I'M BACK/LISTEN UP

It has been some time since my last update in the blogging community. I know my faithful followers have been disappointed and I promise I have legitimate excuses, but no time to dwell on that as we have so much to catch up on. I have compiled a myriad of topics and stories to share from the past season, past school year, and the last few months of marriage and parenting. This should be fun!
I want to start by repeating and reflecting on a story I read. It was about an experiment that was done with one of the world’s greatest violin players, Joshua Bell. They took Joshua and his 1713 Stradivarius violin and plaedy some of his favorite classical works in a subway in Washington D.C. The experiment was to see how many people would stop at the sound of the music performed by one of the world’s greatest violin players. As the story goes, Joshua performed 4 songs, one adult stopped and even left a larger than normal tip, some kids walking with their parents noticed and even tried to get their parents to notice, but no others stopped to notice the beautiful music. Wow. This story was told in a book by my favorite author, John Ortberg. He used the story to make a wonderful point as it related to our relationship to God. The cool thing about this story and how it impacted me was when I was reading the story in relationship to what I was going through during the time.
After reading this story, I began to ask myself would I have missed it. Would I have been so consumed with what I was doing that I could not hear the beautiful sounds that surrounded me. The scary answer was, “yes.” See, I was reading this paragraph in the book while waiting to catch a flight the day after we lost the state championship. This is significant because it was only our second loss of the season, and really the one we were not supposed to lose. I was upset, I was frustrated; I was disappointed, I was angry. I wanted to run away, I didn’t like myself, I didn’t like my team, I didn’t want to be their coach. We were 37-2, and only lost 5 games in two years. We were blessed yet I was consumed with the last game. I was so consumed with the last game that I was afraid that I had missed the beautiful sounds of the season. Hurriedly, I began to replay moments within the season, but I could only replay the games, not the moments. I thought ok; I will go back and watch game tape and the moments will come to me-nope- again I am consumed with execution, not the moments. I will admit- I cried. I have coached some of the greatest young men ever and I can only remember if won or lost, and how we played. Now-that is something to be disappointed about.
I made myself a promise that day-I will work harder to hear the music. I have lost the last couple of years, but I am young and hopefully there will be more to come. I have a new challenge each day-listen-you never know when the most beautiful music will be playing.