MY OWN GOLD MEDAL

ROBERT LEUTWILER

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, my life revolved around sports. My goal was to become a pro in baseball or basketball or football. After less-than-stellar performances, I ended up leaving team sports to take up running. I ran 10 miles in a road race in just over 47 minutes, won many long-distance races, and set many records. Still, I never really felt satisfied. Despite years of dedicated, arduous training, and many sacrifices in the hope of making the US Olympic team, I missed selection.

Was I a failure? Well, yes and no. I failed when I got too caught up in winning races and impressing others. But I triumphed when I truly felt God's presence during a race or a workout. I found freedom and control when I learned to set aside personal ambition and fear, and came to see that my identity was never separate from God.

Daily prayer and the study of Christian Science have gradually moved me to love almost everything about sports more—the training, the competition, the other participants, the spectators. And I've been able to prove more consistently something Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health: "Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action" (p. 454).

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