My boss recently reminded me of a powerful video I had seen a few years back. Team Hoyt. This video is incredibly moving. Yeah, maybe the background music adds a little something, but this short video sets things into perspective.

Team Hoyt:

“Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete just about continuously in marathon races. And if they’re not in a marathon they are in a triathlon — that daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

It’s a remarkable record of exertion — all the more so when you consider that Rick can’t walk or talk.

At Rick’s birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child’s development.

For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.”
http://www.teamhoyt.com/history.shtml

I hope that as a friend, daughter, girlfriend, coworker, and future parent I have half as much grace and love as Dick has for his son, Rick. If we could all transform what we deem as burdens into joys and loves in our lives, we can begin to unveil the bits and pieces of heaven all around us that we’ve chosen to view as tasks and chores, which eventually deflate your spirit. Dick Hoyt is a beautiful illustration of taking what could have been a burden or affliction and cherishes it as a God-given gift.