Winning, duh

What a happy weekend full of win, wins and wins. We're winning, friends. Thanks to my friend Charlie Sheen for that oh-so-clever catch phrase.

Saturday we hosted our last regular season game for Soccer Chick. Coach, aka The Hub, didn't have a heart attack on the side, although friends it was touch and go there for awhile. For sure, a good thing that he wasn't preaching the next day because the voice was gone! The girls were sleep-playing for much of the game. Thus, contributing to the voice-be-gone struggles of The Hub. The girls pulled it together and struck a beautiful 1st goal. The other team made some worthy attempts but we had a surprise substitute goalie who made no less than 3 beautiful saves. No goals for those folks. We win 1-0. I do have to spend a minute sharing the great surprise of this goalie. She's a small girl, but tough. Built strong and not afraid to use her body. Surprisingly she hasn't gotten called by the refs yet, but she might be better served playing hockey. The girl will body check anyone and gets her foot around the ball no matter where it is. So, as a defensive player she is outstanding. Never misses and always dependable. The Hub decides to try her at goalie, which she is reluctant to do. However, the girl was awesome!!! Just as he suspected. So they end the regular season 4-3 and go into the playoff tournament on Saturday.

Our second win of the weekend was Oldest's basketball game. Wrapped up in chatting about graduation party excitement with our dear adopted daughter Camila, we lost track of time. Not a really big deal to be late arriving to a house league basketball game...EXCEPT that The Hub volunteered to serve as a stand-in coach. Please cue the eye-rolling and "OMG's" here. In addition, if they don't have 5 boys show up, they forfeit. Can you imagine? First round of playoff games and Oldest's team loses because we got there late and they had to forfeit. The embarrassment. So this chick right here prayed for God's favor the whole speedy drive over. We did arrive late...um...in the 2nd period with 4 minutes remaining. Ouch. BUT, they allowed the boys to start without a parent representative as coach and they had 6 boys already there.

Friends! the team was losing 19-32 when we walked in the door. Now, that's an ouch! We were playing my least favorite opponent with a very loud-mouth coach. Wouldn't it be nice to shut them down? They dominated, making stupid baskets as if we were handing the ball to them and telling them "go ahead, shoot it." The Hub was quietly reading the game from the bench, checking out their game technique and I could almost see him put his coaching face on. Somewhere between the third and the beginning of the fourth period I could see The Hub gesturing and guiding. I knew he was telling those boys something good. Mostly I knew because I could read the faces of the boys he was talking to. Houston, we DON'T have a problem. The boys went into the fourth trailing by 19. Gulp. 19. Who comes back from that? Coach/The Hub told the boys to play man-to-man. Each of our fellas pinned one of their guys and didn't let them so much as breathe. They couldn't handle the defense. Why weren't they playing like this all along? Not so sure, but they began to shut down this team's game, which was let's just say less than stellar to begin with.

Believe it or not, Oldest's team makes it to 66 to 67 with one minute to go. Friends! The nail-biting intensity was on! All of a sudden our quiet fan club, including me, was all about shouting for the team. As the energy increased we had steals, rebounds and made our shots. As we sat at 66, the other team with 67, 1 minute on the clock, other team has the ball. All we need is for them to miss or for us to gain possession. With some serious defensive pressure they miss and we have the ball. We call a time-out. The game plan is we have one shot. We're getting it to the star varsity high school basketball player and he is cool under pressure. He let's that clock wind down to about 20 seconds and takes his one layup. Its in!!! 68 to 67 with, no lie, .8 seconds on the clock. Friends, they shut it down. We win, 68 t0 67. A comeback from as much as 19 points down. Wow. What a game... Next round of playoffs Wednesday.

Our last win of the weekend was our church's 4 year anniversary. What a blessing. I preached a message on F.A.I.R.F.A.X. The Lord led me to bless the people with some encouragement on how to be "An Impacting Church & Influencing Christian." Using an acronym for Fairfax, we discovered that as a church and as individual Christians we are to be Faithful, Accepting, Instructing, Real, depend on a great Foundation, be Active and eXciting. I believe that the message was received and our people were encouraged. Our church has made it to four glorious years. We look forward to what God is going to do next!

All in all, a weekend of wins. To sum it all up I'll share a Youngest delight with you. Crying hysterically because of some constructive criticism I had ever-so-kindly delivered to him, he sobs and sobs, looks up and says "Prius!" in between his cries. Have you played the Prius game? Sort of like the "yellow car" game. Shout when you see one. My family plays it all the time. How funny to be that upset, life in shambles, in his poor little 5 year old mind and see a Prius and have to shout it out so he can get the credit for seeing it. Life is just like that. There is always a second when we can pause from our bad times to shout out something good. Remember the good, friends. Its always there. Shout it out so you get credit for it.