I began training for my first marathon in the fall of '09.
It began one day when I had been working for lawn and landscaping company for almost 13 years. I was a turf-maintenance supervisor and commercial chemical applicator.
Throughout the day I found myself reflecting on several passages of scripture related to endurance, suffering for Christ.
One of the prominent passages that was standing out to me "You have much need of endurance so that after you have done the will of God you may receive the reward of the inheritance." Hebrews 10: 36 and the other, "Seeing that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us that we may run with endurance the race that is set before us..." Hebrews 12:1
As I reflected on these and a few other passages on the way back to the office at the end of the day, I found myself considering the idea of running a marathon.
As soon as I got back to the office to turn in my paperwork, I Googled "marathon", and the first thing that popped up was "Big Sur International Marathon".
It is a bit difficult to capture here what that meant to me. I had lived in Missouri almost 27 years, but I was stationed at Ford Ord near Monterey, Ca back in 1979-81 which is where I had come to know the Lord. I used to backpack about 12 miles into the back-country at Big Sur on weekends as often as possible to escape the military setting for a while and to spend time with the Lord in the beauty of His creation.
Those were some of the most special times to me spiritually that I can remember, so I instantly began to consider that perhaps the Lord was leading me to run a marathon and the location was to me, very compelling.
I didn't really understand why the Lord would want me to run a marathon but it was beginning to "dawn on me" that He was wanting to teach me some things about endurance, and I was listening.
Even though I had done some distance running when I was younger, the notion of running 26.2 miles at the age of 53 (at that time) was more than a bit daunting, but I was also very drawn by the challenge of it - could I run that far?
(to be continued)