{"id":13152,"date":"2020-09-15T04:40:45","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T09:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=13152"},"modified":"2020-09-15T04:40:52","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T09:40:52","slug":"running-our-races-with-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=13152","title":{"rendered":"Running our Races with Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been almost ten years since our eleven children and grands along with about twenty others ran or walked with us in Tulsa\u2019s Route 66 Marathon to honor my husband who had graduated to heaven the Tuesday before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Sunday morning we wore our red \u201cRun for Ron\u201d t-shirts. It had all been planned before he surprised us by graduating to heaven just a few days before the marathon. He couldn\u2019t move back then, but we could \u2013 so we did. For my son, the little boy who was born with club feet and dramatically healed, ran this 26.2 marathon in honor of his dad. He started out at 7:30 a.m. Our 17-year-old grandson, Braden, ran the half-marathon (13.1 miles). The rest of us started out on our 5K run\/walk at 8:00 am. Not many of the rest of us were runners, but it brought such joy to see the solidarity of our group \u2014 running\/walking with such passion \u2014 so appreciative we could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once we completed our 5K, we rushed to the Finish Line to cheer for Braden who ran the half marathon in his personal best time ever. He told me he felt his Papa pushing him all the way. When we went to meet up and cheer Ryan on at Mile 16, we got a call from him instead. A man collapsed just in front of him. What marathon runners don\u2019t do, is stop running mid-way through a marathon as it seizes up their legs, but Ryan stopped to help him. He was unconscious and Ryan held his feet and prayed while others were performing CPR for over 16 minutes. He stayed with the man until the ambulance took him away. Later we found out the 27-year old man died during that time. We envisioned that divine orchestration had taken place \u2014 even perhaps that my Ron was there to meet that young man when he went to the other side. Later, we would cheer for Ryan as he crossed the Finish Line \u2014 not his best time because of the delay \u2014 but God\u2019s best time, because he put himself aside and responded to \u201cthe call\u201d of God to be there for one of His kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a sweet memory last Saturday, September 12th, which was my Ron\u2019s birthday. It was an endearing day of celebrating him with my granddaughter, plus my son was running in the virtual 2020 Boston Marathon for his dad and the Michael Lisnow Respite Center in Boston which he has raised tens of thousands of dollars for this worthy cause for twelve years now. Unable to hold the live and in-person 2020 Boston Marathon originally scheduled for April 20th, runners were able to receive their bib and make the run within certain dates and qualify for finishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I loved my cheer-leading family who showed up to cheer their dad on to another marathon victory. My early morning text cheered him on from Frisco with these words: \u201cThose who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.\u201d \u2014Isaiah 40:29\u201331<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, he did it \u2013 for himself, his family and his dad. I suspect his dad was also cheering him on from heaven\u2019s grandstands where he was having the ultimate birthday party. And, in my case, I will continue to run (actually, walk) my race with diligence to my finish line where, one day, we\u2019ll all celebrate in grand heavenly style! That’s the most important purpose behind running our life races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been almost ten years since our eleven children and grands along with about twenty others ran or walked with us in Tulsa\u2019s Route 66 Marathon to honor my husband who had graduated to heaven the Tuesday before. That Sunday morning we wore our red \u201cRun for Ron\u201d t-shirts. It had all been planned before…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18569,18565,18570,18568,18566,18567,18564],"tags":[18563,156,1210,3023,1769,16167,8381,40,12834,6737,6738,18562,101,18561],"class_list":["post-13152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bib","category-boston-marathon","category-cheerleading","category-michael-lisnow-respite-center","category-route-66-marathon","category-run-for-ron","category-virtual","tag-bib","tag-birthday","tag-blog","tag-cheerleading","tag-christian","tag-club-feet","tag-healed","tag-inspiration","tag-michael-lisnow-respite-center","tag-route-66-marathon","tag-run-for-ron","tag-run-our-race-with-purpose","tag-victory","tag-virtual-boston-marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13152"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13157,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13152\/revisions\/13157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}