Our principal, Jeff, and I teach a PE class here at the ranch. I don’t know that I’d say we teach PE, we do more teaching in the area of sportsmanship, not shooting your own (tearing down your own team members when they make a mistake or aren’t playing up to your standards), not quitting when things don’t go the way you want them to. Most days, this kind of teaching is required which can be frustrating and discouraging at times. But some days it’s as if almost everything is right with the world. The kids all have really good attitudes, they’re building each other up, they’re not showering each other with poison and death as they walk in the steps and speak the words of the people who have hurt them in the past. Some days overcoming is in the air. Yesterday’s PE class was one of those days.
The sun was shining, perfect springtime. They weren’t excited when I told them we would be doing a few rounds of sprints and push-ups before we started to play but they ran HARD and did really good looking push-ups. It’s no surprise to me that on these days when the kids aren’t out to make someone else appear lower than themselves they play wonderfully. This happened yesterday. I walked away from the field afterwards with a serene smile on my face because those moments are the places I build a little altar like Moses did after they crossed the Red Sea, stick a little post it note to remind me that this moment of victory and overcoming will come again for our kids, even if it’s as small as playing a good game of softball.
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As I read over this little paragraph again there’s a part of me that says this is so small, why bother mentioning it? But then God inside me reminds me that little pieces of heaven coming to earth like that are the things that change the world. All it took was Jesus touching someone or speaking a gentle word to someone and we still talk about it 2,000 years later. That is eternal life.
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