9 June 2021

I would love to share this story with you. Where it started out – not so good, was improving in the middle but the ending was incredible.

It’s the story of Flora Beverley, an English fitness and health blogger who loved to run. Her first long distance races taught her many things. They taught her what she was now, yes, but she focused on what she wanted to become. She wanted to be like the runners who had incredible will-power, were fit, tall and leggy – as she describes them.

Her first 3-4 km race was a disaster. She went out too fast, died, internally and externally, had to stop to recover a little so she could run the next part. She describes it as running the race at a 200m pace then stopping and then trying again. Something was wrong and she knew it. She would call herself “not a runner” but wanted to be one. So, she put in the training, the effort, the headspace, whatever it took to become one.

Flora focused on not what she was now, not on her ability now but on what she wanted to become. What she hoped for.

She stuck with it and slowly improved to the point where she could run 5km continuously without stopping and felt a sense of achievement. But in her there was a drive for more. Then she had a setback. She developed exercise induced asthma. She had to develop a whole new way of running and coping with this condition. She did not want to give up.

Then she injured herself and trying to push through the pain was ok for a while, but it mentally affected her resolve to keep going. She did not want to stop so worked out how to help stop the impact of the road on her muscles and nerves in her legs. She moved to cross country where you mainly run on grass and dirt. This did not cause her as much discomfort and the love of “the run” spurred her on.

Flora started to eat well, train in other areas to increase her stamina, increase her chance of winning. She took up boxing for her running. It made her stronger, fitter, able to push through. Then 6 weeks out of planning to do a Marathon in Japan, she injured herself again. Her body let her down. She was so disappointed. Pushing through with the help of her trainer, she decided to run the race but not aim to get a good time. Just finish.

Now this story is not about running.

It’s about the desire for this dream of becoming ……, and in her story a runner….., this hope that she focused on …….consumed her life.

Without this desire, this dream, this hope, she would have given up long ago. If Flora is putting all this effort into her running which will only last for a few short years, in her lifetime. Am I putting in as much effort into the Forever Hope? Into my desires, dreams and purpose for my Life?

I started to reflect upon the eternal HOPE I look towards. The desires and dreams and goals in my life that I focus on, that drive me. I don’t want it just while I am fit and healthy to “run”. I want it for now and totally into my future, forever.

Christ IS MY HOPE. Hope in my Life is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His Faithfulness. Not in my strength, that only lasts for a time. When trials come my way, I often buckle and fall. I can’t cope. But if I rely on God. My Hope never fails! Never wanes!

Flora described the times when her body let her down. Oh, I can relate to that. Not to running but to when I relied on myself for strength and tried getting through circumstances in my life with my own body – physically, mentally and spiritually. It (My Body) let me down.

But when I lean into CHRIST and the strength, comfort, peace, wisdom HE gives me, I am NEVER let down. I am RAISED up to better, stronger, more loving, more peaceful, more HOPE than ever.

Where do you need HOPE in your life?

Do you need hope for that healing?

Hope for the devastation in your life?

Hope that things will turn for the better?

Hope for your past and the future that looks bleak?

Our God, the God of Hope, gives us things that will never decay, never waste away. They will last forever.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God,

Psalm 146:5 NASB

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.

Psalm 43:5 ESV

Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him……

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity…

Hope is one of the things a Christian is meant to do. “It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”

We have hope in eternal life, so we can attack today with renewed vigor and strength which comes from God.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Romans 15:13 ESV

So go out, run that Marathon of Life. Train, focus, develop yourselves, dream, for the God of HOPE IS WITH US and FOR US. And HE is waiting for us at the Finish Line with the medal for “Eternity with Him” to reward us with.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups. If you would like more information please click HERE.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Where do you need hope in your life?

What areas of your life do you need to focus on becoming more like Christ?

Where are you doing things in your own strength rather than in God’s strength?