Birthdays

Today is my oldest brother's 46th birthday. (I'm sure he really appreciates me posting his age on the web...oh well...) Of course I sent him the traditional snail-mail card wishing him Happy Birthday, in Hungarian no less, and I will try to call him, to sing the traditional song, but the strangest thing for me, if I really stop and think about it is that I've not celebrated any of my siblings' birthdays with them since we each turned 18. We've gone our separate ways, lived in various parts of the U.S. or world, and since our birthdays don't fall on or around major holidays, we've not gotten the chance to celebrate this huge day when the Lord chose that each of us would enter this world and be His child in flesh and blood for the days appointed for each of us. One memory I have of growing up with my oldest brother is watching him run cross-country in high school. He was good...he was very good. And I wanted to be just like him. So, of course I took up running. One year, I decided to run the Garden of the Gods 10-miler...he had been training, and I had been too....well, sort of....ok, I thought I could just go out there and run the thing. We went for a 5-mile run together the day before the race, and my brother said, "Arden, you will never make it the entire distance." Well, saying that to me put fire in my bones...as a precaution, however, I asked my dad to meet me at the 5-mile point, just in case I really couldn't make it. As I puffed my way to the 5 -mile point, and looked down this incredibly LONG hill to try to see my dad's car, I was crushed....no car....which basically meant, I had to finish the race. I did, in 100 minutes, and couldn't even WALK the next day! But I finished!!! The Apostle Paul says, "forgetting what is behind, strive toward what is ahead." Striving through those last 5 miles was excruciatingly painful, but I did it, through tears at times, and when I crossed the line, the look on my parents' and brothers' faces was priceless. They couldn't believe it! I couldn't either. But that verse is poignantly true in many ways...no matter what the naysayers say, the doubters, the skeptics, those who throw cold water on our dreams and goals and plans, we are to follow ONE voice and one voice only: That of our Lord Jesus Christ, "who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God the Father almighty!" Had Jesus "stopped" after Gethsemane, which he easily could have, and not "run" the last 5-miles for us, where would we be now? He heeded His Father's voice, and that voice alone, and He finished the race, declaring, "It is finished." His finish, when truly contemplated, puts amazed looks on our faces; and hopefully, fire in our hearts "to press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me!" Thanks O. for this life-lesson, in rememberance of your birthday! www.ceokids.org