Perspective

I love football. I loved watching my son’s when they played high school football. I think what I loved the most is seeing how much fun they had doing something they loved doing. No matter how cold it was outside, I knew there was nothing that would keep me from being there on the sidelines, watching and cheering for their team. This was the first year of many, that I was not outside standing in the cold and many times, snow, watching my child, playing a game that we both love. I know the pain and discipline that both of my son’s had, that kept them going back, even after major injuries.

I was watching college football on TV this past weekend and during the game, a young man from the opposing team was injured. Whenever I see someone get hurt out on the field, my heart stops because not only do I know what it’s like to watch someone you love get hurt, I know that young man has a mother and a father…has a family that is watching. I have been that mother on the sidelines watching as her son got hurt…sometimes serious enough to need surgery. It has become a habit to immediately say a quiet prayer for the injured and his family. As we awaited the young man being checked out by medical personnel, the sport announcers had some interesting things to say.

They talked about how these young men give up a lot to play football. Football is their life. They live and breathe football with hopes that they will have the opportunity to play professionally some day. It’s every young football players dream. And then something like this, an injury, an injury that could be very serious, with a very serious outcome, comes along, and everything stops. And in that very moment, everything changes…perspectives change. The fact of whether he will be able to ever walk again becomes more important then whether he will play football again. The fact that he is young and has a lot of life to live outside the game of football goes to the top of the list. Being able to walk again becomes more important than football. Perspectives change.

In that moment, it doesn’t matter which team he play for. All that matters is that he is a human being and he is hurt and everything came to a halt. It was evident that people from both sides cared and were concerned for this young man. It was beautiful. It was humanity at it’s best. The game did not go on until he was safely off the field and when he gave the thumbs up while laying on the gurney, both sides cheered equally. It didn’t matter that he was on the opposing side, what mattered was that he was okay. That, my friends, shows that he was on the side of humanity. The side of humanity that we don’t always get to see. Now that is beautiful.

The announcers went on to talk about how this relates to life. They compared the game of football to the game of life. They talked about how we can be going along in our lives and out of no where, something smacks us, right into the middle of our lives and our perspectives change. And this got me thinking…that they are right, because in that moment, that something hits us, those things…those people, that are most important, rise to the top. In those moments afterwards, we find out who is on our side, and who was never really there in the first place. What becomes most important is not whether we can do this or that ever again, but that we are alive. We find out very quickly that there are really important things in life and that there are things that can wait. We find out that adversity can hit us, but it will not keep us down and not only that, it will make us better people, when all is said and done. We find out what really matters.

It’s all about perspective. How it changes when adversity comes and how we arise to the challenge. It’s all about what and who is most important to us when shit hit’s the fan. Right smack in the middle of a Saturday afternoon football game, these men talked about something that was even more important than football. To that I give a loud,” Amen.!“ I don’t know if anyone else was listening but I was.