The Race of Life

I ran a 10K on Saturday.  I was really nervous going into it because I have been dealing with a hip injury for the past few weeks.  I think knowing that I might have to deal with that, I set pretty low expectations for myself.  I ran the race but definitely struggled a bit and had to walk a couple of times for a few seconds.  When I finished the race, I was happy that I had gotten through it and glad to be done and proud of myself for being able to just finish.  Later on when they were handing out awards I happened to be paying attention because I knew a friend of mine had finished first in our age group.  What I wasn't expecting was my name to be called for the third place medal.  I was shocked as I accepted it.  I didn't expect to finish well at all because I had to walk a couple times and because I was sure that I had seen many people go past me or be ahead of me during the race.  Throughout the day as I reflected back on the race, I began to question whether I gave it my all.  Knowing where I ended up in the race, I thought back through each mile of it wondering if I had just pushed a little harder if I could have done even better, come in second maybe.  I was a little annoyed at myself.    I got to thinking that there are a lot of parallels to life in this.  The first one I thought of was that when we finish this race of life, how disappointed we will be if we look back and think did I give it my all and realize that we probably could have pushed a little harder, given a little more and ended up a little better off.  So at each mile, a.k.a. day of our race, we should ask ourselves, can I do better, give more?  I think about the expectations I set for myself because of my injury, because of how I viewed myself at the time as broken or not worth much as a runner because my body wasn't functioning as well as I thought it should.  Do we also deem ourselves unworthy of doing well in this life?  Do we forget our worth because of a few setbacks and give ourselves low expectations?  Do we decide that because we have had to "walk" for a bit, that we've sinned, that we've had trials, that there is no way we can do well or finish at the top?  And do we look at others around us and wonder and assume that they must be ahead of us, faster, better than us?  On the same day of  my 10k there was also a 5k and I realized later that some of the people I thought were in front of me, were, in fact finishing up a race half the distance of mine.  Perhaps in life the same is true.  So I realized just like in a running race, in life, I can't worry about who I think is ahead of me, I can't worry about past trials or mistakes that I've since overcome.   What I can do is remember that I am as worthy to return to my Heavenly Father and recieve his first place award as anyone I see around me and that if everyday I give everything I have to give, I'll end up being proud of my performance.  There are probably even more parallels to draw here but these are the things I've had running through my head the past two days.