For Tom...Vancover 2010

So, my husband loves (is obsessed with...) the Olympics. He said I should write a blog about the games even. So this is in honor of my favorite sports enthusist...

The fact that the Olympics were in Canada this year added to my husband's fascination. Our conversation was peppered with who was playing and when. I listened to who was in the running to win while eating my eggs, heard all about the story behind a hopeful gold medal winner while fixing my hair, found out who lost by a millionth of a second while putting on my shoes...you get the picture. He knows all the athlete's names and where they're from - even in figure skating! This may be the only time in the next four years that he will tolerate ice dances - whatever would get our nation another gold. I was more excited for my husband than for Team Canada when they won the "big game" on Sunday night!

I have to say, I enjoyed the excitement myself. I especially love watching figure skating...I know, so girly of me...but I do.

I was so impressed again at how seamlessly the athletes dance their program. They make it look so easy. They are performing in front of the whole world with the pressure of a country depending on them for a medal and yet they seem to skate with such ease. They don't pause and try to remember the next step - it seems to come as natural as breathing. We watched one pairs team practice in a hallway with no skates and it looked as if they had been doing those same lifts and spins for all their life.

But, we all know that it didn't come that easy. The years of discipline and practice and falling and getting up again and early mornings and long hours all came down to that few minutes where now the choreography was almost a part of them. Perhaps that's how Joannie Rochette was able to perform so beautifully and capture a bronze medal after her mom passed away just a couple days before. All the hours of practice enabled her to complete her dream and her mother's even in the midst of such circumstances. The dance had become second nature.

It made me think of when Job, from the Bible, fell down to worship God even in the midst of great sorrow. I don't think it was a spur of the moment thing. I believe that Job's life had been a life of honoring God and drawing close to Him.

"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil"(KJV) Job 1:1.

When destruction hit, it was just second nature that he would turn to his Lord. I pray that my life would be full of drawing near to Him so that in surprising moments, His will is my second nature. I pray that I would perform beautifully when someone buts in front of me in the line up or that I would answer softly when my child makes mistakes or that I would be ready with an answer for what I believe for the person sitting next to me in the airplane.

Let's get training!

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil...that you may able to withstand in the evil day, and have done all, to stand firm (NLT)." Ephesians 6:10-13