(If you want to hear Lori read the story click)here

 

Sometimes people lose what they hold most dear.

 

It could be a child, or a working body, or a marriage. 

 

Perhaps you have heard the story of the Special Olympics, where one child fell at the start of the race and the others all turned around to go back and help him. I picture the boy who stumbled and how it must have felt to see his friends come back and lift him up. To that boy with Down's Syndrome, or leukemia, friends mattered more than winning, and it took falling down to find that out. The children who turned around won too, because they were gifted with a chance to succeed at compassion.

 

Each of us has had time in the dust. Getting up feels impossible. We are closer to the dirt than to the sky. We may even linger there awhile, unable to muster the strength to stand. 

 

All of us have been offered the chance to turn around as well. We hear the cry of a spouse or a friend, just as we are hitting our stride. We can pretend it is the wind, and refocus on the goal ahead. Or we can slow down and look, weighing the worth of where we were headed against the moment of comfort that is ours to give.