After a bunch of years under my feet, I am learning a new trick. I am redesigning ArnoldChavers.com using a different technology than what I have used for the past 20 years!
2014 has brought several changes in my life. I made a couple of resolutions, and I will be completing of my first resolution – to run the 5k race in the Little Rock Marathon. My bib number is 14140, and my race date is March 1, 2014. I started my training on November 1, 2013, and I crossed the 150 mile mark this week. I remember looking at a block in my neighborhood, and thinking it would be impossible to run a lap around that block. I could not run further than 100 feet at one time, much less circle the block. Today, I ran 4 miles. Here I am at 57 years old, starting a young man’s sport.
I won’t lie, I am nervous about the race. I have never taken up running before, and never with 900+ people. I know I can do the distance, but once I do this it is public, and I cannot hide any longer. I am revealing something that has been private. Before, it was just me and the dog. Before, it was me and my watch. But now I have to perform, and compete against others, and I am vulnerable.
There are markers in everyone’s life that define a person. Sometimes those markers are painful events, teaching a person to recoil to avoid the hurts that you know are inevitable. For others it is achievements, fighting through a personal battle that helped you to overcome.
Many of the markers that have influenced me are the movements of God that I have gotten to witness over the years. With the understanding of salvation when I was six years old…the opportunities to serve and be a person of influence as a youth…the call to ministry at 17…the relationship with a wonderful, godly woman who took a risk on me and found her ministry calling of a pastor’s wife alongside of her career calling…children, and the legacy of paying forward for generations that would come after me…and opportunities to pastor congregations both in the South and in the West that were filled with godly people that we got to work beside to impact a community for Jesus Christ.
There have been bumps along the way, but those bumps have always reminded me that God is, and always will be in control. I pray that you can find the hope and peace of Jesus Christ in your life. I also pray that this site can be the starting point for your journey to salvation.
God Bless!
February 26, 2014