Reach

I am considered somewhat tall for a woman.  It started in junior high, when three inch heels  or platform shoes were the rage.  Everyone wore them, and I was very conscious of the fact that with my two inch heels I towered over most of the twelve year old boys.

That doesn't work well if you consider height to be a deciding factor on whether or not a boy might consider asking you out.  Most taller boys played sports, so being the shy, unconfident person I was, I never even considered that a "jock" would ever ask me out.  So, it is quite amazing that I ended up marrying one.  But that's an entirely different story.

Being tall has one advantage.  You can reach things others can't.  I have been asked more than once by a stranger in the grocery store if I could help them reach something.  My mother in law has often used my height to her advantage to help reach a serving bowl on the top shelf of her cabinet.  

Reach.  It usually requires stretching.

You might even be a little uncomfortable for a time, straining to get something that is out of reach for most people, but barely within your own.

There is another kind of reach I have known--finally reaching your destination/goal/opportunity. There is a finality about that kind of reach.  It means overcoming obstacles, pursuing something over a long period of time, coming to the place where you realize what you had sought for so long--a finish line, a vacation spot, a master's degree.  

The destination I think about  reaching most often is more a place of maturity.
Reaching a place where the struggles of the past no longer have a hold on me.
Reaching a place where I no longer worry about what others think of me.
Reaching a place where I can love unconditionally.
Reaching a place in my where I trust the Lord completely and never doubt.

I would love to reach that place.

But I am beginning to realize that it is going to look more like the continual stretching kind of reach. A process.  It means it will be uncomfortable.  I will wonder if I will ever arrive.  I believe it is the process itself that is much more important than the destination.  The continual stretching and striving will produce the character He requires for me to enter a new place.  

Yes, reach is a slippery thing.  Once you think you have arrived, there is always more. A new destination, a new race to run, a new level.

One day we will finish our race, having run the entire course, and will truly reach what our hearts desire.  What we were created for.  Until then, we continute to reach…

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such away as to get the prize."  I Corinthinas 9:24.