Stuff That Matters In Life

A few of my friends like to run. I don’t understand running.

Why agonize, sweat, suffer aches and pains – for what?? It’s not even fun. It’s not like basketball with the challenge of  getting the ball into the basket, or like football where there is fun in strategizing, or volleyball with interaction with your team mates.

Long distance running is just putting one foot in front of the other, long and monotonous, can’t talk to other runners to kill the time.

But they say, running builds character. Learning endurance, building mental toughness, developing discipline.

Running is like life. Much of what we have to do in life is not fun. We have to work at a job we don’t like, we have to put up with people who aggravate us, we have to pay taxes. When circumstances are against us, and we work through them instead of quitting, we become better people for it.

I look back on my life, and I do affirm that God used hard times to mold me into a better person.

I am the youngest in my family. Growing up, my family paved a smooth path before me. My brother and sisters took care of little me. As a result, I don’t like to do hard things. But as a adult, I have had to face difficulties – financial hardship, death of my child, stresses at work, disappointments at church. I would not have chosen to do hard things. Yet I am pretty sure that if it wasn’t for those hard circumstances, I would be spoiled like I was when I was young.

Maturity doesn’t come easy. And I still have a long way to run.