the journey.

In the last 3 months an adventure was squashed, I have moved twice, had three different job titles with the same company and taken on an assistant coaching position. As the changes happened one by one in a short span of time, little has remained consistent. For a person who prefers predictability, routine, and structure I have been challenged to roll with the curve balls and trust the Lord’s hand on me. At times I will admit I lacked perspective for what lay a head due to my own brokenness and fleshly desires for things to go the way I saw fit.

When I return to Portland October 2012, from a year away, I began praying for a place to serve and give myself away in community. The assumption of those around me was that I would naturally lead Young Life. I kept waiting for the call half way expecting it, but honestly not feeling it. I could do it. I would make the most of it…and yet still, there was no tug on my heart. I started to consider the times in my life when I have been the most fulfilled and the experience that came to mind was working 10 hours a day around a bakery table for 3 or 4 week stints with 3 college age girls. This fueled my heart’s desire for intentional relationship, discipleship and walking life with young women who are at such a pivotal time in their lives. Looking back, I would have loved to do life with someone just a few years older with just a little more life experience when I was in college.

Lord knows that the process of me getting on staff to coach happened rapidly with little time for me to actually think too much about the opportunity (which is typically in my best interest or I can easily talk myself out of things due to fear). As it was, with what little time I did have in getting hired and getting started, fear and insecurity found subtle ways to creep in when my flesh was weak. Yet as a follower of Jesus I count nothing as coincidence. I found my ring of scripture cards and took them with me wherever I would go, reminding myself of the Lord’s plan for me and to turn my fear into prayers and to trust Him above all. Heck, He had just been in every detail of a huge life change, how could I discount and not trust in His will?! Some of my conversations with Him would go as such, “Lord. I know it’s not about me, but let’s be honest I can’t do this. Let me rephrase that, I can’t do it on my own strength. Yet I know you have called me to this. You called MOSES of all people to lead people out of Israel. The man had a speech impediment. You equipped David to beat Goliath…with you anything is possible. So Lord, help me to trust and confirm that these steps you intended for me.”

And so it goes. The season began with a game that was a huge learning experience and exposed many of our weaknesses as a team. It also proved to be a wake up call to many of our young players (20 out of 24 players are freshmen and sophomores). Our next pair of games took us south to California where the girls overcame what seem like endless obstacles to win both games and where I realized what an incredible privilege I have to be coaching such wonderful young women of character and integrity. Not only do they make me laugh, but they ask good questions and are eager to learn.

If there’s one thing that is constantly overlooked in sports, it’s the presence of life lessons. It’s discipline, team work, mental toughness, mindset, belief in yourself, dependence on others, communication, time management, perseverance, determination, strength, endurance, focus…these are all things that transfer into the working world. There’s so many more, but those are the first that come to mind. It’s overcoming obstacles…Sports are character building. It’s another avenue in which the Lord can move in and through people.

And I will tell you it is character building as a coach as well. Being new to the realm of coaching…we’ll just say I have a LOT to learn. The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. To be quite honest, I was anticipating that coaching would come a lot easier than it has, but in a way it keeps me humble and dependent on Him instead of my own strength. There are days when my tongue is tied or my brain is fried and I literally can’t process quick enough to provide feedback. There are days when I come from work and I have nothing left in me and somehow the Lord fills my tank and blesses me with just enough energy to coach and be present with the girls.

I’m still trying to find my identity and establish myself as a coach. In a way it’s like this life journey we are on. We are constantly learning more about ourselves through the different experiences we encounter as well as the various people who come into our lives and make lasting impacts. It’s those experiences that shape and mold us. Coaching forces me to reflect back on the impactful experiences I had as a player, the coaches who came into my path, their styles of teaching the game and their lasting impacts on my life as a player and an individual. At the same time it’s like following Jesus. I look back at what He has done in the past, people he has brought into my life and I see His faithfulness, even in the tough stuff, but it is those experiences that continue to have made me, ME.

May this be more than just a story of life and its encounters, but above all may it point to Jesus. Maybe you don’t know Him. Maybe you have never heard of Him. Maybe you know of Him. Maybe you know Him. Or maybe you’re walking with Him. Wherever you are on the spectrum there’s always more to learn.