This week was an easy week. Mostly short runs; twelve miles on Sunday. Got a couple of good rides in as well. All in all, a nice recovery. I’m ready for one more long week, one more final push before the race. But that is only part of this past week’s story.
I did get a couple more donations; still a long way from my goal (you can help, any gift will help). But I did hear that so far through the LA Marathon World Vision has raised $204,816.62 for clean water. That means 4,096 people have clean water for life. That is an amazing gift! But still, that is only part of this week’s story.
By far the most amazing, most humbling, most selfless, most sacrificial thing that happened this week took place on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday morning Sarah made her way to the hospital and the operating room. There was nothing wrong with her. She was perfectly healthy. But still, early Wednesday morning she was being prepped for surgery.
I guess the story really began last July. Michael and Sarah took their two little girls to Vacation Bible School at their church in Kansas. During that time Sarah met another young mother with girls who were about the same age. A while later an appeal went out in their church on behalf of this young mother. She needed a kidney. They asked if folks would be willing to get tested for a possible match. Michael and Sarah were among those who decided to go through the testing. Sarah was a match. As a matter of fact, Sarah was the only match in the church. Sarah was this young mom’s last hope.
They prayed about it. They talked about it. They cried together. They worried together. They sought God’s will together. They wondered about the risk. What about their own three little girls? What about this other mom’s little girls? But all the while I believe they knew God was in it. All the while I believe they knew God was working. All the while I believe they knew God was at work providing another miracle… one they would be a part of.
Wednesday morning that miracle happened. Life was given. New life. New hope. New possibilities. Those little girls got their mom back. That husband got his wife back. Their future together became filled with possibility again, filled with hope. It was a miracle.
Sarah’s gift wasn’t cash given out of her purse. It wasn’t a debit transaction on some web page. It wasn’t a couple bucks thrown into an old mendicant’s collection plate on a street corner or in a mission house. This gift was far more intimate, much more personal. This gift was a part of her. It was piece of her own body. It was a four hour surgery that removed one of her vital organs and gave it away in order to give the gift of life and hope to someone else.
To be honest, it is a gift that makes me feel somewhat ashamed. I don’t know that I would have the same courage, the same level of agape, the same sense of self-sacrifice to make such an incredibly unselfish act of love. Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as our self, and in doing this we love God and make God’s love known to the world. That’s what Sarah did in perhaps the most amazing way I’ve ever seen.
I thought about that this week as I ran. The gift. I’m running the LA Marathon to provide a gift, the gift of clean water. I’m asking for support to give that gift to as many people as possible—hopefully 104. But when the marathon is done, when I’m soaking in that ice bath, I’ll still have all my parts. It’s still a gift. Just a different sort of gift. I don’t think it is really fair to compare the two gift. I’m not trying to do that. But still…
Steve Prefontaine once said, “To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift.” We have all been given a gift. The gift of our life is something we all have, something we all share. What we do with that gift is up to us. How we share that gift with others is up to us. How we live into the potential that gift holds is up to us. We are free to choose. As a matter of fact, that is the essence of what freedom is for us—to choose the sort of person we are becoming. I think of Jesus’ parable of the talents in Matthew 25. Three servants were each given a certain amount of money, each according to their ability. The first two used the money they had been given to make more money. But the third was afraid and could only wrap it in a cloth and bury it in the ground.
I think maybe we do that with life. It seems at times it might be easier to bury our lives than it is to truly and fully live them. Nose to the grindstone, head down, we burry ourselves in the activity of days piled upon days. And we forget to live. We forget that our life is more than a repetition of days. It is a progression of choices, choices that ultimately decide who we are. There is no avoiding the choice. We must choose. We bury our life when we passively let the choice be made for us by our own non-choosing. In that, I think we become less. We sacrifice the gift.
I guess I’m not really sure where I’m going with all this. I think what I’m thinking is something like: Sarah gave her best; her choice was to incarnate love in a profoundly sacrificial way. My hope is that in what I’m doing with World Vision and in running the LA Marathon I’m somehow doing something of the same thing. My hope is that what I am doing with the gift I have been given is a way to embody the best, the good, the love that steps outside of itself for the sake of the other.
| Week 14 | Run | Ride | Strength/Core | |
| Monday | Rest | 25.18 miles w/ 2,287 ft. of climbing | ||
| Tuesday | 5 miles easy @ 8:23 | 25.27 miles w/ 2,287 ft. of climbing | ||
| Wednesday | 6 miles easy @ 8:13 | 30 minutes | ||
| Thursday | 5 miles easy @ 8:23 | 25.2 miles w/ 2,287 ft. of climbing | ||
| Friday | Rest | |||
| Saturday | 6 miles @ 8:23 | 30 minutes | ||
| Sunday | 12 miles @ 8:32 | |||
| Total Run | 34 miles | |||
| Total Ride | 75 .65 | |||
johnagrant 