Olympic Sized Dreams

I’m really hooked on watching the Summer Olympics again this year. You can probably hear some of my enthusiastic screaming as I urge various Olympians on for the gold. I’m not sure how much they hear me for they don’t always follow my clear directions.

This weekend, when the grandsons were in town, Stephanie and I repositioned little bodies to replicate the men’s gymnastics on the pommel horse. That meant lifting legs, swinging tooshes and stretching arms as the little bodies somersaulted over the couch. Apparently we started something, for Teddy’s Momma reported that today when the kayaking began, he needed to rush and find a box (they still have one or two or one hundred since the moving van left a mere week ago) in order to replicate the arm movements when waves crashed against the boats. I love it!

One of my favorite parts of these Olympics is to watch the parents as their children perform. They bend and cringe and clap and even pray. They act out the very movements that their children need to make. They know the early mornings and long trips to countless competitions. They know the tears and the fears.

It’s equally hard to watch the faces of those whose dreams are burst. A simple hop or slower kick can change the score from medal to disaster.  Their young lives have been dedicated to these days in London. They have so much pressure as the whole world watches their every movement. They can’t escape the cameras. The amount of eyes glued to their actions must be overwhelming in itself.

Dreams are hard to see disintegrate before our eyes regardless of our age. We all have certain hopes and aspirations. We dream of driving the family car, getting our first job, and entering the right college. We pray for a good marriage, quiet in-laws, and a new home without signing all those papers 4,000 times. As we age, we dream for retirement. Sometimes that starts as young as 17. We want good health but often that is not a dream but a mere assumption. Chronic pain changes all of that. We can sit in our own family room and feel like our dreams are ripped from our hands. There is no coach to help from the sidelines. That’s where our faith comes in. I can still fold my hands despite my daily pain. My thoughts turn upward as I sit and watch my husband. I can’t let the pain get the gold medal. I need to fight that as if my life depended on it. Perhaps it does!

God Uses Our Love to Prove that Life is Good:

       -  Bob and I pray for each other as we fight our illnesses head on.