By Victor Ochieng
It was such an amazing thing to see singer Jordan Sparks cross the finish line during the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday. She accomplished the feat after running for seven good hours, an achievement that came both as an inspiration and a surprise, literally.
But if you’re asking yourself how she managed to do that, she’s got the answer - scripture. Sparks joined the Skechers Performance Los Angeles Marathon and after finishing the evidently exhaustive race, she thanked God for enabling her to finish one of the country’s biggest marathons that had more than 24,000 participants.
“TO GOD BE THE GLORY! I wouldn’t have made it on my own strength,” she wrote on Instagram. “I leaned on Isaiah 40:31 and Phil 4:13 all day. And, a good friend told me, ‘Anytime something starts to hurt, thank God for it.’”
Instead of pulling out during the race, she made the scripture her focus, thanking God anytime she felt that her body was becoming painful. Indeed she needed some strength to complete the race that started at the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and ended at Santa Monica after covering 26.219 miles.
Sparks didn’t fail to acknowledge how the words of another friend gave her the motivation to charge on regardless of the challenges.
“Another [friend] said, ‘think about why you started and PUSH,’” she recalled. “And I did both of those things when my hip flexor gave out, when my left foot went numb and when my right leg eventually locked up. I remembered my why and thanked God for it all the way up to the finish line!”
Sparks revealed that the marathon was her first ever, and she accepted to participate despite receiving only three days notice. This she did in order to show her support for The Dream Center ministries that works tirelessly to change the lives of people in the inner city. Before embarking on the journey, she appealed for prayers from her over 1 million Instagram followers after sharing the Isaiah 40:31.
“I’m doing something I’ve never done … bring it, LA Marathon! I said yes on Thursday,” she wrote just before her race. “No training, just going for it. Prayer Warriors, would you mind covering me and the other runners today?”
And after she finished the tiresome race, she didn’t forget to give all the glory to God.
“I said yes Thursday because everyone kept telling me that I COULD do and it was HIGH TIME I stop being the only one telling myself that I can’t,” she wrote. “That’s why I accepted the challenge, to show God’s glory and to show myself that I could.”
Source
