It’s time to change your calendar. 2021 arrives this week. And none too soon.
I’ve said for many years that God gives us overnights so that regardless of how bad any day may go in your life, you can start all over again when the sun comes up the next day. This concept can also apply to years. It applies more to 2020 than any other typical year before now.
It has been an amazingly difficult year. I don’t believe anyone who woke up on the morning of January 1, 2020 in their wildest imagination could have predicted what lay ahead for us in 2020.
This past year is like something out a movie. Yet it is reality. We persevere forward into 2021.
Life is not a sprint, it is a marathon. I’ve had the opportunity to run 19 marathons. Twenty-six point two miles is a long way to run.
There was a runner named John Stephen Akhwari representing Tanzania who ran the marathon in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The marathon had its usual finish and after the leaders came the rest of the runners. Most of the crowd had left, thinking the race had finished. But about an hour later, with just a few thousand people left in the stands, out of the cold dark Mexico City night and into the stadium came Akhwari.
He was the last runner in the marathon. His leg was bloody and bandaged. He was limping. Wincing with pain at every step, he pressed on in his lap around the track. The thousands remaining in the stands, silent a few minutes earlier, began a slow steady clapping. Akhwari slowly made his painful way around the track and the cheering grew louder. With each step he came closer to the finish line.
Finally, he hobbled across the finish and the crowd roared as if he had been the winner. He collapsed from exhaustion. As he rested at the finishing area, a reporter asked Akhwari why he endured the pain and why, since there was no chance of winning, he did not retire from the race as many other runners had done.
Akhwari appeared perplexed at the question. Then he simply said, “I don’t think you understand, My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race, they sent me to finish the race.”
As we enter 2021, giving up is not an option. We are all out somewhere on the course with the desire to finish. There is more left for each of us to do.
Many have lost loved ones this past year; some for non-Covid reasons. I sympathize with each of you. There are times in each of our lives we need to mourn...even mourn hard. A single death can change our entire life. I don’t want to minimize the impact of the death of a loved one.
But when the sun comes up we have a new day ahead. When we turn our calendar to 2021 we have a new year ahead.
For years I’ve told my wife if God calls me home, mourn for a few days then get back on track and change the world without me. Don’t forget me, but don’t live your life backwards. Live today to its fullest working forward to the future. Find another life to bless as you have done me if you so desire.
I almost died with a dissected aorta in 2019. As I lay on my back being airlifted by jet to a major hospital I was not afraid of death, just the impact of not being there for my loved ones in the years ahead.
Today we live in a time of awkwardness. Mask or no mask? Hand shake, fist bump, or elbow bump? When introduced to a person you have never met before do you stand back six feet as if they have leprosy? I’ve gotten to the point anymore that I just ask the person what greeting they feel is appropriate and then respect their choice.
Covid is a wild card. No one knows how it will impact them or their loved ones. Caution is the best path to follow. I caught it a few months ago on a visit to Georgia and I didn’t know it until weeks later when I had a blood test done. Yet a friend of mine got it and eventually died.
Stay home or go out? Is it better to live life as normal as possible in a cautious manner or to lock yourself up at home? Fear impacts each of us differently. And everyone has an opinion. That’s the way God made us. The best we can do is to listen to others and what they believe, not judge them, be respectful, and then love them anyway if we disagree.
With the vaccine being distributed, maybe we will turn the corner soon and get back to old routines.
But I recognize that what you focus on expands. There is plenty of bad that we can focus on, but there is also plenty of good. Sometimes short term pain springboards us to long term gain. I complain as much as the next person about this past year, but when we get out of this mess there will be new systems in place that I believe will make our world a better place long term. We will have learned and grown.
My hope and prayer is that Christmas letters set out in 2021 don’t have to mention the word Covid.
My challenge to you today is to put 2020 in the rear view mirror and welcome 2021 with open arms. Don’t give up. Keep moving forward one step at a time. You were not sent here to start the race, but to finish it.
Regardless of what lies ahead in 2021, focus on doing for others what only you can do. At the end of the day remember your life’s not about you, it’s about what you can do for others.
Just a thought...
Rick Kraft is a motivational speaker, a syndicated columnist, a published author, and an attorney. To submit comments, contributions, or ideas, e-mail to rkraft@kraftlawfirm.org or write to P.O. Box 850, Roswell, New Mexico, 88202 - 0850.
