#bohnert

On top of that, my father’s older brother at the age of seventeen was killed in an automobile accident. My dad, fourteen at the time, was devastated. It seemed life had dealt him an enormous blow. At the point of wanting to run away, my father made a life changing decision.

He could either run away or he could do something different. Choosing the later, he took some lead sinkers from his father’s fishing tackle box and melted them down to make metal plates. Next, he went to the banks of the river near the small town where his family lived, placed the plates in the bottom of his shoes then ran in sand and ran and ran. After much perseverance, he removed the plates which were actually weights discovering his plan had worked. His speed greatly increased.

The next school year my father decided to try out for football even though he received some ridiculing from the coach. Needless to say, the coach was taken aback when he watched my dad run. Yes, my father made the team. Of course, his position was running back.

In the beginning of 2008, I heard the Lord say, “Sue, if you will learn to run with the weights on, when they come off, you’ll be surprised how fast you can run just like your father.” I had no clue what the next five years would bring. But the Lord knew I needed to know this before He let me set out on this journey of heartache and pain.

Recently, I looked up the word sinker in the Webster’s dictionary. It is a weight used for sinking a fishing line or seine. Next, I looked up weight. Weight is heaviness, mass, burden, load.

I believe God is telling us, if we will learn to run with the weight that is intended to sink us, it will be astounding to see how fast we can run when the load is lifted. In reality, it is amazing to me my father was able to run with a weighted plate in his shoe but he did. And we can too in a different way!