I Know One Thing

I wish I knew. With everything being cancelled or postponed, I wish I knew about the Mississippi Senior Olympic swim meet in Biloxi scheduled for May 16th. Everything that was scheduled for March and April has either been cancelled or postponed. The opening ceremonies, originally set for March 20, were cancelled. All the events on tap for April have been postponed. Only one, basketball has been rescheduled. They set it for May 16, the same day as the swimming.

I check their Facebook site daily looking for any new information. There has been nothing new in several weeks. Although there have been no new postponements in a couple of weeks, one has to wonder and be a bit skeptical that the meet will go on. In light of the Olympics, the real Olympics in Tokyo this summer being postponed for a year, you have to wonder if anything will stay in place.

Already this has effected my training. I have been unwilling to do the tough sets I need to swim well in pool races. Yesterday I swam 7,000 yards. But that swim contained no quality, no fast swimming, no heart-rate sets, no lactic-acid sets, no fast repeats, no strength swimming. It was just an endurance swim the kind needed to do Chicot. At least I still have access to water. Many pools around the country, the world, have been closed. Even Randy Beets is forced out of his pool into a horse trough. Wow. Are my fellow Mississippi Olympians able to train? I don't know.

That is one good thing about my fundraiser: I control it, at least to a point. I don't control the weather, but I decide whether or not the swim goes on. Right now, I am not even thinking about a postponement. But even that, I suppose, is subject to other people. The crew cannot social distance on a pontoon boat. Will they want to get together in June? Maybe they will be willing. Maybe not. So even there, I am not in control.

I guess that is one of the lessons of all this. We see how little we control. Someone (a lot of someones) once said that the only thing you control is your attitude, your response to things. How true that looks now.

Not only has this crises showed my how little I control, it has shown me how little I know. I don't know if the Senior Olympics are coming to passl. I don't know when we are going back to work. I don't know when we are going back to church. I don't know when we, my wife and I, are going out to eat. I don't know much. But one thing I do know: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. That is where we have to go in these uncertain times. When I don't know, I have learned to ask, What do I know? I know Jesus, and I know He will help you and me to get through this. Thank you, Lord.