A colorful mess...

Recently I participated in the Color Run. A charity run for a local children's hospital in which you start off wearing a white shirt and throughout the 5K you get hit with four different colors and during the finale about every other color imaginable! We had a team of four called "The Amazing Grace" in honor of Easter weekend. As you can see we started off looking so clean and cute.

Now this isn't one of those serious 5K's where you are trying to finish first. The purpose is more to have fun and support a good cause. Our team was determined to walk away a hot colorful mess. First through the yellow station, then green, pink, and finally purple. We let them throw it straight in our faces, all over the front and back of us, as well as laying down in it. Ok so I was the only one who laid down in it but hey purple is my favorite color :) And then the finale was a countdown to color explosion. It was an intense haze of colored powder and you could barely see right in front of you until the dust settled.

  

Post Finale

Throughout the day I kept talking with Emily about how much fun we had on our adventure. Then God revealed to me an insight for what we experienced. I do love when He relates lessons to my everyday life. Just like in the Color Run we all start off looking pretty clean and cute. Then we start our race through life. Picking up color from the choices that we make and the lifestyle that we lead. Just like running through each color station we looked forward to what would happen and enjoyed it. Many things that we do in life seem like fun in the moment, however we walk away with an imprint of the choices we made or what happened to us. Moving right along to the next choice...each color layering itself on top of each other. In fact sometimes we really enjoy bad choices in life..wallowing in them just as I rolled around in the purple station. At one point I was so excited that I screamed during a color throw and got pink straight in my mouth! Now this was not an enjoyable part of the day. Same is true for life...we start off enjoying something and then some circumstance happens and changes our view. Most of the time we recover and move one. Sometimes we aren't so lucky. The finale scene was intense, you are all smashed together in a giant crowd and can barely hear yourself. Once the colors are thrown you can't even see right in front of you. Isn't life like that sometime?. You feel like you are lost in a crowd and can't see your way out...can't see until the dust settles.

Life is a race where we make decisions at every turn. Each choice leaves an impression on us and shapes who we become. After the Color Run I got to go home and get a shower to wash it all away. The only way to wash away all the stuff that sticks to us in life is to go to God and confess and allow Him to wash us clean. I was more mindful of this fact since the run was right before Easter.  I am one hot colored mess sometimes but I am truly blessed and grateful that the God I serve is always there to dust me off and send me on His way!