I Never was a Football Star

A few weeks into the 2012 NFL season, I am reminded yet again how much I love football.  It is a great sport.  Massively talented, superhuman-athletes going at each other in an intensely coordinated and thoroughly competitive manner make for a great sport.  Almost without fail I find myself wanting to go outside with a friend and play catch or a pick-up game.  However, football and I have an interesting history and it sometimes saddens me to admit that for as much as I love the sport, I never really got the chance to play it.

The fall of my freshman year of high school was as eventful as it is for any would-be high schooler, but for me it was foundational in making me who I am as a person.  Due to scheduling allowances and my diversified interests, I was simultaneously signed-up for the football team and the marching band.

In the mornings, I would have football practice and then in the afternoon I would go to the other side of the school and have marching band practice.  This went on for a couple of weeks until we got to the busy part of the schedule.  For football this meant two-a-days, while for band this meant heat-week.  Individually, each of these is brutal but when combined they are just totally exhausting.

On Tuesday of that over-stuffed practice week, during football practice, I broke my foot.  Not a horrible break but enough to put me out of commission for the football season.  However, while the football team would, obviously, not allow me to play football with a broken foot, the marching band did let me march with a cast.

The net effect was that my more-than-short-lived football career was over, but my identity of a musician and geek was cemented.  Although I never played organized football again, my path was set as I became heavily-involved in music and all of my relationships were taken from my musical activities.

The point is, as painful as it can sometimes be, life (GOD) has a funny way of orchestrating events so that we will become who we are.  And though we may plan and scheme, it is the Lord who establishes our steps (Pro. 16:9).  Or as the old colloquial proverb goes: for every door that is closed, a window is opened.  Let us then find comfort in that God has made us for specific things and for specific paths that may lie outside of our current comprehension.  But we should also take joy that God has it all in His hands and for our good!