On October 26, 1997, I received a life-saving heart transplant. Before my transplant I was so weak that I couldn't walk three houses up the block. Seven weeks after my transplant, I was able to go for a two-and-a-half-hour hike. Soon after I went on that hike, I started swimming lessons, and, only nine months after my transplant, competed as a swimmer at the 1998 U.S. Transplant Games in Columbus, Ohio.

"I swam the fifty-meter freestyle and won the gold! I swam the five-hundred-meter freestyle and won the gold again! I swam the fifty-meter backstroke and won the silver! Within seconds of the first win, I was profoundly struck by the realization that my greatest joy was not in winning the medals but in being alive, being there, and being able to compete full out. That was the true victory. In my mind, every participant at the games was a gold medal winner. To this day, that is how I see it."

From Dying to Live: From Heart Transplant to Abundant Life, p. 62. Copyright © 2005 by Gaea Shaw. Published by Pilgrims Progress, Inc.