The Marathon

so yeaturday I ran the La Marathon. which if you didnt know I am on a running team here at the dream center called "Run for Hope" which we were running the marathon in hopes to raise money for a new ministry starting up called "Project Hope". which is trying to end human trafficking here in La. by opening up a safe house for the people we meet and try to rescue from this lifestyle... my projected time I wanted to get was 4 hours and 40mins which 26miles at a 10min pace is 4 hours and 30min but sense its 26.2 miles i added an extra 10mins. I didnt get my time. When the race started, around mile 3 it started to rain really hard and it got really windy. All i had on was my run for hope t-shirt and my running shorts. The first 13 miles I did good and was on pace to get my time(I had gotten around 2hours 20mins or so after the first 13miles) but around mile 14 the coldness, the rain, and the big winds over took me by that point(it rained the whole marathon which is a first ever for the La marathon) my knees almost gave out towards mile 15 on, I was cold, I was frustrated and but I kept marching on for the goal. After all the whole reason I was running was to help stop human trafficking in La, That is why i trained(kinda trained) for this. so of course I didnt give up. the last 9 miles or so i was limping really bad. I got stopped by so many different random runners and medical people. people were asking if im all right which i was wasn't all right but I told them I was fine so i could keep going, It was hurting bad but to spend time getting help would just prolong the finish and make it worse. Eventually three medical tents(which they place every other mile or so after mile 6) stopped me between miles 18-24 and they all asked me the same thing"are you going to be ok you dont look really good at all" and i just replied back to all them "It doesn't matter" because at that point it didn't matter if I was ok or not or if i was going to be ok or not because I was so close and I put in all those hours to help run a marathon for a ministry greater then me. our running team run for hope could of stood up on stage and told people about the ministry and played a nice video on a sunday morning and people would of gave money and I wouldnt of had to run the marathon at all but we wanted to show people we were more then just words we were going to raise money sacrificing our own bodies for a cause greater then ourselves. so eventually I finished limping as fast as i could which at that point was slower then most people, but i finished. the end result was this we raised 70,792 dollars and with still 26 days to give from today more can still be coming in. Im really sore and my knees hurt like no other, but it was worth it and GOD IS AMAZING!