Football Fanatic

Oh my gosh. No really, oh my gosh. My team, the team of my youth, my hometown boys are in the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. I settle in for football as one does with all the right stuff. Warm fuzzy blanket, team apparel, banner posted, diet coke in hand and I am in the zone. Only guess what, my team is not. My team is ruining a perfectly good football game by playing poorly. This is completely unacceptable. In fact it is so unacceptable, I am trying to figure out who I contact for justice. Who do you turn to when the party doesn't go as it is supposed to go?

I have tried the duck thing, you know water off my back, but it doesn't really work the way is seems to for ducks. I guess if you don't feel passionate about stuff its not so bad, but when I am in, I am way in. The disappointment when it doesn't go the way I want it to go is awful. This has often led to what should have been a crisis of faith only I was never confident enough to engage in it. In fact, I have had so little faith at times that I have refused to ask the questions for fear that God would not have a good answer. Or what I would accept as a good answer.

I have been reading the journal of a mom who's seven year old is undergoing treatment for a tumor on his brain stem. She is really struggling with the way the story seems to be going and the way she wants to story to go. She wrote openly about her frustration and fear in praying for God's will because she only wants His will if it agrees with her will. I do not have a child in this particular situation but boy do I understand that fear. I remember very clearly struggling with God over the life of my son and remember the haunting questions, 'Will you love Me if I let your son die' and 'Will you believe I love you if I let your son die'. My son lived, many other mother's do not and the question still needs to be answered honestly. Most of the time the crisis is not so great yet the disappointment and grief can create distance and distrust unless we have the courage and the perseverance to ask God to help us either understand or have the faith to believe He does.

My football team pales in significant compared to a mother watching her son struggle to live. I get that, I also get that in life disappointment on all levels must be resolved. The big things in life make us stop what we are doing to deal with them, illness, death, job loss, career change, relocation, retirement. We have no choice but to step out of life and confront them head on at least a little. The day to day disappointments that we have to suck up and go on with can create little doubt fissures that erode faith. I am resolving to stop when I am in the midst of a moment and tell God my hurts, my frustrations, even my fears. I want instant answers which I suspect I will seldom get. But I also want open communication lines so that I can share my pain and receive God's love, if not His mind.

Pray for this sweet lady and her family. Pray that God would move as He sees fit and that in all He would carry each of these precious people in the palm of His Hand and give them His Peace. Pray for each of us as we face smaller disappointments and frustrations, fears and failings that they might be used to complete the good work God began in each of us, instead of drive us further away from His love. And pray that the post season would be kind to my football team, or that I would endure defeat with grace. Oh yeah, like THAT is going to happen. Oh well, I do believe in miracles.