In last night's Super Bowl XLVII, a power outage in the New Orleans Superdome created a 34-minute game delay. As my husband predicted, the momentum shifted from the Baltimore Ravens to the San Francisco 49ers. The nail-biter ended with a Ravens win, but the shift was unmistakable, with the power story certainly one for the record books.
For some reason, it gave me pause for thought.
How many times does pause precede momentum that proceeds in a new--and more powerful--direction?
Entrepreneurs have chalked up hundreds of stories where temporary failure, and thus pause, set the stage for an even better launch.
This morning, I read the story of Shari Fitzpatrick, highly successful founder of Shari's Berries, Inc., suddenly on pause in a compelling tale of heartache and loss of her long-standing business. Yet, she knows her comeback is in the offing and you can almost feel the momentum in her positive view.
Is there an inspiration behind this sequence of pause and momentum, where something greater comes out of the next phase?
Jesus lived thirty-three years, presenting Himself repeatedly through healing miracles and dramatic teaching.
Yet a three-day pause in His transition from death on the cross to resurrection, in a seeming power outage, launched the Person of Jesus into the Spirit of Jesus.
A pause and momentum that changed the course of history, and remaining, for the record books, the greatest story ever.
(Photographer: Doug Mills, The New York Times)
