Victory

This picture represents a huge victory for our son L. His soccer team has played hard and made a lot of progress this spring, but did not win a single game. Last week they played against the team that was in first place, and the win that night for the opposing team clinched their first place championship standing in the league. It was an emotionally charged night, with both teams wanting desperately to win for different reasons. During the second half of the game our son L played goalie, and during that half several goals got past him. Watching from the sidelines, I could see his frustration mounting, and I could read his body language clearly. It was saying, "I am a loser. I am letting my team down. I should never have volunteered to play goalie." At one point he asked to be taken out of that position, but my husband (one of the coaches) wisely made him stay. Just staying in as goalie and continuing to try his best was a huge victory in and of itself for L.

The final score was a demoralizing 0-7.

In his defense, only one of the goals scored against his team was his error as a goalie. The others were either errors by the defensive players or were impossible to stop. But that was small comfort.

L rode home with his daddy and they had some good father-son time in the car, while I drove the others in the van. I waited until bedtime to talk with L, and then asked him how he felt about the game. He turned his face to the wall and said, "bad". When I asked him what exactly he felt bad about, he said, "I'm not a good goalie. Everyone else is better than me. I don't ever want to play goalie again." I said the things a mom says to try and be affirming, but I knew my words were falling on deaf ears at that point.

The next day, during a lull in our schoolwork, I called him over for a private talk. I shared with him how I had gotten bucked off a horse when I was at summer camp as a child, and how I was too scared to get back on the horse. All my life I regretted not overcoming my fear and riding again, and how I had missed out on years of fun horse back riding experience because of it. Then I encouraged him to consider playing goalie again in the last game of the season. The choice was his, of course, but if the coaches asked for volunteers, he should consider going in. If he could conquer his goalie fear now, he could start the next season with nothing hanging over him.

The next day was the last game. It was very hot and oppressively humid. The opposing team (second place in the league) had about 16 players, so they could substitute at every position. Our team had only 10 players, and 8 of them were on the field at any given time. They played hard, but at half time they were all exhausted from playing most of the first half without breaks, and the score was 1-5. As they were about to take the field again, imagine how my heart nearly burst when I saw L putting on the goalie jersey over his own! He was going to do it! Put himself out there and try again! This was HUGE.

He was very focused and played extremely well. He allowed only 2 goals during the second half, but our team also scored twice. So although it was a loss, the final score was a respectable 3-7. I knew when the day started that we would probably lose the game. What I didn't know was whether or not L would win the battle taking place in his heart and mind. He chose to win. And that made it a gloriously victorious day.