Hi everyone! My name is Angela Rogers, I’m our Kidstown Director at the Grace Chapel Campus in Wilmington.

 

Some of you know, I am a runner. I love to run! These days it’s shorter distances. But in the relatively recent past I have run distance races. It all got started when some friends of mine peer pressured me into running a half marathon. They said, “we’re going to do this!” And I said, “I want to do it, too!”

 

So I ran a half marathon. And a couple years later, those same friends said, “hey we’re going to run a full marathon!” And I said, “I want to do it, too!” So we trained and we all took a trip out to Chicago and I ran my very first marathon. Over the next few years, I ran a few more.

 

I was thinking about that… The first few miles of a marathon are exciting and fun. You’ve got the crowd, you’ve got the other runners there with you. You know where the aid stations are going to be. You’ve got your GU, your sustenance that you have to take, you’ve got that to look forward to.

 

Then you get to mile 10, mile 13, and you think – okay…I’m about half way through. I’m a little more tired than I was at the beginning. It’s a little less fun, but I’m hanging in there. I’m still going, I’m still doing it.

 

Then you get to mile 18, mile 20, mile 22. In a marathon, those are the WORST miles. You’re exhausted. There is no end in sight. The aid stations are coming a little fewer and farther between it feels like. The GU you had just taken a couple miles back is already depleted, and the runners around you are not really talking anymore.

 

I was thinking the other day how I feel about this quarantine time is how I have felt in a marathon. We’re at week 9 and we’ve be doing it for quite a while. At the beginning it was interesting; it was new, a little exciting, innovative, and unprecedented. And now, at week 9, and it’s kinda feeling like mile 18, mile 20 in a marathon.

 

I don’t know about you but that’s what I’ve been feeling: this tiredness, this over-it-ness of the quarantine. But on my wall, I have this artwork that a friend of mine made for me knowing I’m a runner, knowing that I like to run distances. So for my birthday, he made me this word art and I want to share it with you. It’s from Hebrews 12:1, “Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Now, when you’re running a marathon, you obviously chose to run that marathon. But I don’t think any one of us chose Coronavirus. We didn’t choose quarantine, to stay and work and school and live solely at home.

 

What I cling to and know to be true is that God knows all of it. He knows the beginning of this, He knows the middle of it, He knows the right-now-ness of it. And He knows the end. If I keep running with Him, He will give me the endurance finish this race that He has set out for me. I know that true for you as well, whatever your circumstances are.

 

God is with you. God has been with you from the very beginning and He will be with you to the very end. We just cling to him, he will help us run this race with endurance. My friends, that is my prayer for you today in week 9 of staying at home. I pray that you cling to God who gives you power, who give you the endurance, who gives you the ability to sustain during this time period.

 

May you be blessed by Him today and may you feel his power today. May you endure this race with Him today. Be well, friends.