What Did a Broke Entertainer Promise a Saint He Would Build?

He had almost nothing.

A young comedian in Detroit, no steady work, a wife and baby to feed, no clear sign that any of it was going to work out. He walked into a church and knelt down.

He prayed to St. Jude Thaddaeus — the patron saint of hopeless causes. He asked for a sign. And he made a vow: if St. Jude helped him find his way, he would build a shrine in the saint's honor.

He found his way. He became one of the most beloved entertainers in America.

And he kept his promise — much bigger than he'd imagined.

In 1962, Danny Thomas opened St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Its founding principle was simple and absolute: no child would ever be turned away because their family couldn't pay.

When St. Jude opened, the survival rate for the most common childhood cancers was under 20 percent. Today it's over 80 percent.

His daughter Marlo Thomas now leads the fundraising. The promise is still being kept.

There is a version of ambition that is entirely about the self — and there is a version that starts with a desperate prayer in a church and ends with children surviving things that used to be unsurvivable.

What did you promise, in your most desperate moment, that you haven't built yet?