PERSEVERANCE
Wilma Rudolph was a disaster from birth. She was a tiny premature baby, who caught pneumonia, then scarlet fever, and finally polio. The polio left one leg bodily crippled, with her foot twisted inward.
Until the age of eleven, Wilma hobbled around on metal braces. Then she asked her sister to keep watch while she practiced walking without the braces. She kept this up every day, afraid that her parents might discover what she was doing and she might be compelled to stop. Eventually feeling guilty she told her doctor, who was flabbergasted. However he gave her permission to continue as she was, but only for a short period of time.
Anyhow to make a long story short, Wilma worked away at it until she eventually threw away her crutches for good. She progressed to running and by the time she was sixteen she won a bronze medal in a relay race in the Melbourne Olympics. Four years later in the Roma Olympics she became the first woman in history to win three gold medals in track and field.
She returned to a ticker tape welcome in the US had a private meeting with President Kennedy, and received the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete.
v We can grow in faith, love, patience, etc. by day-in-day-out practice and perseverance.
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