Faithful Friends
~Racing

Posted by Heidi Floyd on December 8th, 2010 in Blog | 2 Comments

The way I see it, there are three kinds of races that people run in their lives. If we find ourselves blessed enough to have a few people we love running beside us, it makes the trek much easier. Here is the breakdown:

1) The sprint. This is the life that ends too early; it’s someone who is just the best kind of person but seems to leave us much too soon. We run beside them and suddenly realize they are no longer with us. This is one of the most difficult races to participate in – not because we are the ones sprinting, but because we didn’t realize that the other person was in a sprint. We wanted them for the marathon! Sometimes this person stops the race at such a young age, it is heartbreaking. There are still others that just wanted to be running long enough to meet their grandchildren and couldn’t make it. The age doesn’t matter; if they have good hearts, it’s hard to see them stop sprinting.

2) The marathon. This is, for the most part, what almost everyone experiences. The long haul, the endless race. It never seems like it at the time, but this is really the best race option. Yes, you have to get up and run every day. Yes, sometimes you might stumble and fall. This race allows you the opportunity to be a distance runner; collecting friends, embracing loved ones, and taking it all in at a steady pace. Sometimes you get to see a lovely sunrise on your daily run through life, sometimes it rains a little bit. Either way, you get to have people around you to see it all with you, the good and the bad. I have a dear friend at my church who is in her late 70’s, and she is the perfect marathon runner. Bumps in the road? Yes, she’s had them. Nonetheless, she gets up every day with a smile, knowing that she has another day of running ahead of her. What a blessing it is to run next to her.

3) The obstacle course. Yep, this one’s a doozy. I’m totally accepting of the marathon, you know the repetition and struggles of everyday running. When you wake up one day and realize that someone has placed a high hurdle in your path- or several- it’s tough to get the shoes on and out the door. Some days, it feels like you can’t even see the track due to the impediments facing you. HOW HOW HOW on earth am I to handle this, no one can! You go out anyway, in the rain (of course) and your shoelace breaks (of course) and you hurt your knees on every hurdle (of course). Then you stop to pick yourself up and see that this whole time, some dear friend has been right beside you the whole way. Silent but steady, all you need to know is that one person sees your struggles and cares. God bless all of our friends who help us during those races, and with smiling encouragement.

Thank God that we sometimes get to be the one smiling encouragingly.
A big “thank you” to every girl out there who knows how to be a running buddy.