My Favourite Song by Sandi Patty...YOU SET ME FREE!

There've been times in my life, you've opened doors.
They weren't what I was hoping for, so I walked right by them. I didn't even try them.
There've been dreams I forgot, and dreams I let die
Unnoticed sunsets in front of my eyes,
I just couldn't see them.
Sure, there are things I'd do different and yet
Grace gives me days where I simply forget.

Cause you set me free to run
Through fields of laughter
And to sing as though
I have no yesterdays
You set me free from my
Befores and afters, From a debt I know I'll never pay
When you set me free.

There's been chances to love that I've ignored
And mercies I found I couldn't afford.
I'm sure I would have shown them, If I would have known then.
How we all play a part in each others' lives
And there's so more to the game than winning the prize
So much I want to try now
I feel I could fly now
Sure, there are things I'd do different and yet
Grace gives me days where I simply forget.

Father you, father me, ever so patiently,
YOU GIVE ME WINGS TO FLY, WHEN YOU SET ME FREE.
TO FLY, TO SOAR, TO PLACES I'VE NOT BEEN BEFORE
THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMANITY
CANNOT CONTAIN WHAT YOU SET FREE!!

Max Lucado

God loves to decorate. God HAS to decorate. Let Him live long enough in a heart, and that heart will begin to change. Portraits of hurt will be replaced by landscapes of grace. Walls of anger will be demolished and shaky foundations restored. God can no more leave a life unchanged than a mother can leave her child's tear untouched...This might explain some of the discomfort in your life. Remodeling of the heart is not always pleasant. We don't object when the Carpenter adds a few shelves, but He's been known to gut the entire west wing. He has such high aspirations for you. He wants you to be just like Jesus!! (Just Like Jesus)

God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be JUST LIKE JESUS!!

CARL LEWIS: "My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: "Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win...Channel your energy. Focus."

JACKIE JOYNER-KERSEE: "The medals don't mean anything and the glory doesn't last. It's all about your happiness. The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving sport and having fun performing."

Vince Lombardi: "Winning is not a sometime thing; its an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."

Vince Lombardi: The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

Rae: "Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your spirit and understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly."

ARCHIE GRIFFITH: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog."

Joe Falcon: "You sacrifice, train, do everything possible to put yourself in a position to win. If you consider second or third a failure, I feel sorry for you. "

Champions are born, but they can be unmade by their perceptions and responses. Losers are not born to lose. They're programmed that way by their own perceptions and decisions.

Tony Dorsett: To succeed...You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.

Robert Strauss: It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it as long as you really believe 100 percent.

Winners never quit and quitters never win.

Mark Twain: Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

O.J. Simpson: The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that's the day you start to the top.

Dennis Waitley: The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can't do.

The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: The would is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Arnold Palmer: Ive always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win.

"The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle."

"Champions expect pain, endure pain & never complain."

"If you can't win, make the fellow ahead of you break the record."

"Some people dream of success while others wake up & achieve it."

"The purpose of any athletic endeavor is to challenge human limits both on and off the playing field."

William A. Ward: Adversity cause some men to break; others to break records.

Frank Lloyd Wright: "A professional is one who does his work best when he feels least like working."

Rae: "To do well, you have to push yourself. You have to go beyond what you think you are capable of doing. If you want to learn to run through pain, you have to experience the pain first."

Rae: "When things get tough in a race, you just think 'I've been here before. I know what happens, if I keep up the pressure and the mental intensity, eventually I'll come out of this.'"

Rae: PASSION-the kind that causes some to excel beyond anyone else; dulls one's sense of fatigue, pain, and the need for pleasure or even well-being. Passion leads some to pay incredible prices to reach a goal of some sort.

Rae: You may feel, think that something is worthwhile, but unless you wish to make it so, it will never get beyond the dream stage.

Helen Keller: When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our own life, or in the life of another.

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

Losing hurts, but it hurts even more when you realise that you haven't done your best.

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
If you can dream it, you can become it.

Pray as though it all depended on God and work as though as it all depended on you.

Ceceilia Capuzzi: A letter pulls people together like nothing else. It can make you cry or shout with joy. There's no finer caress than a love letter, because it makes the world very small, and the writer and reader, the only rulers. A letter is life!

Rae: After you've done something you thought you'd never do, you start looking around at all the other things you thought you could never do.

Rae: Take pride in how far you've come, Have FAITH in how far you can go.

Rae: When the road seems long, when temptation to quit is strong, when your strength is almost gone, THAT'S THE TIME TO PRESS ON!!!

Rae: It doesn't matter how hard you fall, but how high you bounce.

Thomas Edison: Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

We lose much by fearing to attempt.

Nothing splendid was ever been achieved except by those who dared to believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull: Everything that limits us we have to put aside. Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body too.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The only difference for the special and gifted is that, they have begun to understand what they really are and have begun to practise it.

Too often, we believe our own physical and environmental limitations are unique and much greater than those of gifted champions.

Ø Earvin 'magic' Johnson knew at a young age exactly what he wanted. He knew sometime in his young life, very young, that he wanted to be a basketball player, and he found himself role models. He modeled himself after these people and he dreamed about it all the time. He visualized himself being a great player. That's what it's all about.
Ø It's about an image, it's about visualizing where you want to be and seeing yourself there someday. Everyday you visualize it, you dream about it, you think about it, you work on it, you strive for it.

Ø Perhaps it is about trying too hard. When u want something so much, I think the tendency is that u try a little too hard. You've got to learn just to make your best effort, day to day. Never think of overcoming somebody else. You should never try to be better than somebody else, but you should never cease to try to be the best you can be.

Ø You want your opponent to have a career day because that will elevate your performance to a level that you didn't know you were capable of. (Greg Louganis)

If what you want does not happen right away, stay at it. Become good at it, You'll be surprised at how your self-confidence will build as you develop self-discipline. (Terry bradshaw)

There are no limitations if you broaden your horizons. If you don't succeed you haven't failed, because you cannot fail when you've tried your hardest. (Carl Lewis)

You can't let losing carry over to the next day. You've got to flip the page. (Don Baylor)

Everybody has ability, but some don't have the mental toughness, don't have it day to day, don't really have the desire. But if u don't have it in the first place, it's tough to get it.

Coaches can measure every part of your performance, but they cannot measure what's inside of you and what drives you. It's easy to cheat on yourself and just do enough to get by, but that's what everybody can do, just enough to get by. But those who want to be successful and maintain that level of success have got to push a little bit harder and do a little bit more. (Tony Gwynn)

I think the difference between first and second is clear intention. Intention is the magic word. Ask yourself when u go to a tournament "what am I doing here? What's my intention? Why am I here? Am I here to have a good time, am I here to play a level of golf never seen b4, am I here to make the cut, am I here to …."
You need to tune that intention to a level that is just slightly out of your reach. (Johnny Miller)

I think the difference between first and second is clear intention. Intention is the magic word. Ask yourself when u go to a tournament "what am I doing here? What's my intention? Why am I here? Am I here to have a good time, am I here to play a level of golf never seen b4, am I here to make the cut, am I here to …."
You need to tune that intention to a level that is just slightly out of your reach. (Johnny Miller)

Lengthen your stride---if u just stride so that it's comfortable, you'll never improve. You always have to stretch the muscles just slightly. You can't stretch them too much or you'll injure them. That's the secret of being great. If u really lengthen your stride and you can even hurt a little once in a while because you're striving for one more level of excellence, your eyes will be opened and you'll gain more intelligence and you'll gain more understanding. The players who do that, who become great, are the ones who are willing to take a gamble on a shot where everybody thinks otherwise. My intention here is not to play safe, play smart, but to win.
My intention is to do what others are not willing to do, and sometimes that equates me to a tough shot over water.

Like Scarlett O'Hara said, tomorrow's another day. But in the Olympics, tomorrow is four years away. (Michael O'Brien)

The people we admire in our lives are ordinary people that have been able to accomplish some extraordinary things. The things that make them extraordinary are things that we all possess. (Rolf Benirschke)

I would go back through the day and find one thing, one small improvement, one small step, one small triumph, and I would remind myself of that as I went to sleep. So every night I continued to go to sleep a successful man."

Don't let anyone else's opinion of you get you down, because the only opinion that counts is yours. No one can take that away from you. (Terry Bradshaw)

Fear is part of the process. If you weren't scared, you'd be in trouble. I was scared to death, but I made fear score more points for me. Fear is right behind me, fear is six inches off my back, that's where fear is. And it's there, it's present, and I can feel its presence. It's not going to catch me. When I'm running, fear is right behind me, and I'm not going to let it catch me. I'm going to take fear and use it to my advantage. It's going to make me run scared. But I won't let it get in front of me; if I did, it would slow me down, it could even make me stop.

You have to train your mind like the way you train your body. (Bruce Jenner)

What I got from tennis was a search for excellence, improvement, to be as good as I could be as a tennis player. I love to compete and I want to win, but mostly I want to have fun and see how good I can be.
(Martina Navratilova)

Ray Knight: Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.

Gary Player: Great athletes have an inner strength, something you cannot define.

Bruce Jenner: You make what you're doing extremely important in your life. It comes with commitment. Making a commitment to yourself and saying this is important in my life. It is important I do well. This is my life. When you make those commitments to yourself, then you become extremely focused and extremely determined. It's a funny thing. You don't go round telling people, your competitors or the media. But deep down inside, inwardly, the fire burns.

Bart Conner: I would go back through the day and find one thing, one small improvement, one small step, one small triumph, and I would remind myself of that as I went to sleep. So every night I continued to go to sleep a successful man.