Filed under: random
As I type this from my chair in my nice, warm living room my daughter is at the first varsity football game of the season. The original plan was for us to all go. Tom is sick so he didn’t go. Josh and I went for the first half… but at the end of the first half we were winning 38-0… our guys were playing well, but that isn’t the most exciting kind of game to watch. Mitchie was off hanging out with her friends – ’cause that is what 13 year olds do… Yes, one was a boy… J was kind of bored and I was cold and damp, so we left at half time. It is amazing, though, how sitting in the stands watching a football game on a Friday night can make you feel 16 again. Hopefully we will start going to the football games – I think that would be fun!
Speaking of sports… I was looking through archives recently and found this email that was sent to me by my oldest brother’s soccer coach (this man coached him all through elementary & high school). It is an awesome story – a reminder that God has us in places we wouldn’t necessarily have put ourselves for a reason… it may take years before we find out why, or we may never know – it may be for us, or it may be for other people, but there is a reason… I wonder if Mr. W has any idea the mark he left on the lives of all those boys he coached?
quoted from the email:
…Brings back memories of years of coaching. It may seem far-fetched that something like that could really happen, but I can tell you from a dozen years of coaching youth sports that, it happens every day. The important lesson for kids to learn at this level is that, if you give it your best, God will place opportunities in your path. For me, coaching was an
opportunity. I resisted it at first, then realized that God will give
us strength equal to the task, rather than tasks equal to our strength. So, never having been a team-sport player myself, I took on the job. I wouldn’t have made it through the first practice without God’s instruction.Twelve years went by, and it was time for me to move on to another assignment. After I retired from coaching, I became ill. The doctors said I wouldn’t be getting any better. A lot of people prayed for me. The doctors started downgrading my condition from “disease” to “syndrome”, then to “symptom”, and finally to “condition”. I went back to thank all the folks who were praying for me, and I realized that this army of prayer warriors had one thing in common: they had children who played on that first little soccer team. God’s plan had come full circle. The deck was stacked, and the game was fixed 12 years before the game started.
