April 16, 2013

Boston's Finish Line

Evil.  It exists in our world, explodes in random places.  This year's marathon in Boston was cut short due to evil.  I think of all the dreams people were fulfilling as they ran their race and how it turned so quickly to tragedy.  My heart is sickened to know that for two people their race here on earth ended this week.  I think of all the people affected by the chaos, stopped while on their final stretch, told to go home, to wait.
I reflect as well on my own marathons, wondering how that must have felt.  It is intensely emotional to train for months and complete a marathon.  I would have been confused.  I would have been hurt.  I also would not have cared about the race when I heard.  I think of my last time I recorded.  I was at 3:31:57.  This seems to have been before the time recorded the blast hit first for the Boston Marathon.  The blast may have been when I crossed, had I run a difficult race with the same experience as I had last.  This last marathon was a slow and painful race for me.  Then I reflect on the kind of race people were having that  morning.  Some had good races, some bonked.  Some achieved a PR.  Some did not finish.  That day a certain fate awaited runners.  Some had been stopped just as they hit that painful last 5 km, when one digs deep to run their best despite having nothing left.  I think about how that may have dictated their fate with those explosions.  Being at the wrong place at the wrong time, one can only speculate.  I would have felt guilty had my family been subject to a blast because I bonked or because I was PRing.  Or because I ran at all. It seems that this terror attack was meant not for the runners but for those who cheer them on, a densely populated and highly visible event.  Its confusing, and twisted.
Let me just clarify to those who went for their dreams that morning:  it is not your fault.  No one could have predicted this.  Only the sick bastards who planned mayhem are responsible for this tragedy.  You ran and you trained.  Hard. 
More long term, how will it feel to get on a course again to run another, perhaps this race again?  I imagine the road to heal this wound will be long.  But that is what runners do.  They are in it for the long haul.  God has given them longevity, perspective, reflection and strength.  We understand our limitations, we push ourselves.  We are conscious of recovery.  I stand with my brothers and sisters, their families and friends and those who support each runner and say that this tragedy will not stop us.  We hurt with them and it was evil and wrong, but evil and wrong will not stop us either.  I look to the place where evil and wrong were conquered.  It was not a place of might and anger.  It was the place my savior, Jesus died on a viscous slab of wood, by choice, to vanquish death and wrongdoing.  He can change the most evil of hearts, he can heal the most wounded of souls.  He will help us run again.  Pray with me to the One who can do this miracle, and lets keep running to the Finish.


"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."Heb 12