"I BELIEVED, AND SO I SPOKE"

Suddenly I'm awake at 4:32am. It's twenty-four hours before I run my first Half-Marathon, and I'm roused by a sharp pain in my leg. It's my hamstring and it feels as if I've just been stabbed in the middle of a peaceful nap. I can't fall back asleep, not because of the pain but because of the fear. Anxiety seeps into my mind at the thought of not being able to finish the race that I've trained and sacrificed for over the last 3 months. I'm frustrated and scared. I lower myself down the ladder of my top bunk at 5:15am and descend the stairs into the dark hours of the morning and open my Bible to 1 John 4:18-19: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear . For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love..." All the while there is a picture in my mind that I cannot erase. It is the story of the British Olympian Derek Redmond and how love triumphed over fear and failings on a Spanish summer day....

When I was boy of eight or nine years old I played in a local basketball league in my town of Madera, California. At that time in my life my biggest dream was to be John Paxson from the Chicago Bulls getting the ball dished off to him from Michael Jordan in the last few seconds of the NBA Finals to drain the championship winning three pointer. I will never forget that in eager anticipation on certain nights before my game, I would imagine that there in the bleachers the next day would be three invisible spectators overjoyed to cheer me on. I would see the popcorn floating at chest level as it they watched over me. These three spectators were God Almighty, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and it was a reminder that the Lord is always with me. Today when I arrived at the usual spot for morning prayer at 7:05am, there were three sofa chairs in the space beneath the stairs of the student dorms and dining hall, empty. It reminded me of my thoughts as a kid. And it reminded of th...