It was week 6 of the school year and I felt exhausted, stretched thin, and at moments like a complete failure. As always, the Lord gave me enough grace and strength to jump through the needed hoops and recover and readjust to any failures along the way.
My students have been extra squirley and talkative, causing me to have to raise my voice above theirs to get their attention. It was an exhausting week and I'm definitely losing my voice. Thankfully, the Lord sustained me enough and saved the last few drops of yelling I had left to give at the game this Friday to cheer on our Bears.
Earlier this week Shane said to me, "Why do I do it? Why do I do it to myself every week? I get my hopes up thinking we can win and then every Friday those hopes are completely crushed, and it is exhausting."
I tried to encourage him, saying something cheesy like "You have to be optimisitic. In the least, you have to be for your players, because if they sense you always think you'll lose, you will!"
It's now their second varsity season and pouring everything you have into a team that still seems so far behind the other state ranked teams in our region can make someone feel defeated and exhausted as they try to encourage and spur on what feels at times like a team of misfits.
This Friday we were scheduled to play the Mill Creek Hawks. A team that steam rolled us last year in the most humiliating game our Bears have lost to date. There were many emotions involved that made that game so humiliating, not only were they killing us with a 44-0 half time score, but this is the school that many of our players came from and played for.
Needless to say, us fans sat in amazement as we looked at a scoreboard this Friday that said 6-0 in our favor nearing the end of the second quarter. Our hopes were definitely high, and with our team in the lead, we knew it could make a loss that much more devastating! From the outset of the game I noticed something different about the players on the field, there was confidence and calm on the football field, not something I expected at a game like this, and I could only hope that the entire game would be something none of us expected as well.
We ended up with the biggest win this team has ever seen! For more details read the article link below, and check out some of the not-so-great pictures (accidentally had my flash off) below that I took after the game, as students, families, and fans stormed the field with tears of joy and shouts of jubilation : )
The final score! (9-7)
Fans Flooding the Field. Couldn't help but be brought back to those memorable games at Wheaton-loved seeing how much this meant to all the parents and the school.
The crowd being riled up by Coach Hardy.
Listening to the head coach before the team prayer.
Shane and Brad Palmer, our Strength and Conditioning Coach.
Lots of hugs and handshakes.
Letting it all sink in.
Shane and his DBs
DB Pride
It was a great night, full of joy in the moment, and hope for the future.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
On the weekends, I try to make something sweet for us to have around during the week if we have a hankering. Shane loves anything cookie dough (especially in his ice cream), and I found a recipe on a blog for these cookie dough truffles!!
They ended up being more work than I thought with the chocolate candy coating seizing up due to the condensation on the frozen dough, something I wish they would have mentioned on the blog!
Hopefully in the end it was worth it!
-M.W.
Go Bears! Yay for win #2 of the season-and a great one at that! Sent our congrats to Shane! Holy Cow, do those cookie dough things look awesome. Love yas!
ReplyDelete