This is a re-post of a guest post by my delightful husband...

Jack Nicklaus (widely regarded as one of the greatest professional golfers of all time) wept alone in his living room as he watched a horse race. What would make a grown man cry over a horse race?

  Did he lose a lot of money betting on the wrong horse? No.
  Did somebody die or get seriously injured during the race? No.

The event that brought Jack Nicklaus to tears was the 1973 Belmont Stakes, where a horse named Secretariat became the ninth Triple Crown winner in history, and the first after 25 years.

Secretariat smashed the race record and beat his nearest competitors by an astonishing 31 lengths. Secretariat ran the perfect race. He was doing what he loved to do and he did it perfectly.

Photo credit: AKB302

When trying to offer Jack Nicklaus an explanation for his emotional reaction to Secretariat's Belmont Stakes victory, Heywood ("Woody") Braun was quoted to have said:

Jack, don't you understand? All of your life in your game you've been striving for perfection. And at the end of the Belmont, you saw it.

If you watch this YouTube video and read the user comments, you'll learn that many others (myself included as I watched the video) shared in Jack Nicklaus' tearful response to watching Secretariat.

Is Braun's explanation accurate? More...

I was thinking of you and God put this prayer on my heart for you.

A Prayer For You

May God's light

touch all that you do

and illuminate your path

as you walk

even where it is dark.

May His perfect love

warm you through

and through,

like the sun's radiating rays,

removing fear's chill

and giving you

the courage to blaze

new trails in His name.

May His Spirit serve as a

canopy over your mind

so that your thoughts

are covered with

what is true, honorable, good,

lovely, and praiseworthy.

May the shelter of His presence

and His living Word

guide you now

and till we

come to our path's end

and enter our forever Home

with Him, where there will be

no more tears,

no more sickness,

no more death, and

where we will

not need any lamp

for He Himself will

be our

Light.

"And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb." Rev. 21:23

Need a gift?...To buy Emily Wierenga's lovely artwork on a journal, t-shirts and mugs, please visit http://www.cafepress.com/tspoetry

Linking up with God-graced and encouraging sisters: Jennifer of Getting Down with Jesus,  Emily of Imperfect Prose, Jen of Finding Heaven, and Ann of A Holy Experience.

© Soul Stops/Dolly Lee 2012.   Creative Commons License: Okay for noncommercial use if you attribute this post to me and link to my permalink and blog.

Photo credit: earl53 from morguefile.com

It's Five-Minute Friday again and Lisa-Jo has picked the word "GRIT" to be our prompt for five-minutes of unedited writing for the fun and/or discipline of it.  I will try not to correct my typos, but I can't promise so I'm asking for grace upfront.  Thank you.

START.

It takes grit to look

at the grit and grime

for what it is,

and that gap

in your life between

who you want to be

and who you know you are.

But with God's love and grace

firmly in view,

and His promise of future glory

and present,

we can look at the grit,

roll up our sleeves,

and get to work.

It is a paradox.

It is all His grace, and yet

there is grime that is

in front of us that

needs to be cleaned.

I don't know how it all

works, but I do

know that when I lean hard

on Him, I somehow find

the strength to be gritty and

to push forward into the

glory awaiting me,

if I persevere.

So when you want to give up

and don't feel like you

have any grit left to deal

with all of the grit and grime

in your life,

remember that there is glory

awaiting you, so

the apostle Paul says,

that will be so much

far beyond  whatever

grit we currently face,

that the grit will

look like nothing,

less than nothing, an

actual nanospeck, if such

a thing existed.

So don't forget, there is glory

behind all that grit and grime.

You are not all that gritty that

God's grace cannot

find you and transform you.

He sees beyond our grit to the

glory that He placed inside of us

when He created us

in love.

STOP.

• "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Romans 8:18 NASB

Thank you for letting me share some of the grit in my life in recent posts, and for the grace you have extended to me. 

Thank you for how you have shared some of the grit in your life with me - online and offline.  I pray that I can extend that same love and acceptance to you.

If you share and you have a blog, please leave your URL on the Disqus form so that others/I can visit you.  Thanks.

Please link up and join the fun at The Gypsy Mama. 

Image courtesy of:http://mrg.bz/o2zIFI

© Soul Stops/Dolly L. 2011. All Rights Reserved.