Tiger Mountain, Bronx Zoo, New York. Copyright 2012: singeronthesand
If you fall to pieces in a crisis,
there wasn't much to you in the first place.
Proverbs 24:10
What is courage? Webster defines it this way:
Facing and dealing with anything recognized as dangerous,
difficult or painful instead of withdrawing from it.
That definition perfectly describes an American runner named Manteo Mitchell.
Mitchell ran the opening leg of the U.S. men's 4x400 meter relay qualifying heat yesterday, and appeared to have a difficult time toward the end of his segment. He successfully handed off the baton to Josh Mance, but then slowed and grasped his leg. He tells the story this way: "I got out pretty slow, but it picked up and when I got to the 100-meter mark, it (my leg) felt weird. I was thinking I just didn't feel right. As soon as I took the first step past the 200-meter mark, I felt it break. I heard it... I wanted to just lie down. It felt like somebody literally just snapped my leg in half."
In point of fact, his leg bone (fibula) had broken while he was running. I cannot imagine how he kept going - physically or mentally, but he did. He said, "I didn't want to let those three guys down, or the team down, so I just ran on it." After he passed the baton, his teammates picked up the pace and the U.S. team easily qualified for the relay final. If Mitchell had fallen or stopped (no one would have blamed him under the circumstances), his team would have been out of the running.
Dangerous (to the health of his leg), difficult (how do you run without a stable leg bone?), painful ("It hurt so bad"), and yet he never stopped. He drew from his mental/emotional reserves to face an impossible situation and he not only dealt with it, he triumphed! That kind of supreme courage deserves a medal all its own.
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