Friday, April 11, 2014
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I'm not normal. No. I mean, most folks watch the women's Olympic figure skating in the winter Olympics and just enjoy the grace of the "twizzles" and the "triple lutzes." Not me. I'm a story guy. So I'm sitting there mulling the stories of those skaters. And thinking, "We've got something to learn from her."
It happened again when Italy's finalist, Carolina Kostner skated her long program in Sochi. Before she began, they showed her disastrous skate in Vancouver four years ago. She left the ice with her face buried in her hands. It was really sad. In her own words, "It was breaking my heart." And that was going to be the end of her skating career. She didn't want to go through this again. But she did. She skated again. And on the ice in Sochi, she skated a nearly flawless program and captured Olympic bronze.
Look, I don't ice skate. But I know what it is to fall and to come back again.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Comeback Kid."
I've set personal goals and I've blown it - losing weight, getting to a better place financially, conquering a personal weakness. I've made some calls as a leader that I wish I could do over. I've too many times failed to be what people I love need for me to be.
And like all of us who have tried and failed, I know the temptation to forget it and just say, "I'm not going to get on the ice" again. But then I considered these two Olympic lessons that can turn a sad chapter into a comeback victory. Number one, when you go down, don't stay down. The Bible says in Proverbs 24:16, "A righteous man falls seven times, and he rises again."
I've watched three children and now our grandchildren learn to walk. They all have the same m.o. Step. Boom. Try to walk. Fall down. The fallen baby, of course, has two choices. One, "That's it. I tried my best. I failed. I tried to walk. I can't do it. I give up." It didn't happen! No, every child got back up and started walking again.
I've decided that the only people who haven't fallen are people who never tried to walk. I watched an Olympic skater whose falls were seen by millions. Who was devastated by the scope of her failure, but she came back with the greatest victory of her life because she didn't stay down.
Here's the other lesson: Do it for the joy, not the result. That's actually what Carolina Kostner's mother told her after the debacle in Vancouver. That's good advice. Stop thinking about how you'll perform. The Olympic commentators said she skated with a freedom they'd never seen in her before. In her words, "I had to skate for the passion and the pleasure, not to take it so seriously." And that changed everything.
In the 2002 Olympics, U. S. skater Sarah Hughes surprised everyone - including herself - by bringing home the gold. She went into the finals in 4th place; she didn't have much to lose. As the top three contenders competed, you could feel the tension. Every jump. Every landing. Each precision movement potentially meaning victory or defeat. Then Sarah skated. She was just fun to watch, because she was clearly having fun. Skating with reckless abandon. That freedom liberated her to give the best performance of her life; a gold medal performance.
You know, as we look back on our life and we think of the places where we blew it or we failed especially those we love, I begin to turn to the pages of God's Word to find hope for our falls. And I find it in Micah 7:8, that says, "Do not gloat over me my enemy. Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light."
You know how that could happen? Because it says later in the chapter, "Who is a God like you who pardons sins, forgives the transgressions?" And it goes on to say, "You hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." To know that every mistake, every fall, every wrong thing, every hurting thing I've ever done has been erased because God's Son died for it on a cross. Oh, that is ultimate freedom to have a new beginning.
Maybe this is your day for that new beginning, and I would love to help you get started with Jesus. If you just go to our website, it's all there - ANewStory.com.
I saw one skater come back with Olympic redemption, because she knew that coming back was getting back up, no matter how ugly the fall. So in a way, you win when you just put your skates back on.