Leave A Legacy of Resilience
How an Oklahoma Mom Restored my Hope
Last week a sixty-year-old mother of eleven pumped up our deflated souls to rise again. Allyson Reneau posted a picture of herself on Instagram with girls aged 16-18 from the Afghan Girls Robotics team, whom she met at a 2019 Humans to Mars robotics competition in Washington. Her request read: “I usually don’t like to ask for help, but please pray for these Afghan girls. I can’t say much more, but they are in need of a miracle right now.”❤️🙏🏽 She didn’t stop there. She turned to a former roommate working at the American Embassy in Qatar to help her get the girls out of Kabul. It was chaotic trying to rescue the girls, who "were in a sea of chaos with 8 million people and a city halfway around the world," Reneau recalled. "It's a very narrow window of opportunity," but "I knew that if I didn't run through that door now—it's now or never. Sometimes, you only get one chance." Reneau flew to Qatar where they worked through the night to process paperwork. After their original flight was canceled, ten girls were placed on a flight from the American side of the Kabul airport, and the government of Qatar was able to extract the girls safely. They can now continue their education—and survive.
Her “AFGHANISTAN UPDATE” stated: “Everything turned around when you all prayed on Monday. Please don’t stop now. You might wonder why I am not rescuing Americans. These are the only people I know in Afghanistan. I just decided to take any action I could to save a few. Evil triumphs when good people do nothing!” At this point, Reneau is still working on getting out twenty-five other members of the team. She is already being hailed as a “superwoman” for going out of her way to rescue them.
Learning of her story was what I needed. I felt barraged by the strident noise of bad news and situations out of our control. It made me want to plug my ears and sing of sunshine and rainbows. It’s hard to be optimistic in the face of so much that is wrong in our world, but this story lifted my spirits. I wanted to know more about this woman and her motivation.
I learned two things about her: the central role of family and faith in her life and the importance of prior commitments reinforced by steady practices. Her decisive action arose out of others-oriented habits she had built over many decades. She told reporters that, "Your mom instincts kick in or whatever this was that gave me a sort of warning that they needed assistance, so I was only armed with courage and a cause." Her life-long training kicked in.
A mother of nine girls and two boys who dropped out of university to start a family, Reneau returned to school at age fifty. In 2016 she graduated from Harvard with a Master’s in International Relations and a focus on U.S. space policy. Her award-winning thesis influenced NASA’s return to the moon. She is a spaceflight advocate and an acclaimed motivational speaker on overcoming limits. Her legacy also includes countless children outside her family. As an award-winning professional gymnastics coach, she invested the last twenty years motivating and training children to reach their potential. She lives out her message to never give up and to leave a legacy.
Legacies come out of prior commitments to be a certain kind of person. Along the way, each of us faces unique struggles, whether chronic illness, mental health issues, addiction, betrayal, relational failure, or a host of formidable challenges—even just the busyness of daily life—that sap our energy and resolve to stay strong in the struggle of life. The question we face is how to remain steady in our commitments. To do this we need mental models to guide us.
My twin models are a wayfaring pilgrim and a valiant soldier. A pilgrim is a sojourner who travels to a foreign place, often a sacred place as a devotee. Pilgrims are familiar with adventures, risks, and perils. They feel the impermanence of this life in their bones as they meet obstacles and enemies along the way. Soldiers understand that safety comes from fighting enemies along the way and that enemies are never defeated once and for all. This makes soldiers stay alert and vigilant to new problems and threats. They are not lulled by the comforts of the easy road or false promises of a settled victory. Pilgrims and soldiers know how to enjoy the fruits of their new territory, but they are prepared for what lies ahead in the land. This is the kind of mentality that makes us effective for the long haul.
When trouble strikes or when it continues interminably, so it seems, I return to these twin images to restore my pluck and resilience. These are not times for passivity. Our time requires plucky, decisive people who offer hope. I thank this mother from Norman, Oklahoma for showing me how to be that kind of person.