Smacking the Stop Sign

Ready to Run!

Sometimes, prayers are answered.

Let me tell you about it . . .

For years, I enjoyed my early-morning run.

Solo.

My family was very supportive encouraging tolerant unconscious of it.

Let’s face it, to fit it in before time to get everyone ready for school, I started before most of them were even awake.

And/or cognizant.

But one of them was watching.

Youngest daughter had just entered the eighth grade. Strong-willed and a little rebellious, she was my chief worry out of six kids.

And, incidentally, one reason for my frequent prayers.

One morning as I was preparing to leave, she appeared.

Running shoes donned.

“Mom? Can I run with you?”

All the reasons why she shouldn’t raced through my mind.

She’d slow me down.

She wouldn’t be able to finish.

She’d get injured.

All of which, I’m happy to say, I ignored.

I nodded. “Sure.”

And we went running.

On the—then—outskirts of our small town, there was a four-kilometer Ring Road. Our house was situated just one house away from this ‘made-for-running’ track. If one followed the road, one inevitably returned to that spot from whence one came.

Perfect.

A few steps and we were off.

Of course we didn’t make it all the way around that first day.

Or the next.

Or any of the days afterward.

In fact, in the four years we ran together (till she graduated high school and went off to college) I think we only made it all the way around once.

But that didn’t matter.

Because what we did do was talk.

And talk.

And talk some more.

And become best friends.

Now, pushing a stroller and with her older daughter bouncing along beside us, we still walk.

No longer do we make a pretense of ‘running’.

Nope.

Walking is just fine.

And we talk.

And talk.

And talk some more.

It took a while, but I realized finally that the Lord had answered my prayers.

P.S. I’m sure you’re wondering what the title has to do with this story . . .

On the far side of town, at the halfway mark on the Ring Road, is a stop sign, just at the top of the hill.

Every day, our goal would be to make it up said hill and smack said stop sign to signify our triumph.

Because that’s what we had.

In more ways than one.