Groberg, D.H. (Dee). The Race: Success is a Journey, Not a Finish Line. Illinois: Simple Truths, 2016.

I was digging through my mothers pile of children’s books, she has many!  As I have been considering issues of race and identity I considered reading Groberg’s The Race…

The title is yummy and the book is small, tiny fitting in my hands in a way that feels soothing and childlike… you know, in that way that children’s sized books seem to make you feel all grown up?!  I borrowed it, and after weeks of moving it from my purse to my suitcase to my coffee table and back again I finally decided to organize some files and clean up some piles.  And as I shredded old documents I found the book and since what better time to get side tracked than in the midst of filing, I READ IT.

“Quit! Give up! You’re beaten!! They shout at me and plead.”  I have felt like that so often in life that it is a-wonder I have managed to complete a single thing.  There is a line in the movie, Galaxy Quest: “NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER!”  And in the Bible (Jeremiah 29: 11) “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (RSV).

By the time I reached the end of the poem, “they still shout in my face.  But another voice within me says, ‘GET UP AND WIN THE RACE!’ I smiled recognizing the voice of God and that constant reminder of HOPE.

I need my very own copy!