keeping score

Some sure signs of spring are the warm breezes blowing through the trees, flowers poking through the ground and lawnmowers humming over the greening grass. 

One of my favorites is watching the practice fields begin to fill with kids warming up with their new teams, preparing for a new season of baseball and soccer. After a long winter of rest, they venture back out to stretch their legs and begin a new year of running and scoring.

The coaches brush off their rulebooks, parents mortgage their homes to pay for the uniform and equipment and those youngin's ready themselves for a new season of competition.

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Competition grows within each of us, working to do our best, achieving our goals and striving to see who can finish the race first. Why, even the disciples asked Jesus which one of them was the greatest! We go through our lives trying to up the ante and better the one ahead of us, this seems to be the way of our human nature.

Watching our kids out there working with their teams, running at break neck speed to make it around the bases is a wonderful reminder to stop and be thankful for the one and only source in our life that doesn't keep score. I Corinthians 13:5 tells us...

"...love keeps no record of wrongs." 

Love, pure love from our heavenly father accepts us no matter where we are. Paul tells us several times in the New Testament to strive to run the best race we can, striving for the only prize that matters, eternity with our Saviour. 

Let those little bodies remind us to discipline our faith in the way an athlete disciplines their bodies. I pray you are excited about the race you are running today, that you are swinging the bat with all your might and even if this times ends up with a strikeout, that you'll remember there's always another turn up at the plate.

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Alycia Holston lives in Helena, MT with her husband and three children. Her heart has always been in women's ministry and has spent the last ten years loving and supporting her fellow mothers. Now she's reaching out in ministry. Alycia is new on the writing scene as Cross River's first children's author. The combination of her love of children, geography and God's amazing creation is what led to 'While The Giant Is Sleeping,' coming Spring 2011. To learn more about Alycia, her three beautiful and energetic kids, life in Montana and her growing ministry, check out her blog at alysnewchapter.blogspot.com.