Dear Gigi, I wish this for you.

I am sitting on a plane on my way to do something a little bit crazy and I am delighted. I am to run a full 26.2 miles along with 45 thousand other runners on Sunday morning. I am writing this before the race because I do not want you to miss the point of my success, of my success right now. If I meet my goal or falter and hit the wall, I do not want the race to cloud the truth of this moment, of sitting on this plane. I wish this for you.

As I sit here, I've completed four months of training, without injury, with my marriage still intact and with a training plan complete. Plan complete, yes, complete. Even though I have not run this race yet, the plan is complete. This plan that included a steady increase in miles, track workouts and early morning runs, long Saturdays and heavy leaning on your dad. You are almost 5 now, and have no idea that my mornings start 2 hours before yours. This weekend might be forgotten as another weekend with your dad and grandma, but I will never forget his support for me and care for you and your brothers as I stretch myself to call myself a marathoner again.  

This will be my first marathon as a mother. My life changed with you, and it is only now, in the last season that I can see myself differently. I believe my calling is you, to raise you and point to God. Yet, even in that calling, I can see a little of who I once was, a distance runner. So this summer, in our new home town, I decided to chase her down and see if I could catch her, again.

I wish this for you. I wish that you will make a goal that is all your own, not the dream of someone else for you, but something that is part of your soul. Unexplainable and undeniable, I pray that you will know yourself enough to be comfortable in your own skin and know who you are even in your dreams. 

I wish for you to stretch farther than you think you can go and then realize you can go further. I wish for your to work on something that does not come easy. I wish for pain and tears, sweat and sacrifice. I wish for you devotion, diligence and grit.  I want you to reach for a goal that takes days and weeks, months and even years to attain. I wish for you to make a plan.... cultivate it, follow it, tear it up and make a new plan. I wish for your plan to change but not your goal.

I wish for you to have cheerleader. Someone that does not do it with you, or for you, but cheers you on from the sideline. I pray that cheerleader will also challenge you to decide if this goal is something you really do want, as they see you make sacrifices and even suffer. Your father is my cheerleader, at times cheering me on and other times questioning my passion. Both are needed. Needed to keep your priorities grounded and to propel your dreams.

I wish for you to reach the moment of all you can do. I do not mean exhaustion, depletion or surrender, but of completion.  I have done all I can do. On this plane, training is complete, hotel reserved, grandma on call, dad on standby, shoes packed and now I travel to my destination. My success is the training, not the race. My success is the arrival, not the finish line time. Oh, the finish line time is important to me....very, but it does not come near encompassing what it took to get here today, on this plane.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is like a tree of life. 
(‭Proverbs‬ ‭13‬:‭12‬ NET)
This longing in my heart is now fulfilled to a tree of life in my soul.  

I wish this for you.  

(Written October 10, 2014)