Lemon Meringue Pie

I'm glad that I'm not one to fall into a pessimistic view of the world. I am blessed with being blissfully optimistic, although from time to time even the most optimistic can wane. When life seems to be throwing you curve balls, and very few people around you are getting anything better from the pitcher, you can get a rather depressing view of the world if you let yourself. But, in the end, I remind myself that I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is a reason for it all, and even though it makes absolutely no sense now, there is a much bigger picture that I fit into. It's what faith is really - as Paul says - the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. I sure don't see the big picture, but I know there is one. And my faith that one exists gives substance to my hope.

So, enough of my soapbox, to the point. NBC does these little biography things on some of the athletes. Usually they are the more well known athletes, like my (and the rest of America's) new love Phelps, but some of them are on the 'normal people' in the events (if anyone that has the skill to get to the Olympics is normal). Tonight they did a biography on Natalie duToit. If you didn't see it you missed a moment of seeing what true courage looks like. She lost her leg in an accident, but instead of taking the (justifiable) path of 'well I guess I need to figure out what to do with this new life' path, she decided that she wasn't going to let life get in the way of her dreams. And she trained, qualified and swam at the Olympics (she will also swim in the para-Olympics, but she swam here first). Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade - man, she took lemons and made lemon meringue pie! That is living in faith that your life is more than a bunch of random experiences all lumped together. You can't do something like that without knowing that there is a greater plan and you are not going to let it pass you by. And what happens by her not giving up on the greater plan? I saw it, and how many other people saw it, and the next time we are faced with something we think is insurmountable we have Natalie du Toit and the other inspirational people we've heard about or know to show us that it's worth not giving up and letting life go on without you. Because you never know what you are going to do that you may not have done without that setback, and you never know who you are going to inspire by doing it.

While I like lemon meringue pie, I'm more of a chocolate person, so I think I'll make my life into chocolate mousse!