:: Edgeliving: Master Jim and slave marsha ::

:: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 ::

Running...

i want to be a racehorse.

i'll admit, it's an odd statement. You can't imagine a human less like a racehorse than me -- i'm not tall, slender, sleek or fast. i'm a 40 year old woman, my knees creak sometimes when i kneel, and my body is emphatically not made for running.

But i want to be a racehorse.

Last weekend, i picked up the book "Seabiscuit" by Laura Hillenbrand. Master Jim enjoys horse racing, and i thought i'd see if the book or the movie might be of interest to Him. In the past, He has likened owning a slave to owning a racehorse. i never paid much attention to the analogy.

But a passage in the book caught my eye. In describing a thoroughbred racehorse, the author writes, "His mind is impressed with a single command: run. He pursues speed with superlative courage, pushing beyond defeat, beyond exhaustion, sometimes beyond the structural limits of bone and sinew."

In a flash, i understood Master Jim's analogy. In the quote, replace the word "run" with "obey" and "speed" with "obedience."

That is what Master Jim wants in His slave. The courage and strength to pursue the single most important command in my life: obey.

When a jockey needs a racehorse to give him more speed in the home stretch of a race, he is said to "ask the question" of his horse. The horse, if it responds with a burst of speed, is said to "answer." The great racehorses, horses with the heart of Seabiscuit or Seattle Slew, give their jockeys everything they have -- and when they are "asked the question" in the home stretch... somehow, some way, they find more to give.

They run. Beyond defeat. Beyond exhaustion. Because it is what they are meant to do.

"Obey me in this, marsha," He says. And then... "I want more. I want all of you."

Every day, He "asks the question."

i want to have the courage and the strength to "answer the question" every time. Beyond defeat. Beyond exhaustion.

Some days... i can almost see the finish line. And so i run.

--slave marsha

:: 10:58 AM [+] ::
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