A good part of my life was based on the community. That community was in the form of a athletic team. I began my walk with Christ a year before I entered high school. I found the wonderful sport of basketball. I played high school and college basketball and each of those teams a community always develops. Not always a community in faith. Even the last 25 year in my marriage it was a team based relationship. My ex-husband was a competative athlete as well. So we were a great team. We still are a great team raising our child.
My whole adult life has been taking a team approach in all I do. I had been luck to coach high school basketball the last 6 years. There I created a community with players and assistant coaches. My coaching staff became my community. The last two years I created (maybe I was given) a community of coaches that were again part of my team and I was fortunate to have two strong women in Christ. I always had strong communities that were supportive. It was not until this morning as I was reading my daily devotion that I recognized that I had never had a community that was based on faith until the last two years. I can say that my faith walk in Christ was also not as strong as it was until the last two years. As I stated before I created or was given these two women who helped create a faith based security for me. Enough to allow me to be all in and to live out loud in my faith as well as finally get baptized.
I had been given a gift that both coaches and I had faith community by God. I did not realize that until reading the devotion this morning. I am and have been struggling in my faith. I was not sure why. I had to think about the last 2 months and what has taken place. It was not until this morning did I realize what I had lost. In the spring I made a choice to move to the back to the college level and displacing my faith community (my two coaches). I had a realization that my community is very important in my life. It is the group and individuals that encourage and are with us during our ups and downs. I realized my faith community has been based around sports. We need more than that in our lives. Its great if you can create a faith based community in sports but if you can’t then you do need to set yourself up for times of being alone in your walk with God.
“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. – Ecclesiastes 4:12
I think that I had more a lose leaving coaching high school basketball. I lost my community of faith. “Life is meant to be lived in community, with people whom you trust and can count on. Are you part of a faith community? If not, start looking for a place to make your contribution to the team.” – T. Dungy
Maybe God has a different path and I have been put with the new coaching staff to share my faith. Which is very difficult for me to do. For now I will continue to seek my faith community at church which is very hard for me to do given my time constraints and my intense sense competive personality. Maybe I start a group at church that can supports coaches. Are there enough people that fit that group?
ROOTED IN PERSEVERANCE 