Holy Cow! Yesterday was bad wasn't it?! I just went to church at Rock City in downtown Columbus. Today was One on One with James Laurinaitis. It was a pretty cool experience and a little reminder to me that just because I can't do what I want to do doesn't mean the path I'm on is leading nowhere.
I know I am not in control in general but I think when it is as blatantly obvious as it has been lately, it becomes hard for me to focus on much else. Instead of looking around me and pointing at everyone else, I need to be taking an inventory on myself. Being honest with me.
School may sound scary right now but that doesn't mean it isn't something that I can do. I may be questioning a lot of things but that doesn't mean these things are bad or that I need to pick up and run away from it all. I'm moving for school in a few weeks and I think it freaks me out to think about it. I'm so convinced that everything that is good in my life will go away, that it's becoming a self -fulfilling prophecy.
When I got my concussions the first time I was in a very different place. I had worked my way to a starting spot on an up and coming team. All my hard work over 15 or so years of my life was paying off and then it was taken out from under me. I never got over that.
Soccer was literally who I was at the time. If anyone who knew me heard my name they would associate it with soccer. To not have that anymore was devastating. The last season I was told I didn't have to come to anything because I was injured but I was at EVERYTHING. Every two-a-day, every scrimmage, every game, I was there. I didn't know what else to do.
Over time I came to realize that life was going on without me. The team was successful without me. So I became disconnected. I began doing a lot of things to keep my mind off of what was going on. A lot of destructive things.
This lead my roommate (who was also a fellow soccer player) to get me to come to grips with reality. She brought me to church, a place I always avoided but knew I needed. In May of my senior year (5-2-2009) I was baptized in the ocean on the coast of Key Biscayne. It was beautiful. Serene. Perfect. I was connected to God there. I could feel him cradling me in my sadness and a certain peace took over me.
When I moved back to Ohio I let my job overtake my life, I didn't find a church here and I didn't look for one. I felt my faith and over time I felt it start deteriorating. To no one's fault but my own. I was in a destructive relationship which God allowed me to let go of quite easily. But I never took ownership of my life.
I had grieved over losing soccer, but I never searched myself to find out what else I could do. What else was I good at? At least the job I had was helping kids, I loved those kids but then that was taken from me as well when the funding stopped and we closed our doors the following January. It seemed everything that gave me hope and happiness was falling apart.
I'm looking for hope in all the wrong places and I'm doing that now. My hope, my love, my happiness, my peace is in the Lord. He holds me, He guides me, He loves me, no matter what. Everything else in my life is a bonus
On my arm I have a tattoo that is Matthew 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted." This is my reminder to never lose that feeling of peace and rest from the Father. Today James Laurinaitis shared a verse with us that hit home. It is a more positive spin on loss and suffering. God always speaks to use through His Word and I am forever grateful for this:
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delightin weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
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