Have you ever met a person and instantly liked them?   Alphonso Bailey is one of those people for me.   He has this amazing positive spirit about him and an amazing heart for the Lord.   Alphonso runs a ministry called "Down But Not Out Communications".   You can read more about it.

I recently got an email update from Alphonso that I thought was a great story about his daughter who is an amazing track athlete.

Here it is:

I wanted to bring you up on some of the joy I had this weekend with my daughter, Portia, winning the state in the 100 hurdles at Indiana University. Two weeks before this she had suffered a stress fracture in her hip which caused her to set out of the county and conference meets which she holds record in the 100 dash, the 200 dash, and the 100 hurdles. The pain from this fracture caused her to run just so fast just to win; she won the sectionals with a time of 15.09, and the regional with a time of 14.96. 

All week before the state meet we prayed that she would mount up on eagles wings, and I would take this structure that my friend Kurt gave me of an eagle with his wings spread which said, "they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on eagles wings" and I would put it on her bed, and she would see it each time she came home from track practice. She knew I was putting it there, but she never said for me to stop. She ran in the second heat of the trials at the state finals, and it was called the speed heat. Two of the fastest times were in her heat, 14.5, 14.6, and in spite of all that, Portia won her heat with a time of 14.65. I looked at my wife Marsha, and I said she's back, but still I had to remember that this is only the trials and those girls could be saving it for the finals. 

Portia came up in the stands where Marsha & I were and told us how good she felt, and she even said she pulled up a bit at the end.
Right as she was about to go to prepare for her finals she looked at me in the middle of the stands with everyone watching and said "Bless me and pray for me dad".  I held her in my arms and she held me, and I prayed that "she would mount up on eagles wings and run and not be weary"  Portia pulled back and looked me in the eyes and said " dad pray that I win". I pulled her back to me, and I said  "Oh Lord bless Portia with the victory today".  She kissed me and took off. As she was at the starting line getting set in her blocks I prayed for no pain in her body and that she would Mount Up. Portia took off and she had a lot of heat from the girl to her left as they crossed the finish line it was so close. Not even the runners knew who had won. They were looking up at the big board to see who would be posted as the winner. It was about a 10 minute delay as they looked at the pictures to decide the winner. Last year Portia waited like this only to come out as state runner up with a time of 14.75 and the winning time was 14.70.

They posted the the winner: Portia Bailey 14.48! Glory! It was wonderful, the runner up time was 14.49.  I finally got to see Portia after all the smiles and joy and she said to me "look what God did".  I say to Portia all the time that with God all things are possible. I want to say to each one of you to always remember, with God all things are possible.

Enough said.   Be sure to read more about Alphonso here: http://www.downbutnotout.org/founder.html