Running the mile

Ginger K. Mack

At my school we have a track meet once a year. I had signed up for the mile. But every day in practice I would get cramps. And I began to doubt my ability to run.

One night I told my mom about the cramps. She suggested we look up the word run in a concordance to the Bible. We found a passage from Isaiah that meant a lot to me: "They that wait upon the Lord ... shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint" (Isa. 40:31). Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health that we can apply this passage when we feel tired. Her writings show us that we can go forward and accomplish our tasks without being held back by pain or weakness or feeling tired. And we can do this because, as the Bible teaches, man is the image of God. So, in reality, we are inseparable from His unlimited strength and care. What that meant to me was that if I'm serving God—doing His will and seeing Him as the source of strength—in reality I can't get tired. And this made me feel I could run with joy.

The next week at the meet I was cheering my friends on. When it was my turn, I waited for the gun to go off. When it did, I started out remembering to wait on God. But before long, I began to get cramps again. I kept knowing that God was right there with me, helping me. An instant later the cramps stopped, and they didn't come again. I was able to finish the race. And I felt as if I did a good job.

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