STEPHENS: Running up the mountains before us

As I followed behind Lilli while she ran, like I have a multitude of times, I prepared to stop. She was approaching the spot where she normally ends her runs, and I was excited for her return to the car. This day was not unlike all the other runs she went on recently. She began at our house and quickly traveled the three and a half miles down to Big Spring Park. I have been amazed ever since the child first tried the route because of its difficult terrain and endless hills and valleys. As far as I was concerned, the child had lost her mind by taking that route but before long, she became comfortable with the difficulty of the courses and preferred it.

As I began to slow the vehicle down to get ready for her arrival, I noticed that she wasn’t stopping. Thinking to myself that it was odd, I figured she had decided to run a little further. As Lilli continued to run along the roadway, I began thinking about how good she was doing. As we exited the park it didn’t appear that the child was going to stop anytime soon. While I followed, I couldn’t help but look at what the road was like in front of her. The roadway appeared to travel straight up where it disappeared into the thick forest.

Sitting in awe, I thought to myself that there was no way the child was going to be able to run up the steep, seemingly never-ending mountain. To my surprise, she did and with determination I had never observed in her before, not stopping until she arrived back at our home, a mere nine miles later. Throughout her run she didn’t allow anything, not the rain, darkness, terrain, or exhaustion to stop her. As we arrived home, I could see a smile on her face, seemingly revealing a feeling of accomplishment she surely felt.

Telling her that she had done great I asked her why she decided to make the entire loop. She replied that she just felt like running today.

As I thought about her run, I was reminded about how often we are faced with obstacles in our path which at times can seem insurmountable. Like Lilli, we need only to set our mind to success and face each obstacle by simply just keeping going. Although the patch may seem impossible, it isn’t. So often we cause our own downfall because of fear, when if we had just kept going, we would have come out fine on the other side.

Don’t allow a fear of what lies ahead to sidetrack your goals my friends. Sometimes, just sometimes, that obstacle is merely there to try to discourage you. Rather than succumbing to our fears we must face them and use them as an example of our ability to overcome and accomplish great things.