COMING ALONGSIDE
We’re all in this together
by Jan Whitson

The night was black—no moon, no stars. Off in the distance a few scattered points of light bobbed along, heading towards the spot where my friend Connie waited.

Not until they were nearly upon her did the lights resolve themselves into runners, each wearing a personal headlamp, running over gravel roads in the Flint Hills of Kansas, in the middle of the night.

The Heartland Run is thirty hours of running over little-traveled roads for a total of one hundred miles traversed, or half that for a fifty-mile run. Traveling their whole route in darkness, those running fifty miles—my friend’s husband among them—have only three points along the route where supporters can provide comfort and encouragement.

Runners begin as individuals, but they end mostly in pairs. A real and important part of completing a run this long is formation of partnerships. These shift and change during the course of the event, but support and encouragement from running partners is crucial to successful completion. It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of those who run alongside.

My friend tells of one older runner, sixty at least, who finished strong. When this man came around the last turn and saw the finish in the distance, he reached deep inside and found the energy to finish in a sprint. As he cooled off, walking around catching his breath, he saw another runner round the distant turn. This runner was in trouble, bent over, beginning the last leg of his journey with a twisted, limping gait. The older runner watched for only a moment, then took off running. He reached the straining marathoner and came alongside. Matching the painfully slow pace, he began the final leg of the race again, giving encouragement, talking the exhausted runner in, all the way to the finish line.

In the hundred mile run, support is so critical that friends of the runners will join the race, matching pace with their runner for five miles, eight, ten…whatever their skill and dedication allow. Especially during the second half of the hundred mile race, when exhausted runners struggle through dark night, it is the support of those who travel alongside that allows the runner to succeed. What a great paradigm for life. In that journey also, those who travel alongside us make all the difference.

Who are these people? They are those who see a need and meet it.

For me, it is often the student who hangs around unobtrusively for a few extra minutes after class, while I put my materials away, and walks out of the building with me, rather than leaving me to lock up alone. In the small Christian college where I teach, there is one such student, or more, in almost every night class.

Or what about the teenager who cheerfully stops and hands you the item sitting just beyond your reach on the grocery store shelf? There is the neighbor with a snow blower who anonymously cleans off the sidewalks and driveway of an elderly woman, or of a friend temporarily incapacitated. And there is the community that unites to raise funds when a college student from abroad, uninsured, is injured in an accident and faces bills for medical treatment and therapy.

These are small examples, but there are also those whose journey beside us and make a major impact on our lives: a spouse who is there through good days and bad, a parent who is also a mentor, a friend who is simply there when life is too painful to face alone.

We were never intended to journey through life in isolation. As the holiday of Thanksgiving approaches, it would be appropriate to remember the people who journey beside us, to thank them for being there. Yet even more important than gratitude is remembering our responsibility, as fellow travelers, to give encouragement and light to those around us—especially when the wind is cold and the night is dark.

Don’t measure your success in miles, but in friends and remember… we journey together.