"From that day on, if I was goin' somewhere, I was runnin'"

Summer's gone, and with it soon will go my stress.  Well, at least about some things.

Don't get me wrong.  While I love summers and the amount of time I get to spend with my family (both the wife and kids), the months are hard.  Being someone wired the way that I am only makes it harder sometimes.  Without all the boring details, looking back on the last couple of months produces moments of glee as well as moments of sheer horror.  Okay, maybe I exaggerate.  But there were days that weren't fun.  Sho 'nuff.

The truth is, though, that none of us are immune to these moments of stress and worry.  I'm not an enigma or the exception to the rule.  I am in fact the rule.  But as time has wound down this summer I've found myself drawn back more and more to this one verse; or rather, part of it:

"Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."(Hebrews 12:1c)

Life is a race.  It's something that's long and hard, and full of stones being pelted at us (sometimes metaphorical and maybe sometimes real).  But it takes a person of real character to be able to persevere and to continue to run when we're unwilling, and sometimes feeling unable, to do so.

I think maybe that's part of the beauty of Forrest.  And I can't help but love the imagery in this movie the more and more that I see it.  Life can sometimes do a pretty darn good job of crippling us.  It can make us stiff and unable (or unwilling) to move sometimes.  It can throw things at us that hurt.  Big time. 

But we have a cheerleader.  Truth is, sometimes we're so busy wallowing in ourselves that we can't see the truth that we probably have many cheerleaders encouraging us on.  And once we start moving, no matter what's behind us, the shackles that are binding us down and keeping us from reaching our full potential will burst from our legs, the dust will rise from our moving feet, and we'll leave our problems behind.  We'll be amazed at our own resiliency and what we are able to accomplish.  We just have to keep runnin'.