The Good Race

A Thoroughbred. The racer kind.  He feels the rider on his back and hears the starting bell. The gates crash open and the track is before him. The crowd is cheering, but he does not hear them. He is going to win. He'll run himself to death. He'll run till his big heart stops beating in his chest. He doesn't know his limit, or, maybe it doesn't matter to him as much as winning does. He'll finish the race, or die trying.  

A horse, faithful as a hound, will run for you and never stop, if you ask him to. He'll give up his life and never give up the race.

I don't know why a horse does this. Not all horses, not all Thoroughbreds, just special ones. My dad is. He's something special, like a race horse. He's the hardest worker I know and the gentlest man, like a glossy-coated stallion in his stall, who lives for the race. 

He ran against a horse at a fair when he was a boy and the horse lost.
Dad is strong. He says  that strength is mostly in the mind. When he was nineteen, he ran up mountains in Africa on two hours of sleep and no water, one end of a huge log on his shoulder and a pack on his back. And the skin came off his feet. They bled and blistered. But he didn't quit. He put his shoes back on and kept running. He was tortured once. Hung up by his thumbs all night, naked and cold. They told him to give up. But he didn't. He jumped seventy-six times out of a plane. It busted his knees and they hurt even more today, but he still plays Softball with us, or Frisbee. 


He's like a racehorse, because he's still running his race. A racehorse doesn't run for his own glory. I don't know why they run. Dad doesn't run for his own glory either. He's running a bigger race than he'll be able to finish, but still he runs, because he knows where he's headed. The end is in his sights.


Maybe every battle is a race to win. I don't know. Maybe we're all winning races, just some win more than others. Maybe there's littler races inside a bigger race and nobody's going to win the big race, but we're all trying and one day some people will.
And that will mean victory for my Dad.

He'll pass the batton on to us and I hope we won't give up.


He works longer days than most anybody I know. He sits down in his office chair at nine in the morning and he'll work until six. If he stopped at dinner and didn't go back to work after, I think that would be a normal amount. But most days, he's back in his office by eight or nine and works into the wee hours. Sometimes he's in bed by three in the morning. 


But, perhaps the hardest work he does is be a husband and father, because he doesn't leave that role out, not even for one day. He reads the bible and the catechism to us and we talk for an hour after breakfast and dinner. He'll venture out of his office on occasion during the day and we mob him then. But he likes to talk. He tells the best stories. Some days, he won't go back to his office, but will sit in the lounge with whiskey or a beer or a glass of wine and we'll talk till one in the morning. He hates to leave a good conversation to go to bed. 

Mom said, "We must let Dad rest this Sunday." She means we mustn't pressure him to do anything or go anywhere, because he would, because he's devoted to us. She knows he never thinks of himself, but will run till he drops. 
Dad has decided to take a week's break. He'll still preach on Sunday, but it will be a 'pulled sermon,' as we call it. It's one he's preached before. [It is said that humans only remember something the seventeenth time they hear it].
Mom looked very relieved. I could see it in her eyes. She said, "Dad doesn't stop. I was getting worried."

So, next week he wants to fix things around the house before winter comes. In Mom's words, "We'll take things slow." And we're going to a wedding in Wisconsin. Hurrah!

Last week was another little race. We had a death in our church. In one week, Dad prepared a new sermon, a men's meeting sermon and a eulogy. He preached his sermon in the morning, delivered the eulogy in the evening, attended the burial the next morning and then gave his men's meeting talk in the evening. Now he's in his office preparing another sermon, because he's taking my brother hunting on Friday.

Until Saturday night.

Then he preaches.

And my dad's favorite verse:

"But none of these things move me;
nor do I count my life dear to myself,
so that I may finish my race with joy,
and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus,
to testify to the gospel of the Grace of God."
                          
                                                Acts 20:24