09/08/2012

Pause For Thought

With Madeline Manning Mimms; US Olympic Gold and Silver medalist and Chaplain for London 2012

I’ve had many people approach me and ask, “How does it feel to win a gold medal?” My response is “Words cannot express the jubilation in your soul of having paid so great of price for such a large reward.” The gold medal symbolizes an act of being the best at one single event. It is not the whole of all athleticism, but it is the best at what you do in your sport. That is why the price athletes pay to be the best is so high, and the training so vigorous. In fact, an athlete spends hours, days, months, and years to perfect him or herself doing this one thing over and over again; testing it against other athletes before reaching their apex of production. When the moment arrives, and they produce the best result and are rewarded with the gold medal, it takes a long time for it to sink in that it is no longer training, but the real thing.

So what does that say to one who has poured hours of their lives into this moment? What will all the other athletes take away from this experience who trained just as many hours, just as hard, and came away with something less? An athlete has to ask, did I give my all? Did I leave everything I trained so hard for out there on the playing field? If I did, the journey, the experience, this one moment in time was well worth it all. And even if I am grieving now because someone was better than me on that one day, I will soon awaken to the reality that life’s journey is more precious than gold, and my end result will come when I hear the words of Christ, “Well done….you’ve been faithful over a little of your life….enter into your rest.”