Several years ago, I made the medal and ribbon display you see in the picture here for my husband, John. My daughter and I had run a couple of obstacle races, and he decided to join us. Now, I need to set the stage here for you. Amber and I were working out on a regular basis. I use the past tense for myself, she is still very actively working out in the Cross Fit world, and in fact helps coach the Girls and Boys Weightlifting teams at the school where she teaches. I, on the other hand, well, I work my fingers out regularly on the keyboard now. So, anyway. John was very intrigued by the idea of the obstacle racing. And they were fun. Really fun. The only issue is that he was not a fan of running. Unless there was a ball involved. It was necessary, however, to get from one obstacle to the next. They were only 5ks, so overall it was just around three miles, with plenty of down time waiting in line for your turn on the obstacle. He did a couple of them with us and loved it. Then he began to eye some of the tougher ones. We had done The Rugged Maniac, where the obstacles were all pretty doable, and other than some monkey bar style ones, even I accomplished the majority of them. Then he decided he and Amber were going to do one called the Savage Race. I declined. Way too much for me. They loved it, and it was tough enough that my daughter had a nemesis that took her a few years to conquer: Sawtooth. An up and down monkey bar style obstacle. I followed along and took pictures. Then came Spartan. The one that people train for. The one that if you don't successfully complete an obstacle you must do 30 burpees before you can move on. Yeah...that one Well, John decides that is the next one. I warn him about the burpees. He was unfamiliar with what that was. His 'workouts' are his day job. Amber demonstrated one, and he commented how that looked awful. I said, "Well, let's hope you don't fail any obstacles!" The race, which by the way was NOT a 5K, but a 10K, I believe, was over an hour away, so I stayed home. When they returned home later that night, I welcomed him home, dirty and wet. I asked him how it went, and he told me it went great. It was a lot of fun. I slyly asked him how many burpees he had to do, expecting him to have had to do a few since he had not trained as normal people did. He said, none. Except he did help Amber do some of hers. The guy, in his early 50's, runs a Spartan for the first time in his life, with no training, and succeeds every obstacle. Then he tells me, some of the obstacles were so much fun, he went back and did them a second time. Who does that? Thus, the What Obstacles? hanging over our race medals.
I tell you this story to create the groundwork for my mindset going into the next few months of my life. I have a goal. As far as goals are, I'm sure there are others with much more daunting goals they are trying to achieve. Scarier, more impactful, more relevant perhaps. But whatever the magnitude, or lack of, there is one thing that all goals have in common. Obstacles.
Over the next few months I am moving forward to attain a purpose. I have people working with me to get there. I have been given certain tasks that I must accomplish that are out of my comfort zone, and some that I feel are out of my range of ability. The place that I have adopted to sit and work is in a corner of my family room where I have a view of the medal shelf, and I can see the words What Obstacles? as I work. It reminds me of several things, not the least of which that I have a husband who is a freak of nature, as he was called on the course once. These lessons I learned running Obstacle Races with my family and friends.
1) I can view the obstacles as just that: Obstacles to stop me, or as opportunities to become stronger, develop new skills, and grow as a person.
2) I am not alone facing these obstacles. I have a network of people with me to learn how to navigate over, around, through or under these obstacles. Alone I may very well fail, but learning to rely on the people God has brought into my life could make the difference between success and failure.
3) I have an intimate, personal relationship with One who designed the course. He will guide me personally through the course. He is the One who enlisted me to run this race, He has determined that I will finish this course, and He is the one who will reward me the trophy at the end.
At the end of every race we received several things. The medal, which we hung on our display in our home, and a tee shirt, with the name of the race on it. I really want one at the end of this one that will say, 'What Obstacles?'
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