If No Shadows Fell Over a Life?

Zeke made the 7th grade basketball team.

Or so we thought.

65 kids tried out.

25 kids made the cut.

He was one of the 25.

And then, after cuts and a few practices, they announced 10 teammates per team.

Leaving 5 on the practice team.

He’s on the practice team.

Dang it.

The sinking feeling again. Homesick with a hint of anger. Maybe that’s the formula for disappointment, if disappointment had a formula.

Just like cancer, we found out about him not making the final teams from an app the middle school uses to communicate with a parent.

Why does all bad news get delivered via an app these days?

I’m not disappointed in him. Quite the opposite. But we do feel disappointment, I do feel disappointed. I’m not even sure how to feel disappointed. To be disappointed. Is that allowed? Appropriate? Or just another emotion to stuff. Man up. Move on from?

And yet, our core belief is that difficult things make you stronger.

If you let them.

Now, three weeks since I first started writing about him being on the practice team, Zeke has worked his way up and is now playing.

He didn’t complain.

He didn’t want Dad to intervene.

He didn’t ask for playing time.

He just kept showing up, every day, early, 6:45am, doing what was asked of him.

Maybe when life throws us or our kids hard things, we should just chill out, keep showing up, and see what happens.

“Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?”

— Ann Voskamp