Sometimes You Gotta Walk Before You Can Run

When I run, I don't walk.  I can't.  If I walk, I'll stop completely.  And it's over.  So I run.  Keep moving at all costs.  Even when it hurts.  Especially when you are tired.  Because if you keep running, you'll get there.  But today I read something that challenged my thinking.  This may be the way I run in the physical, but perhaps it isn't what God is always asking of me in the spiritual.  Wait.  Be still.  Be quiet.  These have been the recurring theme for me as of late. 

In her blog post The Long Walk,  Melanie Shankle speaks of a conversation she had with her daughter discussing her long awaited dream of becoming a published author.  But I think this conversation just might fit in to many of our own lives as we talk about dreams and goals that seem to be taking forever or might feel like they will never come to pass:

After I hung up the phone I said, “Babe, thanks for being so patient. That was an important call about the book.”

“Mama?”
“What, sweetie?”
“It has taken you a really long time to write a book.”

Since I’m never one to miss a teachable moment outside of Subway, I replied “Yes it has. But you know what? Sometimes in life the things we have to wait on the longest or work the hardest for turn out to be the sweetest things in the end.”
And then she said something that I know was God speaking through her right to my heart.

“Mama? Sometimes we have to walk to our future even when it feels like we want to run.”
 

Walk.  Even though I want to run from this as fast as I can to the other side.  There is no rushing what God has planned.  There is no hurrying it along with our sighs and heavy shoulders....walk.   For those of us that typically know one speed , that can be a tall order.  But walking has a way of reminding us to look around and see the big picture, to not get so focused on a goal or an outcome that we can't see the beauty and the work set right before us.  The ending will come.  The sun will set.  Our dreams will become reality. But what did we do along the way?  How did the journey change us? And did we allow it to change those around us?