The Race, The Prize

      It is discouraging when you have high hopes for someone's growth in right-thinking and right-living to see them happily fail with seemingly no thought to the incongruity of their actions next to their purported beliefs.  It is a challenge to continue praying and even to do so more fervently.  At the same time it is a good opportunity to stop and review one's own weak areas.  We never want to be satisfied with where we are in the race of life... we must keep striving toward the mark.  What a glorious mark it is!  What a prize is offered!  What am I holding onto that I am, in reality, holding up as a competing prize.  What am I seeking after that can possibly compare with the prize that is already offered me?
     This morning L and I were up at 6am to head out for the vegetable market.  I can't count how many times I have been told that I should go to the vegetable market instead of Wal-Mart because it is cheaper and the vegetables are better quality.  I have been to the vegetable market before, many times, actually, but I dislike the smell and the fact that I am cheated right and left because I am a foreigner.  The last part bothers me especially.  I'd rather pay more at Wal-Mart with everyone else than pay more alone at the market.  I got up early and went this morning because I thought there would be a crowd and I'd hear the other people's prices and be able to bargain more intelligently.  Well, I was shocked to find the market hardly even open and many of the vegetables left over from the day before.  So much for my thought that markets were best in the early morning.  Strangely, I KNOW there are early morning markets, very early.  One market opens at 3am.  So the next thing I have to work out is did I just go too late or does this one just not open till 'later'.  After being heartily cheated this morning I guess my other thought is, 'when does Wal-Mart open in the morning?' LOL!        The two market methods do have some similarities... we were at Wal-Mart once when they wheeled out an entire cart of halved pig carcasses to take from the off-loading area over to the meat area (which I despise and avoid).  I confess to revulsion in my very sheltered soul.  This morning though was a step beyond, a man in a hooded raincoat slipped past us with half a pig slung over his shoulder... blood dripping down the raincoat worn for that very purpose.  Needless to say we removed ourselves from his pathway. This part of the race is not my favorite!
     One thing I love to do is get out my hymnbook at night and sing songs to the girls once they are in bed and the lights are mostly out.  It brings back memories of my grandmother who loved to sing hymns with me.  She wrote me out a list of her favorite hymns at my request once which is a treasured possession.  I love how peaceful it is for both the girls and for myself.  The old hymns are full of such inspiring thoughts.  "O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free! Rolling as a mighty ocean, in its fullness over me, underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love; leading onward, leading homeward to my glorious rest above."  What a prize!