The Mama's Thoughts

I’m sitting at the soccer complex watching my sweet son, who is all arms and legs, exercise self control during the mundane drills. These skills are necessary, but frankly they are a little boring for my adrenaline filled boy.. All he really wants to do is run fast, and kick that soccer ball as far as he can. But he isn’t. He is doing the toe tapping, the dribbling, the short kicks. Michael is a good soccer player. Really good! I can see many future hours spent at games and practices. Not only is he good at it, but he also really loves it. He has a continual smile on his face when he is playing. My mama instinct could be wrong, but I think that this just might be “his thing”. Before he took this soccer class, neither of us knew how much control was involved in the game. We didn’t understand that before you kick the ball really hard, you have to learn how to control your ball. I thought it was about running fast and kicking hard. And sometimes it is, but not always. The truth is, the game is a lot about small, short movements and keeping your ball close to you; once you have control over your ball then you can really play with your team mates to achieve the goal of a game well played. Since my mind works the crazy way that it does, I have made a lot of connections about real life as I have sat and watched Michael practice soccer over the past 4 months. Life is often so much more about the little things that I do, rather than the big scores. My game of life isn’t usually about really hard kicks or long runs. It’s more about using the skills that I have in the daily drills making short, quick movements in order to accomplish a greater task: Team work. These drills might not always be exciting, but they are necessary. It’s these small, self-controlled skills that make the difference in whether our day plays out as a win or a loss. Added together, all of the small things that we each do make up a winning score.  When we spend time playing as "team family", combining respect, love, serving and laughter, we all score points and the victory is sweet.