.png)
My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.
Win.
I like to win. Those who know me best MIGHT say I’m a bit competitive. I call it a healthy competitiveness, that’s all.
The drive to win started early in life for me. Having an older brother, I found myself hanging with a gang of neighborhood boys who became some of my closest friends and I remember being the go-to when they needed someone to make teams even for their pick-up games. Nothing was ever expected of me but to fill a spot. But along the way, I learned how to play…well…whatever they were playing at the time. Soccer, baseball, football, basketball. I was a tom-boy of sorts and I liked it. I remember thinking “I’ll just show these guys what a girl can do!”
Spending my early years tagging along with the boys, I easily took to sports and learned to be a little rough and tumble if that’s what it took. I attended a small Christian high school where I played volleyball, basketball, softball and even field hockey. By the time I was a senior, I was team captain in each sport. I received awards and trophies and pins. I liked to win.
Fast forward to present day.
Some of you may have read my post a while back about the struggle I have experienced with my kids and sports. We traveled on the road for most of their early years and so they kinda jumped into things quite a bit later than most. My son, Hudson, tried out baseball several years ago and he struggled. After getting hit by a pitch and getting the wind knocked out of him first time up to bat…well, let’s just say it all went south from there. We came away from a season, worn and weary and he decided baseball is not for him.
.png)
PINIMAGEHudson has grown up quite a bit since then. I’m talking literally grown up! He’s already surpassed me in height and he’s inching up to Mark’s six foot frame. I love watching him grow into a fine young man. He’s witty, thoughtful and smart. He went out for the freshmen football team at Middletown High School and I wondered what this was gonna look like.
Understand, Hudson loves sports. He’s developed his skills in basketball and football quite a bit. Whenever we walk in our door at home, he drops his things, grabs a ball and is outside until dark.
After the first few weeks of football conditioning were over I heard through the grapevine that his coach thought he had good hands and was fast. He was making an impression. I found myself daydreaming, “Man, Hudson could become a star team player. Maybe someday he will be captain.” Who wouldn’t want the same for their son? I thought of what a good boost of self-esteem it would be for him to come out of the gate “guns a-blazin’”. I prayed God would show him favor and help him to develop his skills and maybe, just maybe, cause him to rise to the top above the rest.
Hudson has had play time in most games and when he’s in, it looks like he’s doing everything right. Catching the passes, etc. After each game he seems very excited and just seems to enjoy the experience. And after every game I’ve been praying, “God, continue to give him favor…and more play time.” I want him to win.
Two weeks ago, we went to see Hudson’s away game. It was a beautiful day and we thought it would boost his moral for us to be there. They were playing a tough team and Hudson played very little. I was bummed and hoped he wasn’t discouraged. He wasn’t. Still, I prayed, “God, more play time please?”
Last week, Mark’s parents came into town from Ohio. They decided to stay until after Hudson’s game so they could see him play before they returned home to Ohio. It was another away game and we drove up to meet Hudson at the field about an hour away. Mark’s mom was taking pictures of him warming up. We were all excited.
Hudson never stepped foot on the field the whole game.
.jpg)
I wondered how he would be after the game. Would he be embarrassed? Would he feel he let his grandparents down since they came to see him play? I didn’t know but I felt like I really wanted to have another talk with God.
“God, I’m not asking for the NFL. I just want Hudson to excel. I want him to rise above the rest. I want him to win!”
God spoke to my heart. “Tammy, you pray for my plan for Hudson’s life almost every morning. You ask me to guide him, mold him, shape him into who I have created him to be. I just have one question here. Who’s plan are you really praying for? Yours or mine? In My book Hudson is winning.”
In My book Hudson IS winning.
Then I thought back to May 31st of of this year. That night, through tears of repentance, Hudson asked Christ to save him. THAT was a win!
I thought about all of the struggles Hudson has faced throughout his life and how God worked. I thought about how I began to learn hard life lessons by losing and suffering a lot in my twenties and thirties. It was a rude awakening for me. It shook my faulty foundations of performance and I learned God wasn’t after my accomplishments and trophies. He was after my heart. But my heart was too focused on winning…at the wrong things so He has been working to help me understand what’s worth winning in life. In my heart I know that God’s been working faithfully in Hudson’s trials to make him a winner at what matters most.
Believer, isn’t that the way it works, in our darkest times, He meets our weakness with His strength. He makes beauty from ashes. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
God brought everything full circle for me as I read a devotional this morning out of Streams in the Desert
They were living to themselves; self with its hopes, and promises and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and had surrendered for it to be given them at any cost, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by “as a refiner and purifier of silver,” until they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them it lacerated their hands.
They had asked they knew not what, nor how, but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow Him so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought that they had seen a spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to do than to give up, to bear the cross than to hang upon it. But they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them His promise, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32).
But now at last their turn has come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did on Mary and Peter, and they can but choose to follow.
Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams, the mystery of His cross shines out upon them. They behold Him lifted up, they gaze on the glory which rays from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they gaze they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for He dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own (and what they might have had), and to be unlike all, so that they are only like Him.
Such, are they in all ages, “who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.”
Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His Kingdom. They would have had Lot’s portion, not Abraham’s. If they had halted anywhere–if God had taken off His hand and let them stray back — what would they not have lost? What forfeits in the resurrection? But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well nigh slipped; but He in mercy held them up. Now, even in this life, they know that all He did was done well. It was good to suffer here, that they might reign hereafter; to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them and in them.
–Anonymous
In God’s playbook winning looks a whole lot different.
Mom, are you struggling because your son or daughter isn’t rising above the pack? Are you afraid of your child being just one of the team? Because they didn’t get honor roll? Because things come hard to them? There are worse things in life!
God forbid we push our children to win at the wrong things.
My prayer has changed over the past week. I’ve begun to ask God, “Lord, in all things, please help Hudson to learn to meet his weakness with YOUR strength. No matter what that looks like on my end, I’ll keep trusting You because I want him to win!
And let this be a reminder to each of us, when we are struggling, God is up to something. When we are weak, His power is made perfect.
Friend, He wants you to win!
