B.E.S.T. 5K

The awaited moment arrived yesterday as I competed against my pastor in the 5K here in Sidney. My pastor is a runner, about twice my age and about 12 inches taller than me. So a couple months ago I gave him a registration form and the competion was soon to ensue. At church I had to laugh as he talked about it and mentioned several times that he was thought that I would beat him. However, the one who was nervous was me! Running on the treadmill this week to get ready I got nervous thinking about competing against him. Then Friday night arrives and I feel sick! Yikes. So people were praying that I would feel better and praise the Lord, I did. I went to bed early- woke up at 4:30 AM- hydrated myself some more, took another Echincia and went back to bed. Donning my BEST 5K T-shirt and placing my safety pins on my beloved #3 running tag, I read some running verses from the Bible. There are actually more running verses than I thought. The one I focused on was Hebrews 12:1- which states: "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." My prayer was that we would run together for the Lord's glory. Truly I wasn't praying the day of the race- let me beat Pastor Fred! So I parked at Tawawa Park and found the people from my church. As we lined up to get ready for the race, Pastor Fred stationed himself next to me. I wanted to run without focusing on his position. As the buzzer went off and the race began, off I went. Listening to my Shuffle I-Pod, I heard this heavy breathing behind me- and knowing that the good runner does not look back my gaze was fixed straight ahead. At one mile, Pastor Fred and I ran together. Looking back it brought back memories of an analogy a woman had likened when she was dating her now husband- that she was running for Jesus and looked over and he was too. Now of course, Pastor Fred is married and I'm single-so that's not what I am implying, but a good spiritual real example. It was neat as about half way through we both were fatiguing- Pastor Fred started quoting Scripture- that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. That all things work together for our good- and that good comes from the word prothesis- to restore. And I spoke of the verse that I had read that day- Hebrews 12:1. Very encouraging! He went ahead for a little bit, and I was starting to get tired. Then we were back together, but at the last tenth- Pastor Fred looked into the sky and boom- there he went. I had no more gusto- so he beat me by about 5 seconds. However I did come in 1st for my age and 3rd overall female! So, next year, perhaps I can beat my pastor :)