My grandson is three and learning to play soccer, and let me just tell you, watching a bunch of three-year-olds learn soccer is about as precious as it gets. At this age, the rules are more like suggestions, everyone is running in different directions, and half the fun is watching them figure out what in the world they are supposed to be doing.
He knew there was a ball. He knew there was a goal. The details in between were still a little fuzzy.
His strategy was pretty simple. Get the ball, pick it up, hold on to it for dear life, and carry that thing safely to the goal. Apparently, kicking it and allowing other people the opportunity to take it away seemed like a terrible plan. Honestly, I understood his logic.
But every single time someone took the ball away from him, his little heart broke.
Oh, this grandma struggled.
Everything in me wanted to run onto that field, get his ball back, hand it to him and say, “Here you go, buddy. Carry that thing wherever you want!” I wanted to save him from the disappointment. I wanted to make it better. I wanted that little face smiling again.
But I couldn’t.
I had to stand on the sidelines and watch him learn.
And as I watched, I realized that little three-year-old was learning something on that soccer field that the rest of us spend our whole lives learning.
Sometimes life takes the ball away.
We know where we want to go. We can see the goal. We have a plan for exactly how we’re going to get there. We hold tightly to the things we love, the dreams we have, and the plans we’ve made, and we would really prefer to carry all of it safely across the finish line ourselves.
Then life says, “Not quite.”
A door closes. A plan changes. Something we thought was going one direction suddenly goes another. We lose something we wanted to keep. We get knocked down. We don’t get the outcome we wanted. And sometimes it hurts enough that we just want to sit right down in the middle of the field and have ourselves a really good cry.
Maybe that’s okay too.
Because there are no failures, only lessons learned.
My grandson wasn’t failing at soccer that day. He was learning soccer. He was learning the rules. He was learning that someone might take the ball and that he could go after it again. He was learning to adjust his strategy. He was learning that one tough play doesn’t decide the whole game.
And goodness, aren’t we all still learning those same lessons?
As his grandma, I wish I could keep every ball from ever being taken away from him. I wish I could protect all of my grandsons from every disappointment, every heartbreak, every closed door, and every hard day that will come their way.
But I can’t.
What I can do is stand on the sidelines.
I can cheer louder than necessary because that is pretty much in the grandma job description. I can be there when they win and when they lose. I can celebrate the goals and be a safe place for the tears. And I can remind them that when life doesn’t go according to plan, they can learn, adjust, and try again.
One tough play doesn’t decide the whole game.
And sometimes we discover that the thing we were holding onto for dear life was never meant to be carried in the first place.
We just needed to learn a different way to get it to the goal.
Whew.
I think Grandma may still be learning soccer too.
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