Painful Lessons

The other night I found myself playing soccer. Being that I have played soccer for almost my entire life this is likely not that big of a deal to most of you, so allow me to preface it. For the several weeks leading up to me playing soccer, my lovely wife Alyssa constantly asked me not to play. You see, I have had a total of 5 concussions in my lifetime (if you don't know anything about concussions, that is a lot). Her argument was generally something about not wanting a brain-dead husband. My response meanwhile was something like, "You already have one." You know the drill. The point is, I continually assured her that I wasn't nearly as aggressive as I was when I played in college and that I would not hurt myself. 

That catches you up; I was playing soccer. Just before halftime I dove to make a save (something I have literally done thousands of times) and ended up tearing my rotator cuff. Not badly mind you, just a little. But this got me thinking quite a lot because there was a pretty significant amount of time that I had no idea how badly my shoulder was hurt and if I would have had to guess, I would have assumed that it was hurt much worse than it ended up being.

In that time I feel like God wanted to teach me two things. At least that is how many I picked up on. God might have wanted to teach me a lot more than that and I am just too dense to know that He was trying to teach me more. I don't know, but I definitely got two lessons out of it. 

1.) Listen to your wife.

 I probably should have learned this lesson quite a while ago, and in some ways I have. The problem is I didn't apply it to everything. I wrote off her concerns. She was worried about my safety, my well-being, and instead of attempting to relieve that worry I ignored it. 

In all honesty, I was probably right. I was not as aggressive. I was being a much more careful player. I didn't play with the kind of disregard for my personal safety that I did in college. The problem is, I can't control everything. I did something that was perfectly routine and ended up hurting myself pretty badly. 

It is so easy to live life like we have everything under control. We put ourselves in situations that are dangerous, either physically or often times spiritually, and we act like we control all the variables. We don't. We can't control everything. To continue with the soccer examples, as a goalkeeper, I understand that it is impossible to cover the entire goal. No matter where I position myself, if someone makes a nice enough shot, they will score. 

We have to accept the fact that we can't control everything. My wife understood this. If I would have listened to her, my shoulder would not be aching as I type right now. 

2.) Embrace the gifts that God gives us. 

For most of my life, soccer was how I identified myself. I was a soccer player. That was a big chunk of my life. In high school, that was almost my whole life. 

But I am not a soccer player anymore. I realized it entirely Tuesday night. Yes, I still enjoy the game, but I am not a soccer player anymore. While I was sitting on the bench or driving home, all I could think about was how it was going to affect my music. How would this affect me playing guitar? 

It is easy to think about ourselves as we were, not who we are now. I am not a soccer player, I am a musician. I could have seriously put my music, and the blessing that God has given me with that, in jeopardy. 

So embrace who you are.

Now, if I think of any other lessons that come from this, I will let you know what they are.