Here I am again, finding myself needing to follow up to the remix of my son's soccer post. It's like the recurring post that keeps giving, right? But really. This is a neat ending :)
To summarize:
Part 1: I attend a ladies' prayer breakfast twice a year. I left the last breakfast early so I could attend my son's soccer game. He had a bad game and was the subject of some very negative, unkind speech from a particular person. It required every ounce of personal fortitude and newly acquired peace I had gained at the ladies' breakfast to keep my mouth shut. Wait. Some of that strength also came from my legs and eyes, because those acted up on me in my fury. But! No retaliatory words were had and the world of all that is youth soccer continued to spin. Imagine that.
Part 2: A short while ago, I learned my son would have greater interaction with the person in this new season. My immediate thought was to have him moved to a different team, different age group, heck...maybe a different town? Alas, I decided to stay out of God's way. I mean, there are no coincidences in this life. He ended up on that roster, a roster which a volunteer surely spent a great deal of time working on. We're all in each other's lives for reasons. We cross each other's paths for reasons. It really all ends up being used by God. So yeah. I decided to stay out of it and told God, as I often do:
"I'm giving him to you, Lord. He's yours before he's mine. I'll let you work it out."
I say that, but don't let me fool you. My heart doesn't always get that message. They're all the right words, but I don't have it down to the point where I can actually feel the peace of them. Work in progress ;)
Part 3: Today, I attended another ladies' prayer breakfast. Again, it coincided with my son's season opening soccer game. But this time? I didn't leave early to go see the game. I wanted to enjoy the experience from start to finish. To rest in the Lord for those few hours. To shut off the noise of the world around me. To spend time with my daughter and my friends. To forget about my health. To hear the message. To just be.
When we got back home from this beautiful breakfast, my son was making lunch for all of us. I - slightly nervously - asked him how his game went. He was very excited to tell me that it was GREAT! Great? No. GREAT! Okay, well that's awesome!
:::silence:::
I, still that mom who remembers all the speech/occupational therapy homework assignments that he and I have completed together during his early childhood, instinctively went to leading questions: "What made it great? Give me one thing."
He began to tell me how the coach honored him after the game by saying he was the biggest contributor of the day and that he wanted him to have a patch for his jersey to commemorate his efforts.
I'm sorry. What?
"Yeah, he said I tried really hard. And he said something about getting me a patch."
...it was a really good thing that I was in the kitchen and he was telling me this from the living room, because I was overwhelmed. Tearful. Proud of this kid. Humbled by God's mercy and grace.
All I could think of, back when those awful comments were flying last season, was - if that person could only know what this boy is all about. To know what he's overcome. To know how hard certain things are for him and what kind of effort they require. The great offense I had taken was not because of actual words spoken, it was because I wanted someone to look past outward shortcomings to see just a glimpse of who this kid is. But honestly, that's a pretty tall order. After all, it's really just a youth soccer game. Spectators aren't there to assess the content of a player's heart or appreciate his/her "story" as they're out there trying to kick a ball into a goal.
Well, consider me humbled. The very thing I was so offended over was reconciled in the first game.
His ways are not my ways. His timing is not my timing. If I can just continue to remember to stay out of his way... :)
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