Last night Colt McCoy, quarterback for the Univ. of Texas, was injured early in the game and could not return. He said, after a tackle, he could not feel his throwing arm at all. The day he dreamt of since a kid, playing college football in the National Championship game, and a possible multi-million dollar pro contract ahead. He said something like: “God allowed this to happen for a reason and I will praise Him in it.” Oh if we could live that way everyday too, no matter what God allows to come our way.

    Let me from from an article written by Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated:

   ” On Thursday, McCoy suffered the final indignity of a glorious but ultimately snakebit career. On the Longhorns’ first drive of the BCS title game, in the red zone, he carried on an option play. Alabama linebacker Marcell Dareus blasted McCoy and rammed him, shoulder-first, into the back of center Chris Hall. The collision pinched a nerve in McCoy’s throwing shoulder. McCoy never returned to the Longhorns’ 37-21 loss. “I’ve taken hits my whole career,” McCoy said. “I’ve taken tons of hits like that. I guess it just caught me the right way.”

   Given multiple chances to feel sorry for himself, McCoy didn’t take the bait. “It would be so easy to question why,” he said. But he never did.

A few feet from where McCoy spoke, Army Lt. Col. Greg Gadson fiddled with the zoom on his digital camera with one hand and propped himself higher in his wheelchair with the other. Gadson wanted to take a photo of the all-time winningest quarterback in college football’s marquee division, as McCoy explained the pinched nerve that knocked him out of the biggest game of his life.

   As McCoy pondered the calamity that had befallen him on Thursday night, his mind must have flashed back at least once to Nov. 14, when Gadson spoke to the Longhorns before they faced Baylor. That day, Gadson explained how he and his unit had driven through Baghdad on May 7, 2007. Gadson explained that a roadside bomb exploded just as the transport in which he rode passed. Gadson explained that of all the men in his unit, he was the only one who came home without legs.

   The 21-year veteran could have bemoaned his fate. The 1989 West Point grad had every right to shake his fist at the heavens and beg to know what he had done to deserve such a fate. He didn’t do any of that. He learned to move in a wheelchair and on prosthetic legs.

   “It takes time,” Gadson said. “But if you know where you need to go, and you know where you need to look, it just makes the healing go faster.”

Gadson provided some more perspective on Thursday, and while losing a football game can never compare to the loss Gadson suffered in the service of his country, he offered some great advice for McCoy. “Just keep a positive attitude,” Gadson said. “When things difficult happen to you, guess what? They’re always in the past. As hard as it is not to look back and wonder what if, you’ve just got to look forward.”

   So McCoy can’t waste his time wondering how that one perfect hit derailed him or the fact that he could have kept playing if he’d played any other position. “If I was playing free safety, I’d go out there and hit somebody,” McCoy said. “But playing quarterback, there’s no telling where the ball would have gone if I’d tried to throw or even if I could have gotten the ball up to throw.”

   When someone asked McCoy the Big Question, he kept his moist eyes focused squarely on the future. Certainly Gadson was proud to hear his answer.

   “I worked and played my whole career to be on this stage, to be given this opportunity,” McCoy said. “I know what it would have been like had I played that game. To know that is tough. But at the same time, I am a man of faith. I stand on the rock. I’ll never question God for why things happen the way they do. …”

   This is a great and practical story that can serve to inspire us all about praising, thanking and trusting God in whatever we may go through.

WHEN YOU ARE LOW ON HOPE by Max Lucado

Water. All Noah can see is water. The evening sun sinks into it. The clouds are reflected in it. His boat is surrounded by it. Water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the west. Water.

He sent a raven on a scouting mission; it never returned. He sent a dove. It came back shivering and spent, having found no place to roost. Then, just this morning, he tried again. With a prayer he let it go and watched until the bird was no bigger than a speck on a window.

All day he looked for the dove’s return.

Now the sun is setting, and the sky is darkening, and he has come to look one final time, but all he sees is water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the …

You know the feeling. You have stood where Noah stood. You’ve known your share of floods. Flooded by sorrow at the cemetery, stress at the office, anger at the disability in your body or the inability of your spouse. You’ve seen the floodwater rise, and you’ve likely seen the sun set on your hopes as well. You’ve been on Noah’s boat.

And you’ve needed what Noah needed; you’ve needed some hope. You’re not asking for a helicopter rescue, but the sound of one would be nice. Hope doesn’t promise an instant solution but rather the possibility of an eventual one. Sometimes all we need is a little hope.

That’s all Noah needed. And that’s all Noah received.

Here is how the Bible describes the moment: “When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf!” (Gen. 8:11 NIV).

An olive leaf, Noah would have been happy to have the bird but to have the leaf! This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise. The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope. For isn’t that what hope is? Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after a flood. Proof to the dreamer that dreaming is worth the risk.

Don’t we love the olive leaves of life?

“It appears the cancer may be in remission.”

“I can help you with those finances.”

“We’ll get through this together.”

What’s more, don’t we love the doves that bring them?

Perhaps that’s the reason so many loved Jesus.

To all the Noah’s of the world, to all who search the horizon for a fleck of hope, he proclaims, “Yes!” And he comes. He comes as a dove. He comes bearing fruit from a distant land, from our future home. He comes with a leaf of hope.

Have you received yours? Don’t think your ark is too isolated. Don’t think your flood is too wide. Receive his hope, won’t you? Receive it because you need it. Receive it so you can share it.

Love always hopes. “Love … bears all things, believes all things, *hopes* all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4–7 NKJV, emphasis mine).