Happy News

First, friends and loved ones of mine, I want to share with you this incredibly tender picture from game night Friday. Whoever captured this photo...I love you. The view from the stands was moving as a fellow lineman/good friend came up to Oldest to express his mutual frustration and disappointment at the recent events leaving Oldest on the sidelines and out for at least this game. Now, I thought the view from the stands was moving. This picture that Oldest shared with me captures the moment exceptionally well. This, I believe, is why boys play football. It's all about the team. I asked Oldest what he said to him at that moment and it went something like "I love you man. We are now playing for Oldest." And as I told you, friends, the momentum of the game changed after this. Chantilly played with tremendous heart and stopped Langley from scoring at the 1 yard line. 1 Yard Line! Unthinkable. Those boys fought hard for that win and they pulled it out beautifully.

Meanwhile, back at the Copelands...Oldest has been struggling to come out of shock at his injury and come to terms with what this means for his football season. We got the Orthopedic appointment yesterday afternoon and let me now tell you...I love the Orthopedic Surgeon. He walked in, looked at the x-rays, looked at Oldest and said "you're one of us. Let's get you back in the game fast." A fellow Chantilly-man, we loved him immediately. And his next news just put the icing on the cake. "It's not broken, son. You have a chipped bone. You have intense pain right now and lots of swelling but you get no cast today." I thought Oldest would do backflips on the table right then and there. "You're looking at 7-10 days wearing an ankle brace and then you're back in action." Now, we are definitely getting ready to do backflips. He hooked Oldest up with the footbrace, told him to stay on the crutches until he's comfortable walking on his braced-up foot and sent us on our way.

Can I tell you that God is really something? Oldest knows that God was trying to get his 17-year old-I-know-pretty-much-everything- attention. As this young man sat on that table I think he started to get it. God grabbed his attention where it would have the most affect and then in God's graciousness made what could have been a difficult circumstances not so major after all. Isn't that just the way God is. He's so gracious. He will allow us to mess up all over the place and then He will grab out attention when need be. He speaks our language, whatever that language might be. Yet, His desire is not to punish us. It's just to wake us up and get us back on track. Oldest is singing for serious joy right now. One of his biggest upsets with this was not being able to play in the Homecoming game. Exactly, 14 days from now. Friends, it's looking like he will be back in action two days before Homecoming. God knows our heart; our disappointments; our frustrations and He loves us enough to only let us get so far before waking us up. It's looking like in this case Oldest may miss one game. One single game. We went from 4-6 weeks possible to one single game. "Are you ready for some football!!!"