Press On
It was a fog-shrouded morning, July 4, 1952, when Florence Chadwick waded into the water off Catalina Island. She intended to swim the channel from the island to the California coast. Long-distance swimming was not new to her; she had been the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions.
The cold water was numbing. The fog was so thick she could hardly see the boats in following by her side. Several times sharks had to be driven away with rifle fire. She swam more than 15 hours before she asked to be taken out of the water. Her trainer tried to encourage her to swim on since they were so close to land, but when Florence looked, all she saw was fog. So she quit. . . only one-mile from her goal.
Later she said, "I’m not excusing myself, but if I could have seen the land I might have made it."
It wasn’t the cold or fear or exhaustion that caused Florence Chadwick to quit. It was the fog that obscured the goal. Many times we too fail, because we lose sight of the goal. Maybe that’s why Paul said, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:14).
Two months after her failure, Florence Chadwick walked off the same beach into the same channel and swam the distance, setting a new speed record, because she could see the land.
