Sunday afternoon in the park

After a rather cool start, under overcast skies, the temperatures rebounded a bit today, and the afternoon was pleasantly warm. Roger stayed at home to get some yard work done, so I went alone for a walk at Sharon Woods. It was a popular place to be - people picnicking, walking, boating and fishing.
The message given by our minister at church this morning was most inspirational. It was entitled "Ahead in last place", and he talked about how we may feel or appear to others that we're "losers" in this world, according to this world's standards, but we're not losers in God's eyes. One of the moving examples he used was that of Abdul Baser Wasiqi, a slender slight marathon runner, the sole representative from Afghanistan at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. This 20 yr old Afghani student was a good runner, and had hoped to be in contention at the Atlanta Games, but unfortunately two weeks prior to the race, he tore a calf muscle, and he hadn't even been able to run since sustaining his injury. Wasiqi shouldn't have even started the marathon that Sunday morning, but he felt he hadn't traveled half way around the world to sit and watch others compete in his race without him. By the halfway stage of the marathon, he was 20 minutes behind the pack. As the race wore on, he fell further and further behind, but still he persevered, and pressed on. Wasiqi's pace slowed, and eventually, he stopped running altogether, but he never stopped moving forward, agonizing in pain with his badly-torn muscle. By the time he finally reached the stadium, over two hours after the winner, preparations were already underway for that evening's closing ceremony, but word arrived that one last runner was approaching, and a few officials and a group of volunteers put together a welcome for him, forming a tunnel for him to run through and finding another tape for him to run through at the finish line, which he finally crossed with a time of 4 hours, 24 minutes, and 17 seconds, the slowest marathon time ever. As he set out that morning, Wasiqi knew that he couldn't possibly win a medal, but he knew in his heart that he could still be a winner, and in so doing provides inspiration for all of us.