Thank God for Friday (TGFF)

Have you ever had one of those weeks? I’ve been fighting something that has invaded my respiratory system leaving me coughing, blowing my nose, and sleeping most hours of the day. From Saturday to Tuesday I think I slept more hours than I was awake, including through the Super Bowl, and still didn’t feel like it was enough. With the initiation of a round of antibiotics and the assistance of Dayquil, I returned to work on Wednesday. The rest of the week seemed to move in slow motion, I seemed to move in slow motion. I’d go to bed at 8:30-9pm, get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, then back to bed. I was glad when Friday rolled around because that meant Saturday came next and I could sleep in as long as I wanted. God had plans for my Friday though, more than just another day to move through in slow motion, eagerly anticipating when I could return to my bed.

I truly love my job. I think that if you were to ask me when I was in school, what my ideal job would look like, it’d be the job I am working right now. As I’ve alluded to before, I’ve had a few (five total) knee surgeries during my soccer career. With each surgery, came a bout of physical therapy to make sure I was ready to return to my beloved sport. This naturally led to an interest in studying injuries and rehabilitation while trying to figure out my life’s course in college, which in turn, led me to physical therapy school after graduation. Now, in my life, I’ve always worked jobs that involved kids: baby-sitter, one-on-one caregiver in an elementary school, nanny, soccer coach, daycare employee, etc. So adding pediatric to my title as physical therapist wasn’t a huge stretch. The job I have now has even exceeded my expectations of what it means to be a pediatric physical therapist.  I get to work with young athletes to ensure they are ready to get back to competition after an injury, I get to snuggle babies on an almost daily basis, I get to put on my imagination hat and take magic carpet rides to the jungle so we can practice our animal poses, and I get to teach kids how to do things they’ve never been able to do before. Nothing compares to the joy and pride on their faces when they switch their focus from what they can’t do, to what they can do. Their whole lives, people have looked at them with pity, thinking about what a hard life they must have because of all the things they can’t or won’t be able to do. At my job, we get to show them all the things they can do or get to do that they never thought possible.  Their perseverance and hard work in the face of adversity is inspiring and an amazing blessing.

On this particular sleepy Friday, I was again reminded of why I love my job so much. I met a new patient who has very little verbal communication. While walking on the treadmill, I feel her hand sneak up behind me and land on top of my head.  I look and her lips are moving slightly. Her mother asks: “Are you praying for her?” I see an ever so slight nod and feel a smile come across my face. Here is a child who has difficulty communicating with the people around her, but no problem whatsoever communicating with God. And she choose to speak with God about me, a person she met just 10 minutes before. Later, I worked with someone who had been coming for a while. It was one of my last appointments of the day and I was feeling pretty tired. At the end of our time together we decided to try something different. I put her in a piece of equipment we have at the clinic, and for the first time in a long time, she walked! After her short walk was complete, she was smiling, mom was smiling, the interpreter was smiling, and I was smiling. I was so proud of her perseverance through pain and discomfort to accomplish something that was really difficult for her. It was such a cool moment.

I in no way have things all figured out, but here is what I learned from this week. We don’t always feel like doing what God has called us to do.  We may be tired, worn down, discouraged, feeling inadequate, or intimidated by the weight of what God is calling us to do. But God will never call us to something he won’t give us strength to complete. There are times where we need to take time to prepare for the call.  For me that included going to school and learning about how to be a physical therapist.  There will be times when we need to rest and let our bodies and souls rejuvenate for a time so we are better able to complete the work, like my four day sleep fest to get over whatever crazy bug infected me. Then there is a time for the resting period to be over and we need to get back whatever the call may be. Even if when it’s difficult, God will provide the strength we need and bless our obedience, re-energizing us at exactly the right time. He is so good.

What is God calling you to do?  Will you take a step of faith?

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.” ~1 Corinthians 12:4,5

Blessings in Disguise

Sometimes our everyday blessings arrive in packages that we don’t recognize. Those types of blessings often take the form of heartache, disappointment, and pain. Laura Story has written song called “Blessings” that if you haven’t heard before, I encourage you to find it and really listen to it. The chorus says: “What if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you’re near? What if trials of this life, are your mercies in disguise?” I have experienced many blessings that felt more like trials and heartbreak while going through them. But it was through those events that God revealed part of his character and the love he has for me that shaped me into the person I am today. Here is one example:

Everyone says that college is the best four years of your life. As a new high school graduate, I eagerly anticipated what the next four years of my life would bring, envisioning late night escapades every night with the hundreds of friends I was bound to make, romantic rendezvous in the gazebos scattered about campus to escape the light drizzle of rain falling from the sky, leading my team to play-offs while setting records for goals scored while earning MVP, dazzling my classmates with brilliant insights into the history and literature we would study, and playing on a soccer team with Christians who shared my passion for playing for an audience of one. In high school, I had the late night adventures with my friends, my fair share of romantic kisses in the rain, scored a number of goals for the soccer teams I played for, and gave a graduation speech at commencement that dazzled my classmates with my brilliance (not really, but let’s just go with it) so I thought if college is the epitome of happiness and adventure all of those experiences would be multiplied by 10 when I got there. I chose my particular college because I wanted to play on a Division I soccer team at a Christian school. My teammates on my high school and club teams were fantastic girls, but we shared different values and I usually felt like an outsider.  I thought that by choosing a Christian school, it would be different.  We would all be like-minded, build each other up, and play for the glory of God. I was excited for this new experience couldn't wait for the best four years of my life to begin.

           

Once preseason started my Freshmen year, it was clear that my experience was going to be different from what I envisioned. There were other Christians on the team so I wasn’t the only one, but I was made fun of and ostracized for my beliefs to a further degree than what I experienced on my high school and club teams growing up by a large group of my teammates. I was left out of parties and social gatherings, belittled in front of my teammates and other athletes, and gossiped about behind my back. To compound the problem, soccer and schoolwork consumed my entire life. If I wasn’t at practice, I was studying, if I wasn’t studying, I was traveling to a game, if we weren’t traveling I had a lab I had to make up. There wasn’t a lot of time to make friends outside of the team. Further blows to my ego came in the male department. I had a few male acquaintances from my classes or on the guys’ soccer team, but a lot of them wouldn’t give me the time of day unless I was with someone they wanted to talk to. There were instances where I would smile and try to say hello after making eye contact, and they would look away, pretending not to see me at all. The self confidence and self esteem I’d prided myself on in high school, slowly disappeared until I was afraid to say anything at all when there were more than a few people present. This made my brilliant revelations to classmates difficult and it was a rare occasion that I would share my thoughts in class at all. My dreams of what college would be like slowly began to crumble leaving behind heartache and disappointment. I was hurt, confused, and often questioned my choice in schools.  I considered transferring numerous times and after one night in particular, began filling out an application to a different school. However, through it all, I felt God telling me to stay.

           

Though the first couple years of school were different than what I envisioned, God proved his faithfulness to me over and over.  I had a couple close friends that were a continual source of love and encouragement, people God sent as a life preserver to keep me from drowning during a difficult time. I eventually connected with FCA on campus, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and found a group of people that shared my desire to display their gifts and talents for the glory of God.  I became involved with leadership, started leading worship during our meetings, and openly spoke and shared about my faith in a larger group setting. With the love and support of choice people God placed in my life, I decided to stay at the school. Even though it was difficult, I felt that it was where God wanted me to be, so I decided to come back for my Junior year, hoping that it would be different, trying to trust that God knew what was best.

           

Here is where God revealed one of the greatest blessings in disguise. It came in the form of a knee surgery the summer before preseason my Junior year. This was knee surgery number four making me a surgery veteran, but I was devastated by the timing.  We were getting a new soccer coach and I was excited about the upcoming season. My Freshmen year, I was an intermittent starter and if I didn’t start, was usually one of the first people off the bench. My Sophomore year that changed, my touch was off and I was getting less and less playing time. The decreased confidence in other areas of my life, manifest itself on the field.  The current coach’s style of coaching only compounded my confidence problem. He liked to point out mistakes in front of everyone and usually in not so nice terms. I was ready for a fresh start with a new coach after a summer of hard work to prepare for the season, but God had other plans. After the knee surgery, I red-shirted and diligently completed my rehab throughout the season.  I also took it upon myself to make sure my teammates had a different experience than I did. My new role was encourager and team builder. By taking my soccer performance out of the equation, I could focus on the people on the team, including those who were previously less than accepting of me when I first arrived. God taught me a lot about forgiveness and accepting his grace as sufficient, no matter what the circumstance. He taught me to love and pray for those who persecute me because it’s not my place to judge what they are doing when I may not understand why they are doing it. Their actions may not have had anything to do with me; I was just an easy target at the time. I was given a new perspective and a new purpose for my what my college experience would look like.  I started a team Bible study that steadily grew in numbers as well as depth of relationships.

            

While I never set records for number of goals scored, I found a greater purpose by investing in the people God placed on my team.  Even though I never experienced those romantic rendezvous in the gazeboes, I learned to trust God in all my relationships and in every circumstance. He did bless me with late night adventures with friends and memories that will last a lifetime, just on a smaller scale than I originally envisioned.  He turned my disappointment and heartache into something beyond what I could have hoped or imagined after graduating high school, and looking back now, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. College may not have been the best four years of my life, but I now have hope that the best is yet to come.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing on your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” ~James 1:2-4

Is there a blessing you are having a hard time recognizing in your life? Pray about it. Pray for a new perspective and strength in the mean time.  You can also share it with me and I’ll pray for you as well.  Praying is one of my favorite things J Have a blessed day!!