Run for life

Toward the end of last week, Cate started talking about running in a local 5K. I didn’t want to discourage her from doing so, but I wasn’t sure how that would go for my 8-year-old girl who had never done anything like this. So the day before our favorite local 5K, I decided to run too. Y’all, I hadn’t run since the same race THE YEAR BEFORE.

Life House Care Center’s Run for Life is our favorite 5K because it’s our favorite cause. Life House helps women choose life for the babies growing inside them. Life House offers women counseling and resources to prepare them for motherhood or adoption and provides support to women who didn’t choose life in the past. Greg serves on the board and helps organize the run. We’ve given diapers, money, and even the crib we didn’t think we needed any more to this organization so they can help more women and babies.

So, if I’m going to run in a 5K, this is the one I would choose every time.

I told Cate about the course and how she should be careful not to start out too fast. She didn’t seem unsure – especially when her cousin and a friend from church were going to run too. I loved seeing her excitement about this.

She took off at the start – so fast I tried yelling her name to tell her to slow down. But she couldn’t hear me. So I just jogged in the pack behind her. I could see the edges of her pink shorts beneath her too-big T-shirt she’d gotten when we signed her up to run.

Cate ran and walked and ran some more. And I’m sure she talked the whole way. She followed the group of runners in front of her and glanced behind her toward me. She told me later about the people she met on certain stretches of the 3.1 miles.

I hadn’t run in a year, but I ran the first three-fourths of a mile before slowing to a walk for a while. Then I ran more. I chatted with an acquaintance who was running her first-ever 5K. I thought about these women who face crisis pregnancies but choose life anyway.

And it took me about 2.5 miles to get close to my daughter again. I cheered for her run the last stretch toward the finish line. And then I finished not too far behind her.

My son – who had run a much shorter kids Fun Run earlier in the morning and already declared his intention to run next year – met me at the finish line with a bottle of water. I don’t really like running, but there’s nothing like finishing.

I heard people cheering for me – even though I was among the slower people to finish – and imagined that’s like the great crowd of witnesses that encourages us in the race God has for us (Hebrews 12:1).

The race we’re called to run isn’t always easy. But it’s marked with such goodness. {Tweet that.}

Keeping up with my daughter wasn’t really an option for most of those 3.1 miles, but seeing her independence and excitement brought much joy to my momma heart. Finishing the race marked before me gave me a sense of accomplishment that will encourage me in other endeavors.

In that sense, running is much like faith. Let’s keep going.
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I wrote about this race last year too. 

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