The Finish Line~ My story of the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon 2014

Yesterday, April 27th, I had the honor of attending the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon to watch "Team Kasen" finish the full marathon (26.2 miles) relay. Now the relay is just that, each team has five runners who each run for their set distance, to accomplish the full distance.

As you all know I am a new Grandma of a precious baby boy named Kasen! He is without a doubt a true blessing from above! You see Kasen's Mom is a very talented runner and attends college on a cross country scholarship. A ten mile run was nothing for this young lady! However, while she carried our little grandson she scaled her running down, but basically kept at it at a smaller degree. A few weeks after Kasen arrived she began exercising and two weeks ago had began running 6 miles which would be the distance of her leg in the relay.

We made the trip to Oklahoma City on Saturday as to get a good nights rest as they needed to be at the race by to 5:00 A.M. The meeting place was at the Oklahoma City a Memorial site where prayer was held and there was 168 seconds of silence to remember the lives that were lost in this tragic event. You can imagine the people as there were 26,200 runners including all the runners from the full marathon down to the children's run.

All week we had heard how bad the weather was expected to be so it came as no surprise that when we got up Sunday morning the radar was lit up and there were severe storms heading right towards us. The race was to start at 6 A.M. However it was delayed. Now my Mom and I had went along as the team drivers and head cheerleaders so we were watching it unfold on television at this point. The regulations of the race is that the race has to begin no later than 8:01. After the second one hour storm delay the start was pushed right up to the breaking point.

If any of you watch the news, you know how it is filled with doom and gloom and literally leaves you with a grim outlook on life. Not the case yesterday! I was shocked to hear Linda Cavanaugh report that several church's were being utilized to get the runners out of the elements and that they were on their knees praying for the storms to pass. As we watched the weatherman and the track of the storm it became apparent that it was going to be nip and tuck for the storms to clear the area by the deadline. Now the race officials were monitoring the situation and had stated they could wiggle some room for a little extra time but that would be about all they could do! The storms rolled by and the city granted the extra time for the streets to be closed and the race kicked off at 8:30! Imagine the relief and cheers from the runners who represented 48 states and 9 different countries. Their journeys
to the race was not in vain.

Lisa, Taylor's Mom, was lined up at the starting line with shoulder to shoulder people. It took well over 20 minutes for all the runners to cross the starting line where she began her 6 mile stretch.
Lisa only started running a few years back and this was the first time she had ran this far
competitively. She handed off to my a Dad, Paul, who is a veteran runner. He has ran in countless road races over the years and in the last few years lead a group at his church in the Run a For God training program. He is 65 years young and has had to slow down on his running due to injuries and maybe age has a little to do with it LOL! But, this doesn't stop him! I wish I could have been at the point where he handed off to my Brother! What a priceless picture that would have been!

Darron, my brother, started running a few years back. I remember the time they were here visiting at my parents in Woodward and he went for a run and asked to be picked up in Mooreland which is about fourteen miles away! Darron's leg of this race was 6 miles however he missed his hand off point by quite a ways and had to run back to his next team member who was Trevor, Taylor's brother.

Trevor does not train to run. He is a natural and his 3 mile run is a walk in the park where he hands off to his big sister Taylor. Taylor has the final 6 mile run where the team will finally cross the finish
line and claim the right to say they did it! We are finished!

My Mom and I had found our place at the finish line and anxiously awaited the arrival of "Team Kasen". As we kept a close watch for Taylor coming down the stretch we witnessed some of the most heart warming finishes and yip, you guessed it I spilt several tears watching these people reach their destination.

There was the firefighters dressed in full gear, military people dressed in desert camouflage... One carrying a backpack weighing 168 pounds,  A pound for each life lost.

There was the lady runner carrying her friend on her back the full half marathon (13.1miles) so that she too could experience the thrill of victory.

There were the people in wheel chairs crossing the finish line who had nothing but their arms to get them through to the finish line!

As I sat there and watched this all unfold I found myself standing by a lady who was also anxiously awaiting the arrival of her son and his buddy who are seniors in High School. They were running the full marathon. Their first! As I talked to her she shared with me that her son had became very sick two years ago with a heart condition. She said he was unable to function and had came to a place that the doctors didn't give much hope. That's when he heard a voice telling him to read the Bible front to back and so he did. During this time he improved and regained his life. It was such an honor to watch a complete miracle cross the finish line side by side with his running buddy, holding hands as they crossed celebrating the victory. His mom also shared that he has received a calling to the ministry and will be attending college to become a youth director in the fall following graduation. She thanked me for letting her tell his story and with that she was gone. I had felt guilty for skipping church, but felt better after hearing her story and realizing I wasn't there by mistake. There was a reason.

A short time later Mom and I see some familiar faces coming towards us, there was Taylor with her team mates Darron, Lisa, and my Dad as they ran the final stretch together. They had joined her at the end of her journey and All of them were wearing a smile as they knew they had reached their final destination and that they claim the right to say We did it! The victory is ours!

I couldn't help but to think about the whole story of this race and compare it with our everyday lives. We all have our own story about how we got to where we are. We have all had set backs that slowed us down or injuries that kept us from performing our duties as Christians.  There are times when it has taken the strength of our friends and family to carry us through a situation. There are times we have sat in life's wheelchair and only used part of ourselves. There are times it seems we carry the weight of the world on our backs and we lug it around letting it weigh us down.  But, we can never quit putting one foot in front of the other.

You see It doesn't matter if you have been "training" for years or if you have only started your
"training". Being a Christian  is all about believing and having faith that someday we will be ready to run our final race. It doesn't matter how many times we have stumbled or had to crawl to get there.    It's in reaching those pearly gates where we can all celebrate the victory and shout together We
did it! We have crossed the finish line!

The Easter Chicken

What do you think of when you think of Easter?

Eggs, of course. The symbol of new life come spring. How better to illustrate the season's spiritual message?

I looked forward to teaching the lesson of the egg in my Sunday school class as Easter approached, but when I asked the children where eggs came from the answer surprised me.

"Bunnies!" all 12 students shouted.

Bunnies? I thought. Could these kids be so far removed from nature they actually think rabbits lay eggs? My own chickens would have been insulted!

"It's on TV," one of the girls explained. "A white rabbit lays chocolate eggs."

Now I knew what they meant. I'd seen the commercial, but it didn't have much to do with the lesson I wanted to teach. I had to think this through.

The following Sunday morning I got ready for school, still not sure what to do. I have to find a way to set them straight, I thought.

I checked my chicken coop before I left. My birds strutted and clucked around the hen houses: Ida, Ada and Henney Penney in their nesting boxes, Rudy the rooster scratching at the ground. Penney puffed her feathers to twice her size when Rudy got close. She was guarding a dozen eggs.

"If only the kids at Sunday school could see your eggs," I said, stroking Penney's copper-speckled feathers, "they'd forget all about chocolate."

That's when it hit me: What if I took Penney and her eggs to Sunday school with me? How many of the kids had ever seen a real egg hatch? Or watched an ordinary-looking, beige-colored egg turn into a live chick with bright little BB-pellet eyes, downy feathers and tiny feet, peeping away? The hatching of an egg was like a miracle. Why not share it with the kids? I'd give those children an Easter message they'd never forget!

I hunted for a box to hold the eggs. But wait a minute: Was I really planning to bring a chicken to church? I tried to remember another time any kind of animal had joined us at our solemn service. Once a sparrow flew in an open window and fluttered around, disturbing the reading. And a puppy had wandered in and led the ushers in a merry chase around the aisles while the children laughed. But those events hadn't been planned.

I thought of a certain church lady, a good Christian with very strong opinions. She'd once objected to my son's carrying in a Bible with a jazzy cover. "It's a New Testament," I'd assured her as she eyed the brightly colored jacket.

"Well," she'd sniffed, "it looks like a Betty Crocker cookbook!"

I had a vision of my little bantam hen pooping on the ecclesiastical carpet. "I guess chickens really don't belong in church," I said. But then I remembered Jesus' own words in the Gospel of Matthew: "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings."

"That settles it," I told Penney. "Jesus would approve of a chicken in church, and he's who matters!" Penney would be in the Sunday school wing anyway. Nowhere near the church, actually. And nowhere near that straitlaced church lady (I hoped).

I poked holes in the lid of a straw-filled cardboard box and transferred Penney and her eggs into it. It was waiting on the table when the children came to class. As they took their seats I said, "Guess what's inside."

"Rabbits!" one boy shouted.

"Kitten!" a girl said over him.

"Puppy!" called someone else.

"Nobody has guessed it," I said and lifted the lid. All the children gasped. Penney blinked in the sudden light and ruffled her feathers, but soon settled down and clucked. The children came forward slowly, so as not to scare her. The girls took turns stroking her feathers.


"What do you think Penney's brought with her?" I said. I lifted her up to reveal a dozen eggs.

A boy poked one of the shells with a pudgy finger. "How can she sit on them?" he asked. "They're hard!"

"Penney wants her babies very much," I said. "She's willing to go through hard things. Just like your mother did before you were born. God puts love into all parents' hearts—even chicken parents!"

Now that the children had seen the eggs, I offered them a deal. "Penney has laid 12 eggs. That's one for each of you," I said. "You have a choice what to do with your egg. You can take it home and have your mom cook it for breakfast..."

The children giggled.

"Or I can bring Penney back next week and you can see your eggs turn into babies!"

Not one child voted for an omelet. By the following week the children had told all their friends. We discussed the impending blessed event. They couldn't wait to see the chicks they'd been promised on Easter Sunday.

I promised, I thought as I got ready for bed on Saturday night. Should I have been so confident the children would see chicks on Easter? It took 21 days for a bantam hen egg to hatch, and in the interest of timing, I'd taken the eggs from under Penney so that she'd miss a day of brooding. But what if I'd miscounted, or addled the eggs when moving them? What if Penny's temperature wasn't just right? The hatching of a chicken was God's work, not mine. God, I prayed after I switched off the light, please let at least one egg hatch for them.

The church parking lot was crowded the next morning. Everyone came for the Easter service. But why were so many people gathered around the Sunday school wing? I made my way through the crowd with my cardboard box.

"Is that Penney?" a woman asked me.

"Did the eggs hatch yet?" a man said.

They were all here to see Penney and her eggs! Along with every child from every Sunday school class, not just my own. Even the pastor came over to see what was going on. "It's an expectant hen," I told him, blushing. "I thought the children would like to see the eggs hatch."

"What a perfect way to illustrate today's sermon!" he said. "Would you bring Penney into the church?"

So much for keeping Penney under wraps, I thought as a pack of children cheered and followed me into the sanctuary. They plunked themselves on the stage at the front of the church. Okay, God, I thought as I lifted the lid. Time for an Easter miracle!

A gasp went up. There was Penney with not one but six wobbly chicks. Three were already dried and fluffy as dandelion down. The other three were still wet from their shells. Two more eggs were nearly cracked in half, the babies just emerging. The last four eggshells showed tiny holes where miniature beaks were pecking.

I looked up, beaming, from Penney's new family—right into the face of that straitlaced parishioner I'd dreaded. She was gazing down at the chicks as happy and amazed as the little girl in front of her who asked, "How did you get the eggs to hatch right on Easter?"

"God decides when the eggs hatch," I said. "He knew this was the right time!"

And just the right place—right in his own house, where all new life begins. 

We Come To Remember... April 19, 1995

By Cassandra Vanhooser
This article is from the April 2001 issue of Southern Living.

Even now, thoughts of the April 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City make me shudder with terror and revulsion.

I fear that we have seen the enemy, and he walks beside us or--even worse--lives inside each of us. I am still horrified that a red-headed kid from rural New York could be so filled with hate that he would kill 168 people.

But I am filled with hope too. While visiting Oklahoma City, I find a community very much on the mend. And the new Oklahoma City National Memorial touches my heart in ways I could never imagine.

Even if you don't know the story of what happened here, the effects of a horrible violence haunt this place. The jagged edge of the Murrah Building splits the azure sky. The Journal Record Building looms over the landscape and stares hollow-eyed over a now peaceful scene. Even more chilling, 168 empty chairs sit on a field of emerald grass--one for each person killed that day.

There are signs of resilience too. An American elm stands on a knoll overlooking the site. It faced the blast, absorbed its power, and yet lives on. The sounds of new construction echo through the streets. Portions of the original chain-link fence that surrounded the bomb site still accept spontaneous tributes to those who perished.

But the thing that really brings me to my knees is the collective voice of the community speaking to me from the bronzed gates. "We come here to remember," says the mission statement, "those who were killed, those who survived, and those changed forever." This memorial was built for people--the fallen, the heroic, and all of us who remember where we were at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995.

Those Who Were Killed...

Stepping up to a section of chain-link fence incorporated into the western wall of the new memorial, Bud Welch gently lifts his daughter's photo from the center of a wreath. "I want to place a face on one of the 168 who were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing," he says, "and that's my daughter Julie."

Just 23 years old, Julie Marie Welch was a brunette beauty with shoulder-length hair and an indomitable spirit. Fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, she was a translator in the Social Security Administration office on the first floor of the Murrah Building. She was young, in

love, excited about her life.

"I was to meet her for lunch that Wednesday at 11:30," says Bud, who operated a Texaco station where Julie stopped almost every day after work. "We were going to go to an Athenian restaurant. We tried to meet every Wednesday for lunch."

After Julie's death, Bud was consumed by an almighty rage. He tried to numb his pain, but he became obsessed with the idea of seeing the bombers die.

"All my life I opposed the death penalty," Bud says calmly. "But the first four or five weeks after that bombing, after Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols had been arrested, I didn't even want trials for them. I just wanted them to fry.

"I finally realized that to execute either one of them was an act of rage and revenge," he continues. "And rage and revenge were exactly the reasons Julie and 167 others were killed right here. I just realized that was not going to help me at all to get through my grief."

Having turned that corner, Bud became an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. His schedule is filled with interviews and speaking engagements, and he travels the country sharing his message of reconciliation with anyone who will listen.

"The day they take Tim McVeigh from his cage in Indiana for the purpose of killing him, it's not going to bring Julie Marie Welch back or anybody else killed in that bombing," Bud says firmly. "And it's damn sure not going to bring me any peace. God didn't make us where we'll feel good for killing somebody else."

Those Who Survived...

A striking woman with auburn hair, Florence Rogers walks through the memorial, noting points of interest with the ease of a tour guide. But as she approaches the 168 empty chairs, her steps falter. "This would be the row of chairs where my 18 girls are," she says quietly.

April 19, 1995, began like any other day for Florence, then president and CEO of the Federal Employees Credit Union. Just back from a Caribbean cruise, she had called an 8 a.m. meeting, anxious to assign duties for an upcoming bank audit. But her printer was not working.

Florence quickly moved the meeting to her office, reading from the agenda displayed on her computer screen. "I had just reared back in my chair when all of a sudden, wham! I could just see the whole building blowing up before my eyes," she says. "It picked me up and threw me on the floor, 

sucked my chair out from under me. My desk just disappeared."

Florence barely received a scratch. The eight other people in the room--the management team, including two vice-presidents and Florence's secretary--were killed instantly.

Of her 33 employees, 18 were killed and 6 critically injured. Still, just 48 hours and 18 minutes after the blast, Florence reopened the credit union using the remainder of her staff, borrowed employees, and makeshift facilities.

"God gave me incredible strength that I did not know I had," Florence says with a sad smile. "I'd go to work, I'd leave and go to a funeral, I'd go back to work. I'd make my hospital visits at night."

Though she retired in 1997, Florence still tells her story all over the world and serves on the memorial's board of directors. "There was an angel sitting on my shoulder that day," she says, blue eyes bright as she looks skyward. "The man upstairs was not finished with me yet, and I'm working hard every day to do whatever it is he had left for me to do."

And Those Changed Forever...

Perhaps the most enduring image of the bombing came from the photograph of a battered baby cradled in the arms of an Oklahoma City firefighter. But the picture that so powerfully illustrated the horror of the violent act also broke a mother's heart.

"I don't like that picture," says Aren Almon-Kok, mother of Baylee Almon, killed one day after her first birthday. "I don't look at it unless I have to."

Aren had dropped Baylee off at the daycare center and was working when she heard the explosion. "I 

could see the smoke," Aren remembers, "but I just thought it was demolition work."

As news of the bombing spread through the city, Aren soon realized the building that housed her daughter's daycare center had been bombed. Her nightmare was just beginning. "One of my supervisors drove me down here," Aren says, her voice trembling. "I stood behind the building for an hour or so just asking rescue workers about the children."

As Aren's family joined the vigil, they began to check the nearby hospitals. Hours passed before they finally got word that an unidentified child matching Baylee's description had been taken to St. 

Anthony's Hospital. When Aren reached the hospital, a nurse paged Baylee's pediatrician. "He came around the corner with a priest, and I knew then that she was gone."

Aren retreated with her family to her grandparents' house. "I remember getting up that next morning and looking for the newspaper," she says, recalling how her family hid the paper with Baylee's photo on the front page. "I picked up the paper, and I said, 'That's Baylee.' It didn't necessarily look like her. I just knew it was Baylee."

In the six years since, Aren has slowly pieced her life together again. She married Stan Kok in 1997, 

and they are parents to Bella, 2 years old, and Broox, born in November. Aren has also helped found a nonprofit foundation called Protecting People First, and she travels throughout the United States encouraging businesses to use shatterproof glass.

While working for the foundation, Aren met Congressman Bob Franks of New Jersey. When she told him that she and other parents had no idea there were federal law enforcement offices in the Murrah Building, he was outraged. As a result, the two worked together to pass a law--Baylee's Law--making it mandatory that daycare centers located in federal buildings notify parents when high-risk tenants move in.

And though she still can't bear to look at the picture, Aren has come to accept her child's place in history. "I feel like Baylee was put on this earth to do what she did, and that was to represent everyone who died in the building that day."

Finding Peace...

In my notebook, I scribble these words: "We gather at this site searching for what we know is gone forever." I ponder this statement while staring at my face in the reflecting pool that stretches the length of the memorial. It's true this city--the nation even--lost much that day.

But I see, too, the reflection of a city that refused to be defeated by a terrorist's bomb. I see a lovely memorial built by that same community so that we will not forget what happened here or 

underestimate the power of our actions.

I kneel and dip my hands in the pool, as I've seen many others do. I walk to the bronze wall and lay my palms flat against the sun-warmed surface, adding my own prints to the thousands already there. The now-familiar refrain, etched into the tall gates, enters my prayer. "Dear God," I begin. "May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May I know..."

Are You Using Your Talents and Abilities?

It’s amazing to me how each and everyone of us has some talent or ability that we are really good at and that can be used to the glory of God. I am reminded of the The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-28) in which 3 servants were given 5 talents, 2 talents and 1 talent respectively. In those days talents were equivalent to money, however, nowadays when someone speaks of talents, we think of the A+ student in class, famous actors and athletes or even the so called gurus of web design/development.

As the parable states, the first two men used their talents and gained double what they had started out with. The third, however, buried it in the ground and thus his master was very displeased with him. He was called “wicked” and “lazy”. Sounds kind of harsh doesn’t it? But what can we learn from this story? We can learn that God has given us each different talents and abilities that he expects us to put to good use. We shouldn’t hide these talents and bury them in the sand as the third servant did but instead we should use our talents and abilities for the glory of God.

It’s also important to note that we are all in this together. Just as each part of our body contributes to the whole, so too does the talents and abilities of each of us contribute to the well-being of each other, the world as we know it and the kingdom of God.

Here are a few verses from the Bible on Talents and Abilities.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24

Since we are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.1 Corinthians 14:12

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. Romans 12:6-8

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Romans 12:11

Lord, I thank you for the talents you have given each and everyone of us. Help us Lord, not to bury it in the ground as the third servant did, but instead let us follow the example of the first two servants and use our talents to bring glory and honour to your name and build up your kingdom. Help us to be humble and realise that we all need each other. Remind us that the talents we each have can be beneficial to others in some way. Lord, once again we thank you and we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Published: 29 May 2007
Written by Yannick
God's Porch 

For Better or Worse.. They Just Might Stick

“I can still feel the impact of a musical friend who one day called me ‘musical.’ No one had ever called me that. I didn’t really play an instrument. I was no soloist. Yet . . . I instantly felt known and loved. . . . [He] noticed, validated, and appreciated something deeply true about me.” These words were written in an article by Mark Labberton and beautifully remind us of the importance of “names” we assign to one another.

Whatever “names” or even “images” we assign to other people carry a lot of weight, and for better or worse, you’d better believe they stick.

Long before I considered myself a writer, I thought of words as little pieces of puzzles. The end result of piecing them together might be a letter to a loved one, an essay at school, or a few lines in my diary about the impossibly cute boy who worked at an arcade in town.

Naturally I never thought about my effectiveness with words. I simply knew I loved being in their presence. I remember when I actually began to feel like, maybe… just maybe… they enjoyed being in my presence as well.

My aunt (one of the sweetest people in the world, by the way) was always one of my favorite family members to write letters to. She loved to hear about my pets, friends, school, clothes, etc. If I had an interest in something, she wanted to know all about it. One Christmas (I believe I was around 14-15), she and my uncle came in for Christmas. Right smack in front of the entire family, she launched into how much she loves getting my letters. She said I had a “gift” for writing. She went on to say that she kept all of my letters. Then my mom said that she kept all of my poems and short stories that I’d written in school.

I thought, “You KEPT all that crap???”

My aunt told me, “You should be a writer,” and my mom replied, “She already is.”

I have no idea what gifts I unwrapped under the tree that year, but I know that two of the most important people in my life gave me one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten – belief in myself.

Since that day, whenever I’ve written anything I’ve sat a little taller and felt a lot more confident. Whenever I’d get anything less than an A+ on an essay, I’d think, “Well, you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m the writer here.” Even today if someone tells me they think I should have said this or that in a blog post, I think, “What do you know? I’m a writer. Go away.”

Many years passed between the day my mom and aunt made me feel 10 feet tall. I became a wife (to the cute arcade boy) and mother of three beautiful daughters. I threw myself completely into these roles. The only writing I did was letters and curriculum for my daughters, who I home-schooled all the way from Kindergarten to 12th Grade.

When I decided that I’d very much like to be a web publisher and blog writer, I remembered what my family had said all those years ago. Their words gave me confidence to try. I’d always see so many

great authors online that there were times I’d kind of doubt myself. Right around this time, a friend of my husband’s who happened to have a great reputation online as a web publisher said that he was “in love with my writing.”

This compliment was like a shot in the arm and I felt positively sassy again.

Words carry so much weight! Whether they’re words we say to our children, our spouse, ourselves, or people we barely even know.

Think of words like this: When you call someone “dumb” or even say they did a “dumb” thing – it’s as though you’re writing the word on a post it note and pinning it to their top. They WILL live down to your expectations.

When you call someone “gifted,” “smart,” “witty,” etc… they WILL live up to your expectations.

Think about things people have called you. No doubt both good and bad names come to mind. That’s a perfect illustration that these labels stay with us and a wonderful reminder to watch what words come out of your mouth.

Now for a harder exercise – think about the names you have called other people or the titles you’ve given them. If you’re the sort of person who has pinned far more negative words than positive, make it right. If you think you’ve been particularly harmful to someone’s self confidence or fear that
someone doesn’t think you believe in them – don’t let another day go by without clearing things up.

Words have the power to change lives.

“If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.” - Earl Wilson

Taken From Self Help Daily~ By Joi