The Beginning of The Last Firsts: Last First Cross Country Meet

So those of you that know me know I run cross country for Murray High School. It is one of the most challenging yet fulfilling things I have ever done. When I run a race its me running my guts out for 20 minutes. Its so so hard but afterwards I feel great but before every race I get super duper nervous and pretty much would rather do anything than run. So I had a race Saturday morning and I was so nervous and I didn't know what to do. So to motivate myself and calm myself down  I watched this video that  I have seen a few times but we watched it at EFY and I thought it could help, and it did. So here it is:

This video is super duper awesome and motivating because at anything we do we can really only give our  best. So as I was eating my french toast and watching this video I realized that as long as I go run the best that I can and give it my best effort, I could not be disappointed with myself and as long as I'm not disappointed with myself I can be happy.I was at the start line ready to start my race and felt super nervous and then I remembered this video and then we said our prayer like we do before each race and I don't think I have ever felt so calm before a sporting event in my life. Through the race whenever I got tired I played the coaches words in my head "just 30 more steps" in my head. Yes, I knew I had more than 30 steps left but I just took it 30 steps at a time.  So I am happy to report that I ran my race (3 miles) in 21 minutes and 15 seconds. This is just an average time but for my first race of the season its not too bad.
Now for the actual interesting part of this blog post. The spiritual side of things. Every time I watch this I think of the coach as The Savior, Brock as us, and the other kid, I think his name is Jeremy, as our trials. Brock says "I could go to the  50 with nobody on my back". Well, anybody can make it to the 50 with no extra weight. Anybody could make it through life without the trials.  That would be way too easy and pretty much make this life pointless. Little do we know that we are a lot stronger than we think because we have The Savior and Heavenly Father on our side. We can do anything through Christ. I don't know about you but I think that is amazing. Anyways, the blindfold is an interesting thing, very similar to the veil. Brock needed this because he would have given up at the 30 or the 50 but since he was going just off of his strength he could go the full 100 yards. I think we went through the veil because we could not complete this life knowing how hard it is going to be. Without the coach Brock would have given up so much earlier and I can relate to that so much. I haven't gone through anything extremely rough but I would definitely already given up on life if I didn't have The Savior. He is always by our side and is doing whatever he can to motivate us. The biggest difference in this coach and Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father is they are there to take the weight from us. Not only will Christ be constantly with us and encouraging us but He will take the weight and carry us to that 100 yard line. He is willing to help us, all we have to do is let him. When I learned this, I realized that this life is not going to be easy but will can be easier if I let Christ help me through. I could go on but this is already extra long so there are a few of my thoughts. Thank you for reading!