My hubby ran his 5K today–first race he’s run since HS. His goal was to break 21 minutes and finish in the top third. His time is above, and we think he actually made the top quarter. “I’m beat—but that was AWESOME!” he panted from beyond the finish line with a big ol’ smile on his face. Way to go, babe.

Almost two hundred runners, only one person wins. But the funny thing is this—for all I could tell, only about ten of them were running to WIN. The rest of them were running to run–running to beat not the guy in front of them, but to beat the voice inside themselves that said they couldn’t do it. Ten-year-old girls, 60-year-old women, 75-year old men, all excited just to finish the race and possibly beat their own best time.

I will never run a 5K. I will never win the Noble Peace Prize for literature. I will never receive a Caldecott or a Newbury. For all I know, I may never even be published in my lifetime, or ever. There are many “prizes” in this world that will never be within my reach… but if I can beat the voice in my head that says You can’t do it, I will have won all that is worth winning.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 2 Cor 9:24

bragging rights marriage