Determined to be thankful.

I watch her cross the finish line a full two hours after most runners have gone home; her body working hard for every step because her brain scrambles instructions to her uncooperative limbs. She used to run 26.2 miles in as much time as it is now taking her to walk three! With one leg straight as a board and one hand curled uselessly near her shoulder, she walks three miles, holding tight to her granddaughter; the same three miles that barely warm-up the able-bodied volunteers working the time clock and refreshments at the finish line. The same three miles that required four years of intense therapy for this Broken One after her mobility-robbing stroke.

Runners take off and come back, some burning up five miles or more like it was nothing. They pass The Broken One as they leave and again as they return, giving her a thumbs-up or an encouraging word; completely unaware that, months earlier, she ripped that advertisement for the Lord’s Acre Run from the newspaper and made her children find Powell Butte on a map. The finishers ask about her once they’ve cooled off, had a snack and are ready to head for home. They scan the horizon for her silhouette, marveling again as her story unfolds through whispers and raised eyebrows. Are they wondering like me if, faced with the cross she bears, they would have the same determination, the same strength and courage?

Do some of them feel on the inside the way she looks on the outside, I wonder? Broken, twisted, barely able to function? Do some wish they could pull the covers back over their head each morning for a myriad of despairing reasons? Are there others whose paychecks come in discouraging fits and starts or whose livelihood has been interrupted all-together?

As I serve cool water to another thirsty runner, I look up and my eyes follow another friend by the name of Rachel as she jogs by; savoring the cool morning air with her kids. Her body: waging an invisible war against some chump-of-a-breast-tumor and reeling from the chemo cocktail being dumped into her veins. But you’d never know it by the thankful radiance all over her face.

And then I remember that, in my own life, thankfulness often requires a healthy dose of determination. It’s hard to count blessings when my mind is pressed and under the impression that it’s all about ME. I need to look up and take notice of those nearby who are rising from the ashes of frustration and battle so I can follow their footprints toward hope! And once I do that, the fog clears and the determined fighters I long to emulate come into focus; high school volleyball players who defy the odds of youthful inexperience to win another state title, football players who hang up their battered helmets and head for the mat or center court with renewed vigor, the military families whose only medals are worn inside their chest, and whose very survival here at home demonstrates to the rest of the world what an invisible monument looks like when its made of strength and quiet perseverance; all these things go unseen unless I make the effort to look through a different lens.

I wish my word-lens could show you in living color what the finish line of that Lord’s Acre Run looked and felt like when The Broken One finally crossed it. Hundreds of people turned their attention from the infamous Lord’s Acre feast that was coming out of the BBQ pits; their buzz of conversation at once went eerily quiet. And when the stop watch stopped counting and our arms shot up in the air, signaling that she had crossed over, the crowd went wild; hearts exploding with joy and voices celebrating her victorious demonstration that whether broken in body or broken in spirit, we can always choose to lean into thankfulness.