Football Musings

I went to the grocery store Saturday night to get last-minute supplies for our Superbowl gathering. It was very busy for a Saturday, like a hushed excited hum in the store. It occurred to me that football can be that bridge for people to begin to understand one another.

The last year has been difficult. Lots of interpersonal conflict for me personally and in communities with whom I affiliate. So much changed with our church and legitimate wrongdoings were brought forth. Everyone had their own take on it and it felt like this awkward thing no one wanted to talk about but desperately wanted to talk about. Lines were drawn in the sand and it felt like a determination of dice put you on one side of the line or the other. People we wouldn't otherwise have naturally related to suddenly felt like "on our team" and likewise people we thought we on our "team," there was suddenly this weirdness because we don't agree anymore. Well, that and fear that if we did disagree we would be slandered or ostracized because we had seen it happen to others. We weren't making it up, there was lots of evidence for those fears.

I already naturally struggle with caring about what people think. If someone disagrees with my point of view, I can get really insecure and scared. It opens the door to hearing lies. At the end of last year I heard so many lies straight from the Enemy. It feels strange blaming it on him but I really don't have a better explanation. My brain would think thoughts that are not mine. Normally I can counter non-truths with at least the most basic Bible verse like John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me." But this last several months it's like what I was hearing that was untrue drowned everything else out.

When our church (that we left in May, but still struggled to ignore their working out of the issues) finally closed in December, I was again afraid. I didn't know what to expect. Would my husband lead us back there, to the new churches taking it's place? Would there still be an awkwardness and tension in my relationships because of the line in the sand?

What I'm observing is that when the church ended, so did much of the awkwardness. The field is level now. People who "stayed" and people who "left" are doing pretty much the same thing that is, trying to navigate a new terrain of relating to God's people and worshipping in a church. What you think about what happened to make the church implode is kind of a moot point. It's history, and God is and will use it.

Now, back to my original point of football. It was easy to hole up with our "team" when this all went down. But football, a good neutral point has helped to soften these lines and break the ice. It almost made me tear up to have friends enjoy the game with us that, a year ago, would have broken into an awkward conversation and we'd all have left with hurt feelings and misunderstandings.

While everyone has Seahawks fever, it doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat or Republican, for or opposed to vaccines, homeschool or public school, whatever. That's the real beauty of sports. It brings people together. Yeah, it's a game. But God uses it to do such bigger things.