I would love to get right into today’s post and delve into the emotional/relational need of Acceptance.  However, I was hit over the head with an application of a very recent post on Why we are the way we are.  I had a bad day yesterday, not horrible, just bad.  I had too many things on my mind and none of them were particularly good.  Nothing horrific, just tiring, challenging and frustrating things that mattered or had to be dealt with.  The evening was filled with senior night for my guy’s volleyball team of which I am the head coach.

It has not been a great, or even good, season but the guys work hard and it has been fun coaching them.  Well, it was senior night and we were playing a team that we could and most likely should beat though we lost 0 – 3 to them the first time we played them.  As it is, we lost the first two games and it looked like another “almost but not quite there” kind of night.  Then, it happened.  We win game three, then game four, and head to a deciding game five.  We do down 9 – 3 (and the game only goes to 15).  We fight back, and have match point for us.  We win the point and the match!  That is, until the ref blows her whistle and makes at best a questionable if not HORRIFIC call against us and gives the point and ball to the other team.  Moments later, we lose 18 – 16.

For one moment I got to feel great for our team.  I was so proud of my guys (I still am) and so thankful that they got to win on senior night and got to see how being tough and working hard while not giving up can really pay off.  In another minute it was over.  There I was talking in the locker room about the record not really mattering and holding our heads high and appreciating the team work and brotherhood etc.  I told them that there are bad calls in every match (and life) and that many things have happened along the way that we should have done to not leave it in the ref’s hands.

Immediately after the match, two members of the maintenance/custodial staff told me I needed to recruit “some big guys’ and wondered if I would be fired for this season’s poor record.  Thanks guys.  I got home and let Rachel know about the match.  I was on edge and just not in an ok mood no matter how hard I tried to let it go.  Joe and Bella were still up and frustrated me with questions and not listening to my answers or directions to go to sleep.  THEN, it happened.  I had a moment of clarity and said to Rachel, “You know, for one moment I had something.  It was a really nice to have the win and get to see my work pay off.  I got to be proud of and happy for my guys.  It was a nice small respite in a tough week/season…literally and figuratively.  Instead, here I was…again having to take the high road in spite of an “injustice”.  Here I was teaching life lesson toughness.  Here I was just barely getting the short end of the life stick.  As I told Rachel I went backwards from Trey’s diagnosis all the way back to times in my childhood (mind you I did this in about 2 minutes).

So, was I in a bad mood because of one highly questionable call?  Sure.  Yet, was it made MUCH much worse by tapping  into hurts from the past 35 years?  I guarantee you that was the case.  THAT’S how things that happen today are amplified by that which has happened in the past.  Would Joe and Bella have bothered me as much had it just been a normal match?  Probably not.  Did I have the emotional reserve to deal with it last night?  Not at all.

Yeah, so that’s how I am the way I am.  That’s how hurts from before sneak up on us today.  That’s how a coach loses his cool on the bench.  That’s why daddy shouldn’t probably be around the kids too much after a tough loss.  That’s why it’s important to have a loved one listen to your stories of being hurt through life and feel bad for you today…for what happened then.

It would have been nice to win though.