The first time I lost a race was 7th grade in Des Moines. I remember lining up on the track with the others, the firing gun going off and my knees instantly feeling like rubber bands. Everyone else got to the finish line before I did.
The second time I lost a race was in Scottsdale. It was a 3K that spring of 1973 and the only reason I entered was that all the girls in the exercise class had entered and talked me into it. There were hundreds of runners. And off we ran! Up and down streets, on and on to the finish line by the shopping mall.
I lost, of course.
Afterwards my sister Carol wrote to ask, “Didn’t you feel bad when all those people ran past you?”
“No. When they went by they’d say, ‘Oh, good. We passed Elaine!”
I haven’t run anywhere since then. But I do like to watch races, the horse races, the running races, the dog races in Alaska. I know just a tiny bit of the anticipation, the training, the preparation of the day, the exhaustion afterwards. I just don’t know the excitement of winning or the frustration of coming in second or third after having everyone watching the exceptional effort.
Yesterday's horse race grabbed my attention and, of course, I watched it on TV. What a big deal with the huge crowds cheering thunderously as the jockey and that short-tailed horse crossed the finish line first.
What good does it do to work so hard and train and enter the race? What was the goal? What was the challenge? What was -- or can be -- the lesson learned?
Putting words on the computer screen helped me focus on a newly-hatched thought. See if you can get any challenge and encouragement and help for yourself personally from this:
The Goal, the Challenge, the Lesson Learned
Those other runners,
The challenge of the race,
It made me better, try harder, run faster;
I didn’t win, but I did improve.
My outlook was focused on winning,
My abilities were pushed to do more,
And I heard the cheers for the others;
I didn’t win, but I did improve.
It was just a race to run,
I was just expecting to do good,
It was more effort than I had;
I didn’t win, but I did improve.
Maybe someday my training will kick in,
Maybe someday the crowd will cheer for me,
Maybe someday I’ll win the race;
I can appreciate the stress of losing now. + + +
This different point of view tied all the earlier random thoughts into a useful lesson, a reminder of what it means to exert yourself, invest your stress and your strength into a huge goal. Wow! Those competitors made the race more important. If I had been the only runner I wouldn’t have trained and participated at all. Is that life for you, or what!
So, in the quiet minutes after the excitement of viewing the race on TV, seeing the winner so pumped up, the crowd so excited I could identify a little with all the losers.
Later I found this verse “ . . . Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Let us look to Jesus . . . “ Hebrews 12:1-2. This lead me to another verse, “Do not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart,” Galatians 6:9. And a similar verse is in 2 Thessalonians 3:13.
Now I made this a matter of serious prayer: Oh, Lord, I want to do something good with my life. I haven’t amounted to much, but I am so thankful that You love me and there is a purpose for my life. I can reach out to others to tell them about Jesus and the amazing, gigantic future of life after death. I am “somebody” in Your plan! You enable me to do what I cannot do just by myself. Thank you!
+ + +
By Elaine Hardt ©2015
