Making the team

As a parent, watching your children try out for a team or competing with their team can leave your stomach, heart, and nerves a wreck!!!  It is such a great feeling when your child "makes the team", and heart breaking when they don't.  The peace that comes over me as my child secures a spot on the Marching Band or makes the Volleyball team is a fantastic feeling.  But can you imagine what you have to go through and what you get to experience as a parent of an Olympian?????  I love watching the parents on the Olympics, and it is amazing what they have had to give up over the years.  Mostly, time away from their child. You hear stories of athletes who have been home 17 times in 11 years, 16 year olds who have been away from their family for 3 years so they could train.  I can't even imagine!  The great news for me this morning is that my family is on the best team ever,  God's Team, and we don't have to spend a second away from our Father in Heaven.  There is no Gold medal, but their is a crown waiting for each of us in Heaven.  The training process is tough.  God molds us and shapes us to be the athlete he wants us to be, and that can be grueling.  Like an Olympian, every day I have to make a decision, do I want to train today and listen to my coach, or do I want to slack off?  Today I pray that my family chooses to train.  I wish we lived in an Olympic Village where everyone had the same goals with minimum distractions, but we don't.  We live in a sinful world.  So this morning, my prayer is this:
"Heavenly Father, I am so thankful to be on your team.  Help me to be the team member that you want me to be.   Train me, shape me, mold me so that I can share the news of being on your team with those around me and my family.  Help me to train my children in the way that they should go, Your way!  When the going gets tough and they want to quit, encourage and renew them so that their victory is the ultimate victory...Life Everlasting, with you and all those who claim you as their savior.  I pray this in the name of Jesus.  Amen"