A marathon
Sunday January 22nd 2017, 10:48 pm
Filed under: Friends,Life

That new guy who looks like my sister’s identical twins spoke in church today.

When he was a student, he’d decided to do a semester abroad at the BYU Jerusalem Center. It turned out a local marathon was going to coincide with his semester there so he decided to train for it and make that part of his experience, too.

Well, come the day of, he maybe wasn’t quite as prepared as he thought he was, he said, and he thought that by starting off fast and staying fast he could get through the race in less time.

Mile after mile… He passed people stopping at way stations to eat a bite and was glad he didn’t need to do that–it would wreck his time.

Till at last he found himself collapsing on the side there, unable to take one more step, really not feeling great, thinking his friends would finish and come back and pick him up. He was surprised at how wiped he was and he felt like he’d failed.

And so there he was; he said it felt like a very long time but was probably only five minutes or so, when a stranger came to him to see if he was okay. He clearly didn’t look okay to him. The man talked to him, but he was a Palestinian and our college student didn’t speak Arabic and shrugged, Sorry!

He watched the man then cross the street to a vendor and come back with a sandwich.

You need this. Eat this. The moment transcended the language barrier.

Eric finished his talk by reading the parable of the Good Samaritan, with feeling.

And I considered the thought that sometimes we don’t even know we need to be helped. Until we allow someone to do so.


3 Comments so far
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Thank you for this.

Comment by chris 01.23.17 @ 8:04 am

Beautiful story.

And a good reminder to ask ourselves if we need help.

Comment by twinsetellen 01.23.17 @ 5:16 pm

Both a good story and a learning experience for several of us. Independence isn’t always the best.

Comment by Holly 01.24.17 @ 6:02 am



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