Keep Showing Up

One of our daughters was training this past winter for her first marathon.  She carefully followed the training program, running with friends when she could, fitting in runs between work and picking up the kids from school, and at times, realizing the loneliness of a long-distance runner.  On one of her long runs, she came across a woman ahead of her lumbering along the same path.  As she passed her, our daughter said, "You've got this."

A few miles down the same seemingly endless pathway, as our daughter started to feel the strain and struggle of completing the day's mileage, she felt another runner coming alongside her.  It was the same woman, now showing up and keeping pace with her.  They didn't say a thing.  They didn't have to say a thing.  They just ran together.  And it encouraged them both. 

A word fitly spoken is 

like apples of gold in a setting of silver.  

                       Proverbs 25.11

 In all our many moves from one address to another, I have a friend who keeps showing up that way, in one way or another, coming alongside me with phone calls, notes and visits. We see each other rarely, but each time, the conversation jumps right back in, as if one of us had just gone to get a cup of coffee in the kitchen and came back into the same room.

Even after all this time, she keeps on showing up.  

I have been struggling with this blog for the past few months.  This week as I was running, I was questioning whether I should continue writing at all. Does it make a difference?  Does it even matter?

By the end of the run, I decided that I  just need to be faithful.  God never works in singular outcomes.  I cannot know whether it matters or not.  But that is not the point.  God works deeper than that. God redeems.

Often when I am running, a shy deer will show up, unexpectedly emerging out of the tall trees and glancing at me for a fraction of a second.  It feels like God saying, "I'm still here.  Even when you don't see Me."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of those deer moments happened in a simple email I received that very evening after my run.

My friend showed up again with a bit of encouragement that I really needed it at that moment.  She had no idea what I was struggling with. But she acted on a nudge from God and fed my soul by just writing me a reassuring note, "I loved your piece What Late Fine?  And I have been passing it out to my family and friends."  

God redeems.  Imagine that.

Like our daughter whispering an encouraging word to that lonely runner on her path, God provides in unexpected ways and in unlikely places.  It is not that God shows up --He is already here.  We are the ones late to the party.  When we keep showing up on caller ID, on the doorstep with a meal, in the hospital room for a visit, to come alongside on both literal and proverbial paths, He uses each one of us to kindle others back to strength.  

Even when we don't realize it, even when we don't think it makes a difference, God brings His faithfulness to the situation.  And He strategically positions us to unfold it in real time.  That is how we love friends, family, and those we don't even know.

How many times do I think about others and never say a thing, as if it doesn't matter.  But what if it does?  It may cost us something, or we may consider it small change in our pocket, but that moment of kindness is always a game changer. 

Keep showing up.

 Brothers and sisters,

if you have any word of encouragement for the people,

           say it.

                           Acts 13. 15

 It may be the very strength someone needs.

It may be the very strength we need, just to say it.

We would never be reluctant,

     if we knew how profoundly God redeems.

Keep showing up.