I played sports literally all of my childhood and while I was never the super star of any team, I always managed to start or at least log some decent playing time on whatever team I was on, mainly because I was fiercely competitive. Others were certainly more skilled or faster or stronger than me but what I lacked in skill or talent, I made up for with raw effort, often being completely relentless in my pursuit of winning. Admitting defeat was, well, just not an option for me until...
there were injuries.
When I was younger, I had a few minor injuries but nothing that ever kept me on the sidelines for too long. I remember the day that all changed.
I was a sophmore on the girls' varsity soccer team, the first one for my school. Practice was coming to a close as we scrimmaged in preparation for our upcoming game. I jumped up to head a ball and as I landed, one of my teammates jumped unintentionally into my knee, hyperextending it in the wrong direction. (If you are visualizing this, yes, my leg literally went the wrong direction). I fell instantly to the ground grasping my knee and popping it back but I knew right then that it wasn't right...that it would never be completely right again. I spent 4 weeks on crutches in a knee immobilizer before having my ACL reconstructed and my shredded meniscus repaired and then I spent another 6 weeks after surgery on crutches in a knee immobilizer.
I missed the entire season, but more than that,,,
I didn't even attend the season. I didn't go to the games and cheer on my team. I didn't watch during practice to support my team. I just didn't go. I'm sure I blamed it on the inconvenience of traveling to games on crutches or the pointlessness of sitting in the cold to watch practices of which I had no hope of participating in. While those are certainly understandable and justifiable, they were just excuses. In reality, I wasn't there because I was sidelined for the first time in my life and I didn't know how to process that reality...so I just distanced myself. As soon as I started physical therapy, I set out determined to get off the sideline and back on the field stronger, healthier and more skilled than I was before and somehow I did.
But here I am again...on the cusp of 35 and struggling to process the reality of feeling sidelined once again.
For nearly 10 years, I delighted in going and serving and leading and mentoring and planning and visioning and teaching and discipling and laboring in ministry right beside my husband. Everywhere we went and everything we did felt like home to me. In New Orleans, I was at home. Colorado, home. Arizona, home. Georgia, home. Ecuador, home. Low income neighborhoods, home. Streets of Austin, home. Youth events, home. College Campuses, home. Small group Bible study, home. It was a fit and always felt like I was right where I was supposed to be until...
Five years ago, life slowed down for me when God brought us Matthew. Because his adoption came together in literally less than a week, I was forced to make a decision early on about sidelining myself. Matthew was 1 week old when Danny left to lead his first mission trip without me. We actually discussed just taking him (our 1 week old baby) with us but quite simply, I just couldn't go and do and be and so I sat that one out. I was so exhausted and elated from being a new parent that it didn't register to me at the time that I was missing anything. Before too long I was right back at it. I gladly gave up things like lock-ins and 5th quarters but not the "real" stuff. I just packed Matthew up, strapped him on and did the work with him attached and as he got older, right by my side. Before ever turning 2, he had been on 3 US mission trips, 1 international mission trip to SE Asia, youth camps, conferences/retreats, numerous outreach events and countless worship services and small group Bible studies. We were still very much involved in Danny's ministry so even though the haunting thought of being sidelined crept into my heart and mind from time to time, I didn't feel sidelined in general until...
Danny went to Haiti without me.
Danny worshipped and labored beside Haitian brothers and sisters without me.
Danny led a group and loved on sweet little orphans (whose faces and names I knew well) without me.
Danny came back different...changed...transformed...renewed...empassioned
and me...
well, I held down the fort,
which felt a lot more like being sidelined than anything else
But I handled it well even though this process of "without me" repeated itself many, many times in the last few years. It was okay because I had this sweet, precious life literally entrusted to me. I was sidelined for this season but knew a day would come when I would be right back at it, going and doing and being. The day would come that I too would worship and labor and lead and love, that I too would be changed and transformed and renewed and empassioned. So for a bit, I embraced my time on the sideline. Danny and I planned in our hearts and our minds for the day when WE would go and take Matthew with us to Haiti or wherever the Lord led us...
But then we brought home 3 more kids that we would inevitably adopt. So the day we had planned and dreamt of came and went. Danny went to Haiti but I was once again left behind...sidelined...
and so it has been again and will be several more times just this year.
Danny will go and be and do
while I hold down the fort.
But how does one sit on the sideline well
when all they long to do is run out on the field with arms wide open in reckless abandonment?
And how does one cheer on others who are in the game
when they so long to be a part of the game themselves?
And why is it so hard to embrace THIS season as equally important
when I know that God has brought the greatest assignment into my very home?
The TRUTH of the matter for me is that while I feel sidelined (a feeling I truly, truly struggle with), I am not sidelined at all. I am right in the muck of it all. The laundry and the dishes and the cooking and the cleaning and the homework and the correcting and the training and the instructing and the loving deeply ARE indeed the work of discipleship and ARE indeed the work God has called me to and ARE indeed the most difficult tasks I have ever faced. Every day, I am binding up the broken hearts of the children God has brought to me. Every day, I am caring for children formerly known as orphans. Every day, I am doing the work He has set before me for this time and this season...
but every day I am longing
for another day, another season,
where I will go and do and be,
where I will be forced further away from the known,
where I will be challenged in ways unimaginable,
where I will feel like I am right where God wants me to be
where I will feel at home so very far from home...
BUT I have committed
to go where God would have me go
and do what God would have me do
no matter where or what that is.
Of course in my heart and mind, I had settled on the reality that it would be reckless and extravagent and risky and far away and unknown and challenging but for now it is here...in my comfortable small town american home, with the kids He has brought to me to be orphans no more.
In the process of becoming not me, I am learning to embrace the dream God has for me at the time He has it for me...
I know there will be a day and a time when He calls me to go and do and be and risk and leave but it just isn't yet...
