We Run the Race Together

We sometimes hear life compared to a marathon, the defining mark of which is endurance. And for sure, the race of life calls for endurance over the long haul.

But life is so much more than just staying the long course, gritting our teeth and enduring. We’re also meant to grow, thrive, and celebrate. We’re meant to enjoy beauty—awe-inspiring, life-enriching, God-exalting beauty.

And we’re meant to experience the strength and encouragement that flow out of doing life together, helping each other live gospel-adorned lives that in turn adorn the gospel in the eyes of the world.

So I like to envision us Christian women participating in another kind of race. We’re not just solo competitors slogging it out toward a distant finish line. Instead, we’re a team. We run together.

Think of it as a relay—passing the baton from one person to another, each of us involved in the process, both giving and receiving as we press on toward our destination. It’s teamwork, not just individual performance, that counts.

“Life is so much more than just staying the long course, gritting our teeth and enduring.”

Or think of it as one of those charity runs where we all move forward in a group, helping one another, pooling our energies for the sake of a beloved cause. Knowing that our individual efforts count but that it’s not entirely up to us to make it happen—and that the race itself has meaning, not just crossing the finish line.

Picture a vast field of runners—some older, some younger, some more mature, some less seasoned—and you and me, right there with them. We each need our own, personal relationship with God and His Word, of course, but we are not running by ourselves. God intends for our lives to intersect with one another, to carry each other forward under the strong, victorious, beautiful banner of Christ.

Now if all of this seems a bit too philosophical and esoteric, I assure you the practical implications will soon be clear. And they are huge, because this marathon, this relay, this race for a cause runs right through your living room. The baton passes directly over your kitchen table and through seemingly insignificant conversations and encounters.

This is for you and me . . . real women living real, everyday lives.

And when it’s working, believe me, it works. When older women choose to invest themselves in the lives of younger women, whole families and churches feel the blessing. When young moms and singles widen their close-knit groups to include women who have already run a few laps and lived to tell about it, both sides of the relationship are strengthened and grow. When older women and younger women support each other in living out God’s transforming love, the entire body of Christ—the bride of Christ—grows more beautiful.

So if you’re an older woman (and willing to admit it—as I am), the message of this book is for you.

And if you’re a younger woman (as I still am to some), the message of this book is for you too. It’s for all of us—because each of us is an older woman to somebody and each of us is a younger woman to someone else. And each of us, in different ways, in different seasons, can be on both the giving and receiving end of this life-to-life process.