It’s Labor Day weekend, and I’m thinking about how hard athletes train to run in races. Only one person wins a gold medal, which tarnishes and fades. What about those runners who don’t win but keep trying? Americans love a winner, but what about those who loose? What keeps them persevering? A wise person once said, “Tell me who or what you love and I will tell you who you are.”
Many strides have been made for America’s middle and lower classes, but it seems most of us are never going to make it to the top. When are the vast majority of Americans going to receive their gold medals, or are we just supposed to be satisfied, never to dream of a better life, never being able to give our children a better future? We need to be the heroes of our own stories; we need to do the right thing at all times. All of us can be a tiny light in a dark room; we must want to be that tiny light. Most of all, when our children need to see changes in their world, we should all open the door, not hold it shut.
Labor Day celebrates the accomplishments of the everyday American, those whose sweat and brute strength have built our nation, one brick at a time. Most of us have trained hard to run the races of our lives. Some of us have failed, but we have picked ourselves up, dusted off the mud and grime, and kept running. That’s what the strong American does. I am proud to be one of those Americans, ever changing, ever growing, ever dreaming.
For every American who has kept running and not given up, I know that faith in God has played a big part in their successes. Faith was the most important thing in the apostle Paul’s life. He told his readers to run to win, to train hard to be the best they could be in everything in life. Americans must continue to win their races with a strong faith in God, not to receive a gold medal to hang around our necks or to hang on the wall, but to win for the gold of eternity. That gold is our Heavenly Father, the One who will never fail us but give us Eternal life. We need to run hard to the finish line, giving our faith the best we have, day in and day out. And when we put our heads on our pillows at night, we need to thank God for all He has given us and pray for the energy to keep running our race the next day.
On this beautiful Labor Day weekend, I want to keep running, keep loving, and keep serving the Lord our God, in whom all things are possible. In the words of Maya Angelou in her poem, “Still I Rise,” I pray for all Americans to keep running.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
(Angelou, Maya. Still I Rise. New York, New York: Random House Publishers, Inc., 1978. p. 41.)
Anna Hartt
