Focus

I read an article recently about Michael Phelps and his accomplishments at the Olympics.
The author made the point that he had tremendous focus and mentioned another former Olympian that I admired as a child. I knew nothing of her struggles growing up,
I only knew that when I watched her run she seemed as if she could fly. Being
extraordinarily slow myself, she was thrilling to watch. Her story is also an inspiration:

Picture a small girl hobbling across the yard with leg braces attached to her crooked leg, her left foot twisted inward. Neighborhood kids laughed and pointed.

This girl was Wilma Rudolph. Wilma was born prematurely, weighing only 4½ pounds at birth. She was sick most of her childhood, suffering from double pneumonia, scarlet fever, and polio. After losing the use of her left leg at six, she was fitted with metal leg braces.

But Wilma wasn't one to let her disability hold her back.

Wilma was one of 22 children from her father's two marriages. She got her brothers and sisters to serve as lookouts while she removed her braces, forcing herself to learn to walk without them.

Wilma's disability affected her family. Her brothers and sisters took turns massaging her crippled leg every day. For years Wilma underwent weekly therapy, requiring her mother to drive 90 miles round trip to a Nashville hospital. She was determined not to allow her disability to get in the way of her vision.

By the time Wilma reached her 11th birthday, 5 years of work - she had shed those braces and was playing basketball with her brothers in the yard.

A few years later, Wilma made the high school basketball team, and before long- Wilma became an all-state player, setting a Tennessee state record of 49 points in one game.

When basketball season ended, she decided to try out for the track team. That decision turned out to be one of the most significant of Wilma's life. It started when Wilma beat her girlfriend in a race. Then she beat every girl in her high school. Soon, she beat every girl in the state of Tennessee.

Wilma was only 14 years old, but she'd come a long way since her leg braces.

Two years later she was invited to try out for the Olympics. At 16, Wilma qualified and ran in the 1956 games in Melbourne, Australia. She won a bronze medal - her team placed third in the 400-meter relay.

The victory was bittersweet. Yes, she'd made the Olympics and won a medal, but in her own eyes Wilma had only won the bronze. She wanted the gold. The prize wasn't the Olympics - the prize was the gold medal - so she decided to try again in four years.

Wilma knew that if she wanted to win the gold, she'd have to dedicate an enormous amount of time, commitment, and discipline. Wilma started daily training runs at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., and 3 p.m. She'd often sneak down the dormitory fire escape from 8 to 10 p.m. to get in some running on the track before bed. For more than three years - a total of more than 1,200 days - Wilma maintained this punishing schedule.

Finally 1960 Olympics in Rome arrived, and Wilma became the first American woman to win three gold medals in one Olympics. She won the 100-meter and 200-meter races and anchored the U.S. team to victory in the 4x100 - meter relay, breaking records along the way.

We all have disabilities...not braces on our legs but perhaps on our hearts and in our lives. They hold us back from all the experiences that we should have in this life. Whether they be habits, addictions, struggling home life, fear of failure, disappointments, pride, peer pressure, they hold us back from being everything that God calls us to be. For Wilma her focus was not on the bronze medal she had already won, it was on the gold, bronze wasn't good enough.

In order to be successful, we must take our eyes off ourselves and our problems and focus not on a gold medal but on Jesus Christ. When we focus on Christ and put His honor in first place, everything else falls into place. Set your eyes on a relationship that is pure gold...