Please tell me that I'm not the only mom out there that turns into a hot mess during the Olympics?  I mean….soaring victories and crushing defeat and those tense moments with bated breath that pass by in slow motion?  Talk about more drama in 5 minutes than a 10-season run of the Days of our Lives.  But you know what gets me the most?  Those commercials!!

   But it also makes me wonder not-so-silly things like, "Just how much true sacrifice would it require to reach that level of perfection?"  It's mind-blowing, really.  And the strange thing is, we expect that when it comes to the Olympics.  We all know that it takes everything a person has within them to achieve those goals.  What we don't stop to consider, are some areas in our own lives that might require some of the same sacrifices, but we just aren't quite willing to make them.

Dedication.
Discipline.
Focus.
Training.
Practice.
Strength.
Endurance.
Determination.
Goals.
Time.
Effort.
Work.
Blood.
Sweat.
Tears.

   Most of us will never stand upon a podium for a award ceremony, but almost all of us will face situations in our lives, in which those sacrifices need to be made.  Marriage.  Parenthood.  Our relationship with Jesus.  And like the Olympics, in any of those areas, it is not easy to accept defeat.  Or withstand the humiliation of falling on your face countless times.

   It is so strange then, how when it comes to my walk with God, I seem to forget that is what it takes to get myself to where I want to be.  I assume that I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and just be closer to God somehow because another day has past.  Or that I will grow deeper in love with my husband just by living in the same house as him.  Or that I will forge deep bonds with my daughters because I make them breakfast every morning.

   I assume that somehow, I can just stay still in one place in my heart and watch the hours and the days age me and expect to grow.  Expect to thrive. Expect to improve.  Expect to excel.

It doesn't work that way.

   If we want to reach a goal, we have to work for it.  If we desire that relationship, that communion, that friendship or that close walk with Christ, we have to have focus.  Discipline.  Practice.  And daily take up that cross to follow Him.  Those Olympians didn't wake up one day and hop on a plane bound for Sochi.  No.  They spent their ENTIRE lives working, striving and pushing themselves onward and upward with one, single goal in mind.

  I'm not referring to salvation.  Salvation is a free gift.  And there is nothing we can do to earn it. But when it comes to our personal goals?  Well, we all know those don't come easy.

There are Olympians in all of us.  We just need to stop ignoring them.