quicker and with much less exertion. Stuff like that. All good natured. It was funny, because my adrenaline was sky high when I arrived. And I was a full half hour early. So it gave me time to just chat with people in a much more relaxed environment. No set up. No making sure everybody was taken care of. Just a relaxed time for hanging out. And when I got there at 11:30, there was already a huge crowd lining up. Just an amazing opportunity to hang out and share a little with whoever. And I got so many chances to be so intentional about faith things today. It was so cool. I have to admit, by the time we were loading up the trailer, I was fading fast. But it was so worth it. And last week when I was doing a partial training run, an idea popped into my head. A marathon to benefit our friends. Or in my case, a half marathon. The Half for the Homeless. Or something like that. A run that could traverse 2 counties, involve lots of people and raise lots of awareness. And our friends could be the recipients of whatever came of it. I have high hopes that it could be a real blessing. As long as He wants it to happen. As I ran this morning, I had lots of thoughts around this idea. I pray it was God’s idea and He just pushed it off on me. Obviously, if it’s in the Plan, it’ll happen. I pray it’s in the Plan. :)

So in all of it, I’m reminded of one of my favorite verses.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. ~1 Corinthians 9:24

Now obviously, "all the runners" this morning consisted of me. So I did in fact get the prize. And I did in fact have those great winds out of the south at my back. But the runners in this thing we do each week are all running with great abandon. So many people from so many backrounds. And I’m so blessed to be a small part of it. I simply want to cross the real finish line in such a way as to earn the real prize. Not matter if I’m bloodied and bruised along the way. In fact, I hope that does happen. Because my hope is that I never just go through the motions. That as I meet each week with our friends that there is a genuine desire to be there. A genuine desire for change. A genuine desire for southern winds at my back and an eye on the prize.

Peace, have a great and blessed week and make a difference.

…it matters to that one… :)