THE RACE MARKED OUT FOR ME

With big thanks to Ralph Anderson
for helping me reflect on these verses.

¨And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us...¨  

Hebrews 12:1

I have been entrusted with a race.
It is uniquely mine.
No one else can run it for me.
No one is competing with me for it.
I go at my own pace...
The pace he has given me capacity for.
I run in my own style...
The style he has created me for.

Sometimes it doesn´t look pretty.
Races have many stages, many stations.
My race sometimes has detours.
Sometimes it has a roadblock.
At times there are others cheering me on
And other times there are long stretches of desert loneliness.

I like it best when I can see others running their race nearby.
We don´t follow the same course
Nor do we all finish at the same time...
Yet we are headed to the same finish line!
I love that.
We run unique races yet the same One calls us.

But some days I wish I could run someone else´s race.
Their´s may look easier or more fruitful or even more fun.
But then who would run my race?
The one I have been entrusted with?
No one else can run for me.
No one else can run it in the way that I can.
And He has created each of us to display certain aspects of Him.
We each carry that privilege, that trust.

I have been entrusted with a race.
I am not sure why mine has been riddled with so much sadness.
Yet there has also been fragrant & beautiful fruit.
I don´t want anyone to miss seeing His amazing grace in grief.
I don´t want anyone to miss seeing hope in loss.
I don´t want anyone to miss seeing His display of love on me.
So I keep on running.

I have run for Him throughout the years,
Through continents, creative kingdom work,
Through pouring into others, through blessing, through hardship.
There have been many curves & plenty of love-hills.
And it has sometimes been very, very hard.
Those are days to ¨consider Him,¨
Those are days to fix my eyes on the finish line,
Those are days to look for the Pioneer of Faith.
So that I´ll keep on running the race...
The one marked out for me.

I have been entrusted with a race.
It is uniquely mine.
No one else can run it for me.
I will run, walk and even crawl to get to that finish line.
I want others to see His uniqueness in me,
I want to hear ¨well done,¨
I want to see Him.
That is why I run
This race marked out for me.

¨Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.¨

Heb. 12:2

¨Consider him...so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.¨ 

Heb. 12:3

JUST YESTERDAY

Wasn´t it just yesterday I held you in my arms
and stared at wondrous newborn perfection?
Wasn´t it just yesterday we sang & giggled & danced,
read books & made huge messes in the kitchen?
Wasn´t it just yesterday your Dad pushed you on a swing in the plaza
higher than all the other kids?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

Wasn´t it just yesterday that we walked you to school
where you began to forge your thinking as your own?
Wasn´t it just yesterday you prayed so sincerely,
adored & bossed your little sister and avidly used two languages?
Wasn´t it only yesterday that you wanted to be baptized in Buenos Aires
before our big move to Casablanca?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

Wasn´t it just yesterday that you showed so much character in difficult transition
that I said to your father when you were only eight that you are braver than I?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that we arrived to Spain where you made lifelong friends,
welcomed your baby brother, explored music and art and spiritual community?
Wasn´t it just yesterday you developed increased passion in literature, languages &
far away places?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

Wasn´t it just yesterday that you shared secrets & laughter & a million memories,
merging your soul with your sister´s?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that conversations deepened with your Dad
as you travelled together?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that you could play endless games of cards with your brother
and then just as naturally engross him in topics way beyond his years?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

Wasn´t it just yesterday that you graduated from high school, planned out a gap year in France
and brought a spiritual revolution back to our home & to Málaga?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that I left you at your university with newfound international friends
and then watched you grow & flourish & extend your wings?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that you challenged the thinking & spirituality of others,
opened your home to anyone & increasingly grew in passion for the Middle East?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

Wasn´t it just yesterday that your beautiful personality was maturing,
a blending of deep, genuine, funny and interesting?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that our relationship began to turn peer
and you were teaching me things about my own self?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that you would invade the kitchen & cook up a foreign storm
complete with French music and a sexy, flamenco apron?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

Wasn´t it just yesterday that you packed your bags for six months in Lebanon,
embarking on your first real international solo job & research for your senior year?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that your Dad & I listened by skype to your adventures & insights,
wondering Who Is This Girl We Raised?!
Wasn´t it just yesterday that after many challenges, amazing relationships & learning
you came back home to the place & people you said always grounded you?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

And wasn´t it just yesterday that God suddenly put you on a much different journey
and through the shock you embraced His purposes for you?
Wasn´t it just yesterday we spent months fighting for your life, praying for miracles
and reveling in so much love poured out on us, an ordinary family?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that the moment of ultimate sacrifice came to us:
release you back to the One who loved you first?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

Wasn´t it just yesterday that we said good-bye, cried for months
and couldn´t figure out how to live without you?
Wasn´t it just yesterday that your family was thrust into grief
as your last chapter on earth was sealed & you went to your eternal home?
Wasn´t it just yesterday we wrestled & mourned & celebrated & remembered
all the while questioning: How could this be real?
Wasn´t it just yesterday?

No, it´s been three years.

Three years of wrestling & questions, of insights & doubts, of receiving comfort & feeling desolate.  Three years of tears & learning, tentatively comforting each other, pushing our way through fatigue & depression.
Three years of searching for the right healthy outlets, the true listeners, the acceptance of styles and paces of grief among us.
Three years of trying to balance honoring you while moving on.
Three years of trying to learn something very, very hard: How to do life without you?

It seems it will take us the rest of our lives.

For your life, your person & the memories formed are so near, so real, so precious.
They all feel like it was...just yesterday.

Wasn´t it just yesterday?

EVERY TEAR, A PRAYER

Every tear, a prayer
Every breath, a call
Every turning inward, a question.

Every step, courage
Every artistic outlet, release
Every remembrance, love-agony.

Every cut on the heart,
Every jarring to the bone,
Every aching of a muscle,
a joining with the Man of Sorrows.

Every word, every deed
Every emotion, every day
Every soul-battle, every laying down of the sword,
a search for The Presence.

Every day, an absence
Every week, a yearning
Every month, a counting,
a prisoner to eternity´s curtain.

O Eternal One who knows all things!
Can you not align all of these pains & dilemmas
under your shield and send them marching far from me?
Can you not change me without suffering?
You have an infinite number of tools!
Why is This Crushing the only thing
able to produce The Fragrance?

For I see that you love...The Fragrance.
the kind that only sacred tears produce
the kind that only searing emotions laid before The Shepherd produce
the kind that love & grief approaching the altar of a Savior produce
the kind that soul-questions brought to the Scarred Feet of a King produce.

But for now,
Every tear, a prayer.