The race of life.......

I have been thinking alot lately....about the title of my post...The race of life. As you may have noticed, races have been on my mind alot, expecially with Lorens marathon and with my half marathon coming up. I have been thinking about the steps that we have taken to prepare for these physical races and have been reminded of the importance of my spiritual training. Just as I am preparing myself for a phsyical race, I also need to prepare myself and train myself for the race of life, that I am running everyday. THIS race should be my priority.

As I listened to conference yesterday, the General Young Women President used this quote that I loved from a female New York Marathon winner. She said " The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." This statement is so true. Preparation is everything. Last weekend Loren ran a great race. He ran such a good race because he had the will to prepare. He never missed a training run and he always worked hard to fit the run into his schedule. Sometimes that meant missing out on fun things or getting up at 4:00 am. It was NEVER easy. I knew somedays he didnt WANT to run, but he went anyway. He knew that, if he didnt.....he would regress and in the end he wouldnt run a good race. He tried to look at the future reprocussions of his decisions, rather than letting the NOW get hold. Sometimes we think things are just too hard or its just not the time and lose sight of how the choices we make really do affect our future. The way we feel at the end of a race when we gave it all we had, is such a rewarding feeling. On the other hand, if we were to slack on our training, quit or we didnt give it our all, in the end, we would feel terrible. I think that when we cross that spiritual finish line.... knowing that we didnt do all that we could of, the feelings of devastation, remorse and the dreaded feeling of "I wish I wouldve done better" will be horrible. Atleast now, in this life...we have the oppurtunity to try again. The race of life is continual. We have the oppurtunity to try again and to run our race better than we did on the first few laps. As we continue running, we will become stronger in the gospel and we will be stronger to tackle the herdels ahead. We will all have sore knees, blisters, achy backs, and we might even fall really hard, but we HAVE to pick ourselves up and continue. We were given a trainer, a free trainer. Heavenly Father is the best trainer of all. He is there to guide you and I and to help us acheive our goals. He will let us know our weaknesses, so that we can work on them and he will help us work on them. When we feel like we can no longer run, he will pick us up. I know this of a surety. He has picked me up and brushed me off many times. We need to ask him for what we are lacking. He will listen. He has given us a running handbook and a complete training schedule. The gospel is here. It is here to help us in our race.

I know it isnt easy, I am running it too. However, I find that as I make the time for spiritual training that I DO better. I testify of this. I feel a HUGE difference in my life. I know of its importance. It is worth all the effort. Nothing in this life feels better than the joy that living gospel principles bring. NOTHING. I have looked for it and have found nothing better. Train with me....lets all run together and encourage eachother. Think about this, as will I, about our training. find something you need to work on and do it. This week part off my training will be to rewatch conference at night online, when my kids are in bed. I missed alot of it and know that I need to listen to their guidance uninterupted. I always feel so uplifted and filled when I do. Think about something that you can do this week to fill your cup. I promise you and I will feel stronger and we will run our next lap even better than the one before.