Yesterday I received my daily e-mail from "Chicken Soup for the Soul".

The short story was written by an Olympic swimming coach and told about one of his young swimmers who always failed to make the swim team for the first seven years of his coaching career.

The young girl would always start quickly and be in the lead at the beginning of the race, but would "die" in the last 25 yards of the butterfly stroke swim race. In the finals of his eighth year of coaching year, he told the swimmer to change her thinking and to swim with as much enthusiasm and confidence as she did the first 25 yards.

But he did more than that, he positioned the balance of the swim team near the edge of the pool. When their team member hit the 75 yard mark, in unison they yelled, "NOW!" The coach wrote that he couldn't hear anything in the swimming area as the entire team was yelling at the top of their lungs, as she stroked her way to the finish line.

This time her results were different. In one race, she had moved her time in the butterfly race from 64th in the world to #1!!

How about us? Where are we in the race of life? Many of us are nearing the end of the race, but are we swimming with the same enthusiasm, hope, love, and joy as we did in the beginning of the race?

Have we started strong but now are tiring from the length of the race? Are we sprinters but not very good long distance swimmers?

Is God, as our coach, and are angels both on this earth and in heaven yelling from the sides of the pool, "NOW!" as they encourage us to swim just as strong as we did when we first dived into the pool?

We can finish as strong as we started and win the race God has set out for us..........one strong stroke at a time!