Never Alone: Completing the Marathon

I'm a closet Biggest Loser fan. I'm not ashamed to admit it; it's just that in my fervor for reality giants like Survivor and The Amazing Race, two shows I regularly recap every Friday on The Fritz!, I never talk about The Biggest Loser. But ever since I started watching last season, I've grown to adore this show. These people.I essentially wept through this season's penultimate episode in which all the contestants -- eliminated or not -- competed in a grueling 26.2 mile race through the desert.I mean, I always cry while watching this show. But I especially cried this episode because of the marathon's many moving moments and their parallels to life.In the first episode the contestants struggled to run a single mile in this very desert; now, mere months later, they were running a marathon. And their trainers who worked with them day after day were there to holler them home.That's powerful. But even more powerful than the trainers cheering on the contestants was the contestants cheering on the contestants. Because with every finisher, the cheers escalated for each subsequent finisher. And suddenly it wasn't about getting 1st anymore. Even despite the $25,000 prize and a guaranteed spot in the final 3, it was never really about that.It's about finishing. These physically and emotionally marred people spent weeks, months together, not nearly competing against each other as much as they worked toward a common goal. It's one of the facets of this show that severely distances itself from other reality competitions. Yes, it's still about surviving eliminations. But it's more about surviving life. Together.An especially poignant moment came with the last two finishers -- the two oldest people running the marathon. It had been over ten hours since the race started and daylight had been reclaimed by nightfall. Walking side-by-side, one said to the other: "If you weren't here, I couldn't finish by myself."And even though night had fallen and everyone else had already finished, they still finished, and they received the loudest cheers of all.As I watched this brotherhood and sisterhood spanning all ages, I wept thinking about the marathon of my own life and who will be cheering for me as I strive for the finish line. It's already been an arduous 24 years; how much longer do I still have to run? Another 24 years? 50? Tomorrow?I'm reminded of Hebrews 12:1 which encourages us to run our races amid "such a great cloud of witnesses."Essentially: we're always being cheered on.But I don't often hear it. I often feel like I am running alone -- that I could fall into some pit along my route and I'd never be discovered. But we're always running a race watched first and foremost by God, and secondly by saints above and saints below.And they're all cheering us home.Being a runner since middle school, this analogy really hits home: running the race of life with fellow brothers and sisters cheering me homeward, and similarly being able to cheer for others on their own races too.This Biggest Loser marathon was spectacular, made even more so by the background playing of The Afters' song, "Light up the Sky."Here's the entire episode; skip to the 1:03:50 mark for the marathon's closing scenes. Prepare to be inspired.

Run your race, and finish it well. You're not alone; we're all cheering.