I am sitting on my couch, watching the tragic news of the explosions in Boston. My sweet Daddy is there now trying to get back to his hotel room. He was a mile away from the finish line when the explosions took place and the race halted. There were the frantic moments of trying to locate everyone in his group.
Thankfully, they are all okay.
But not everyone is okay and my heart is breaking for them–not only those who died, but those who are tragically injured.
It seems more tragic for a runner to lose a limb. Marathoners are those who live to run. My dad has run over 50 marathons and this was his 12th Boston marathon. Running defines who he is. He is a runner, as are those who have lost their limbs today. How will they learn to run again? How will they learn to be, once again, who they are?
Knowing the mindset of a typical marathoner, they will learn to run again, they will learn to be who they are again.
When something like this happens, it temporarily cripples us all. I can’t seem to move from this couch right now, thinking of the what if’s.
What if my dad didn’t have a hurt knee? He normally would have been at the finish line at the time of the bombing.
What if my mom had been there this year, as she has many years before? She would have been right in the middle of it, waiting on my dad to cross the finish line.
What if another one goes off as he is trying now to get back to the hotel?
What if this act of terror truly terrifies us so that we no longer act like who we are—freedom-loving Americans?
May it never be so. For our God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Hebrews 12:1-2
