I have been watching some of the coverage for the Winter Olympics and I keep hearing the same phrase over and over again; the athlete does whatever they need to “get the job done”. This sounded like a weird phrase to me because it is a sport. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that sports at that level are about having faith and endurance which is truly inspirational for all of us.
As a young girl and for the first part of my middle-age life, I was overweight. I also have asthma. My asthma causes me to get winded very easily. It just wasn’t in the cards for me to be a great athlete. I know not to compare my life with others, and I am happy to accept myself the way I am, but I never saw anything in common in my life with these athletes until now.
I may not have physical challenges, but the mental and spiritual ones can be just as great. All of God’s children find themselves walking steep, dark paths sometimes. As the TV announcer says, we do whatever we need to do so that we can get the job done. In the end, I don’t think the medal is the really important part for these athletes, I think it is the struggle they go through to become an Olympian. For me, there’s no goal that I’m trying to reach, there’s no reward at the end of my life that makes all the struggle worth it. The challenges and struggles that I go through in my life are what make my life meaningful. The faith and love that I feel everyday are what make my life worth living.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
