Okay, see if you can find two things around you at this very moment that are the result of some sort of miracle in your life.
This isn’t a timed challenge, so you can relax a bit. It’s designed to be more of an eye opener for you, and I hope it ends up making a big difference in your life.
I have found that sometimes the simplest things can have the biggest impact, and when I am quiet and reflective, I often find the most inspiration. I’m pretty sure you’ll experience the same thing. You only need to invest the time and try it. So, go ahead.
Here are two things that I found just a few minutes ago by looking around. Since I’m in the early stages of moving again, most of stuff is not visible, but I did spot two pictures and I will share with you their meaning to me…
1. My wedding picture
This may not seem like a big deal at first mention, but I assure you that it is a wonderful act of miraculous proportion that landed my wife and I in Vegas for our wedding, 17 years after we first met and fell in love. No, it didn’t take me that long to propose…
My wife and I were actually high school sweethearts, who dated during our junior and senior years in HS, and then for a couple of years in college as well. At that point, all grown up and in our twenties, we got really stupid and decided to go our separate ways. Well, it wasn’t exactly like that, but I decided to move, and she decided not to go with me…or her version would be she decided to stay and I decided not to stay. In any event, even though we were very much in love, we were not smart enough to figure out a way to remain in close proximity, and our lives went in different directions. We both ended up marrying other people, and of course neither of those relationships worked out, because (as we know for certain, now) we were soul mates from the start. Over the years, we knew about each other through our mutual friends, but we never talked. We lived our crazy lives always thinking of each other and imagining how our lives would have been, but we were operating on different planes. Through the miraculous power that this universe yields, by way of the law of attraction, and some really good and positive mojo, we ended up reuniting a full eleven years after having said goodbye to each other at a get together with some of our friends from high school. We had both come through difficult relationships and there we found ourselves at similar significant point in both of our lives. Seeing each other again was a lot like magic and it led to some wonderful long and intense conversations. It was, as they say in those fairytale-like stories, simply “picking up where we left off”. So, we ended up dating for a year and then taking six of our great friends to Nevada for a weekend and doing what we should have done many years before. Destiny, to say the least.
That picture reminds me of the wonder of life and of the miracle of my marriage.
2. A picture of the March 3, 1980 cover of Sports Illustrated
Yes, I had this one framed.
This is a picture of the 1980 Men’s U.S. hockey team celebrating on the ice after they upset the Soviet Union 4-3 in a medal qualifying game in Lake Placid, NY. They went on to win the gold medal in that historic Winter Olympics.
If you don’t know the story of the 1980 hockey team or you haven’t at least seen the Disney movie “Miracle” starring Kurt Russell as U.S. head coach Herb Brooks, it is a remarkable story. One, in which sports truly transcended the frozen playing surface and made the boldest and most miraculous statement in real life.
The late 1970′s were tumultuous times in this country. The economy was on the fritz; gas prices were outrageous and inflation was crushing the common man. We were faced with threats of a globally significant nature. Our “cold war” with the Soviet Union was escalating, and we watched the news each night to see the fate of American hostages in Iran, who had been captured from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan and were waging a war in the mountains there, while the U.S. was doing everything it could to see that that battle would be lost by the Russians.
The game on the ice had a lot more meaning than it might normally have had. Another storyline was that the Russians had decided not to protest the Olympics which was a great possibility, but rather they chose to take part and said they would beat the Americans on their home ice, further establishing their dominance of the sport.
You see, that the Soviet hockey team was the best in the world, no questions asked. They had just throttled the U.S 10-3 in an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden prior to the start of those very Olympics.
The U.S. win against them was monstrous to say the least, and it is called “the miracle on ice”. It served as inspiration for almost all Americans, who hadn’t had anything to cheer about for a long time. It really was one of those mere games that united an entire nation.
I just love the story of the American guys who played and won that game, all politics and world events aside. It was inspiring for so many reasons, and looking at that picture has always assured me that the impossible can be accomplished, and even in the most dire of situations.
It may seem kinda corny to you if you don’t think like me…but to me, it really does represent the miraculous nature of this amazing life we lead.
So take a look around you where you are, and yes, you can use pictures, they are great sources of inspiration. But see if there are other tangible objects that maybe you have collected as the result of a trip somewhere that was a miracle, or by having a particular relationship that was a miracle, or some other life altering experience that serves as a source of personal inspiration for you.
The cool part of this is that if you’ve never done it, you will now have a quick way to find strength at any time and no matter what you might be experiencing.
Please comment and let me hear what you find. It will serve as great inspiration to me and others as well.
