TWENTY LAPS

“Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in You” (Psalm 33:20-22).

I shared that verse at the end of last year's post on the jogathon, Two Laps. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you take five minutes. 

Caleb's come so far in so many ways this past year. I feel like there are more and more achievements we're continually celebrating. He still has so many struggles {it's important to remember some struggles will always be there}, but man, oh man, today I'm on cloud nine.

All week I had been reminding him about the jogathon, and for some reason he wanted so bad for me to not be there. Maybe he was remembering all of the years spent crying at jogathons. Whatever the reason, I wasn't going to get my hopes up. And then this morning while dipping his waffle in syrup, he excitedly said "Mom! You're going to watch me and my friends run today!" Talk about relief. He was cool with be being there, with wearing his old shirt from last year, with Lilly coming, etc.

This year I had to prepare Lilly...for the crowds of noisy kids, for the adults that might heaven forbid talk to her, and for the loud music they were going to be playing. Jogathons are serious business, and they're a whole lot of crazy; I just wanted to be sure that her attitude didn't change Caleb's cheery disposition during a very chaotic morning. 

Everything went incredibly smoothly. Lilly kept it together {for the most part} and Caleb proudly ran each lap and called out when he came by to get his laps tallied. When heads it to four laps, his teacher, aide, and I did a little happy dance. And then he kept going. And going. We all stood and couldn't believe how well he was doing. He was high-fiving his friends, grabbing water, walking a bit, and was overall having a great time. As one of the aides mentioned, it was like night and day from last year. 

After an hour of run/walking {in 80° dry-Santa-Ana-wind-heat}, he had successfully completed twenty laps. 

TWENY LAPS.

That help, that shield, that hope that the Psalmist talked about in the above scripture, I'm confident is what we experienced today. The Lord's steadfast love was so graciously upon us as we cheered on our Bug. Even something as small as the jogathon is going to be a big celebration in our house, because TWENTY LAPS is a big deal. Great job, Bug. Can't wait to see what you do next year.