If you have time today, please tune into The 700 Club. My Proverbs 31 sister Wendy Blight is being featured telling her story of surviving rape and learning to trust God. Click here for more info.

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This morning, I am headed to the gym to work out before starting school with the  boys. I’ll hit the treadmill and run…okay jog/walk….a mile or two.

Further east in Hopkinton, Mass., my niece Laurelin and my nephew’s girlfriend Jessica are getting ready for a run too. However, their jaunt will be just a tad bit longer.

When the runners line up and the starting gun sounds, they will take off in the 114th running of the Boston Marathon.

26.2 miles!

We know their bib numbers and can track them throughout the day. It will be fun to see how their many months of training pay off. What is most amazing to me is that my niece asserts that she has never thought of herself as a runner.

Oh she used to run two or three miles, but nothing more. Then, she got the notion in her head to try to run a half marathon. Even after training for and completing that feat, when asked if she was “a runner”, still answered no. Because running isn’t something she has done all of her life nor something that comes easily, she somehow didn’t feel she could identify herself with that term.

In fact, it wasn’t until just a few short days ago, after training for months, sometimes at the crack of dawn, or in the driving rain or freezing snow, (or sometimes in all three!) that the notion actually popped into her head, “I am a runner. A marathon runner”

No need to compare herself to those for whom it comes easily, those who are built like natural runners, have been running for years or come from a long line of runners.

No ma’am….she is every bit a much a runner as those athletes.

In the race of life I have met many women who are running hard after Jesus. They desire to know and obey Him; to experience the full life He has planned for them and to help others do the same.

However, I often meet sweet souls who feel discouraged because in the race for heaven they don’t think of themselves as “natural runners”.

They see others who come from a long line of Christians, prominent in their local church. Or women who can quote Bible passages without turning a page, while they still need to rely on the table of contents.

They don’t know the “lingo”, nor all of the songs everyone else seems to have memorized. Or they haven’t always lived a crystal clean life and subtly it seems that they feel disqualified in a way.

But the wonderful news about living life with Christ is that none of this disqualifies you indefinitely.

Man looks at the outward; God sees the heart.

How you start isn’t nearly as important as how you finish.

If you love Jesus and are sold out to Him, you are a runner!

Believe it! And then….

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and 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.” Hebrews 12:1-2

Running alongside you,