Phil, Oh that was super! I love everything you write.

Keep up the excellent work!

Love and Blessings,

Pat Ferguson


At 04:56 PM 10/2/2009, you wrote:
>I Failed To Do My Best So Now What?
>
>
>By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>
>
>
>The purpose of this testimony is to show how a memory event can have pain and
>discomfort that masks the true lie.
>
>I was 16 years old and it would be my last wrestling tournament.  It 
>was an all
>city competition and hundreds of boys from 10 to 16 years of age 
>were wrestling from all
>over Nebraska that day.  It was Saturday.  I was so used to going 
>home every Friday for
>the weekend, and getting away from the school for the blind, I hated 
>even staying over
>the weekend for a wrestling match.  Besides, I wasn't that 
>good.  Oh, I won more than I
>lost, and I enjoyed the sport, but I new I wasn't that good, had 
>never even gone to state,
>let alone winning enough matches to make it to a state tournament, 
>and now, here I was,
>wrestling for a championship which I knew I wouldn't win.  Frankly, 
>I didn't care if I did
>or not.
>
>After a half of a day passed, I found myself seated in the finals 
>after beating 5
>other guys and now I had one more to go for the first place 
>championship.  I was even
>seated next to the sighted guy whom I was to wrestle.  He started up 
>a conversation, as
>we waited out our turn to wrestle, and I discovered he was really a 
>nice guy.  We were
>about five rows back so each time a row moved up, he showed me where 
>to sit and we
>continued visiting like we were long time buddies.
>
>When our names were finally called, I had no feeling for how the match would
>conclude and as I said, I didn't really care.  Second place was 
>always good enough for
>me, or so it seemed, and I didn't mind getting a C in a course, 
>although I preferred a B, or
>even an A, which I occasionally obtained, but a B or a C was always 
>fine with me
>because I hated school.  In fact, the best grades I ever achieved 
>were in Bible College
>because I was finally studying things I liked and wanted to 
>learn.  Anyhow, this young
>fellow and I walked out on the mat and when the whistle blew by the 
>referee, the match
>began.  I lost by one point.  Nope!  I didn't even care.
>
>My mom had driven from Omaha over to Lincoln, about 65 miles, after she had
>gotten off work Saturday at noon, to not only watch me wrestle but 
>to take me home for
>the rest of the weekend.
>
>When it came time to give out the trophies and my named was called, the young
>man who had beaten me by one point, ran over and led me to where the 
>nice lady was
>giving out the awards for accomplishments as the announcer called 
>out our names and
>school names.  I had never won a trophy before in my life so the 
>hard solid metal little
>statue of a guy poised to wrestle, which is sitting on my book 
>shelve behind me as I type,
>was placed in my hands.  The guy who had won first place and had led 
>me to the awards
>table, said, "Phil, this is my mom handing out our trophies."  What 
>an unusual day I had
>experienced.  I had wrestled 6 times, felt like I had been run over 
>by a truck, and suffered
>muscle aches literally for a week from the strain I had exuded that day.
>
>"So, what is the problem here?"  I'm glad you asked because I'm not 
>telling this
>story just because I can't find anything else to do at the 
>moment.  This memory has
>always bothered me but I never knew why until recently.
>
>As this memory has come to mind hundreds of times over the years, I felt a
>tremendous amount of emotional discomfort.  In fact, I considered 
>the true problem
>related to something I did that made me feel incredibly stupid that day.
>
>I had wrestled about three or four times before my mom 
>arrived.  When she came,
>she sat next to me with the team up against a wall in a single row 
>of chairs place just a
>few feet from the multiple wrestling mats being employed for the 
>matches. So far, so
>good.  I was so exhausted, I could hardly stay awake.  During long 
>tournaments, I often
>was able to fall asleep just leaning back in a chair or even 
>stretching out on cold hard
>steal bleachers.  After drinking a cup of pop, that's what we call 
>soda back in the
>Midwest, I ended up laying my head down in my mother's lap and 
>falling asleep.  That
>was the part of the memory which always first came to mind.  I felt 
>stupid and very
>immature for what I had done in front of all my teammates.
>
>This time, when the memory appeared out of no where, I examined the memory in
>prayer.  "How did you feel?" I felt myself saying.  I knew the 
>answer; I felt stupid.  Why?
>In front of all my teammates, and hundreds upon hundreds of others 
>in the auditorium, I
>laid my head in my mama's lap.  What a big tough wrestler I 
>was.  So, obviously, I felt
>stupid and embarrassed because I shouldn't had done that and 
>although all the other parts
>of the memory I describe likewise played out when this memory 
>surfaced, my stupidity
>was all I could truly feel.  I hated the memory because of what I had done.
>
>As I prayed this time, however, more came to the surface.  I 
>remembered what my
>coach, a great man and a great role model in my mind, said to my mom 
>as I walked out
>on the mat for the first and second place winners positions.  "Well, 
>it looks like Phil is
>going to be my only champ in this tournament."  As I turned the 
>memory over and over, I
>realized something I had never noticed before and that was the 
>feeling that I had let my
>coach down because I had not tried my best.  Maybe, just maybe, if I 
>had tried a little
>harder, I could have won and been the first place winner.  I had won 
>first place in
>tournaments before but no trophies had been awarded.  I knew my 
>coach was still proud
>of me winning second place, but I personally felt I had not done my 
>best, and had let him
>down.  Trying to find logic to my feelings within the memory, I 
>reasoned, it wouldn't be
>the first time that I had done less than my best so what was the big 
>deal? Well, I've
>already stated it, "I didn't do my best," and I could have done better.
>
>Mom and I went back to Omaha, me with my little trophy, and I was going to get
>to spend the rest of the weekend at home.  Plus, I'd get to attend 
>our church Sunday and
>that was, after all, way more important to me than winning first 
>place at anything; wasn't
>it?
>
>As it turned out, the truth about the memory was not what I had done falling
>asleep with my head in my mom's lap as a 16 year old; it was the 
>feeling I didn't do my
>best.  This was even worse to consider because how could Jesus fix 
>something like that?
>I mean, I could not ever go back and do it all over and try harder 
>to win first place.  I was
>stuck, trapped, by my own failure and not trying my best.  I asked 
>the Lord how He could
>repair the damage I felt I had done.
>
>Before I tell you what He said, understand that this memory is no 
>big deal. It had
>no big effect upon my life, none that I know of anyway, and there 
>were many other times
>in life I did my best.  Regardless, this memory popped up so many 
>times in my life, I
>finally realized something needed to be healed because Jesus wanted 
>to fix something for
>me.  That Jesus!  He's always wanting to help us ; praise God!
>
>So, when I felt this situation was hopeless, I told the Lord how I 
>felt about not
>doing my best to win.  He said, "It doesn't matter because I'm your 
>best." I cannot
>describe the wonderful feeling that came over me when I realize that 
>no matter if I failed
>because I didn't do my best or not, Jesus was my best.  He is my 
>Lord and Savior and He
>is the best a person can do regardless of everything else.  I felt 
>happy and free and I saw
>Jesus standing in the large building where we wrestled that day with 
>all of those other
>people and saying, "Phil, I'm your best that you have ever done."
>
>How about you?  Have you ever experienced this type of emotional pain? Maybe
>it's old and a long time ago.  Maybe what happened yesterday, due to 
>what someone
>perhaps said, reminded you of something when you were little.  If 
>you know Jesus as
>your Savior, He is the best you've ever done and it will never get 
>any better than Jesus.
>He is your past and your future and your eternal trophy.
>
>Satan Has A GOD Complex
>WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.com