Wednesday, October 28, 2009

ADVERSITY AND COURAGE: A PLACE FOR BOTH

Great teams are born out of adversity and courage.  Both of them are good for you.  But it's like going to the dentist.  It's scary, but in the end you're better for going through it.

These past few weeks have been tough for us.  Emotionally, it's tough to find out you aren't perfect.  It was hard to bounce back.  But I feel like I've learned some lessons from our boys. 

Here are a few:  

Adversity strips a team down and exploits it's weaknesses.  It creates doubt and humility.  Adversity is a fire that burns to ashes all of the facades and false pretenses.  It chases away false friends and scourges pride out of a heart.

Courage rises up out of the ashes.  It heals the wounds.  It reminds us of those who have stayed by our side and it brings hope and faith back to the heart.  Courage replaces facades with brick walls and creates iron out of raw ore. 

Every team deals with fear, doubt and discouragement.  Every player questions the ability they have to succeed.  That's a part of life and, honestly, it's healthy.  Great teams fight back through the adversity and show great courage.  Great players fight back the doubt they feel and find renewed purpose.  The team that goes through adversity and doesn't give up finds stockpiles of courage that make it better than the team that hasn't been challenged.

My kids have learned the lessons that adversity had to teach.  They have been through the fire and they have found the courage to work on the weaknesses and fix the problems.  I feel very proud of each of them because they each made a conscious decision to fight back and improve.  I can't see the future so I don't know how the story will end but I will step out just far enough to say this:  I wouldn't want to play us.