This past Friday night was the Homecoming football game at Pine-Richland High School. It just so happens that I was hanging out with some LAMP boys on Friday night. A friend of mine heard I was with them, and he invited me to bring the boys to a tailgate party (no alcohol... just good food) that he and several North Allegheny (the opponent) families were having before the game. It was a bit of a cold and partially rainy night, so when we arrived and we got our food the boys decided to eat in my car with the heat on so they could be warm and listen to music. As the mentors and I mingled among the adults at our party, I looked over at the boys and felt disappointed that they had chosen to hole up in the car instead of hang out with everyone and meet some new people. I wondered why they were being so shy... so reserved. I guessed that they weren't having a good time. I got engaged with someone in a conversation for only about five minutes, and the next thing I knew I looked over and the boys were dancing in the middle of a circle made up of about 50 NA students. My mentee, who is usually very outgoing, had seen some NA kids trying to do a dance called "the jerk." I guess they weren't doing it properly, and he just had to go over and show them how it was done. I couldn't believe my eyes! One second they're shivering in my car... the next second they're doing a dance-off in the middle of a cheering crowd of teenagers who they had never met before. They had a great time for the next 30 minutes or so, then we went in and watched the football game for a while. We had a great time, even though Pine Richland lost pretty bad.
That whole evening was kind of strange for me. I graduated from Pine Richland, and I played football there. But, honestly, love for my old high school or football glory stories never really crossed my mind while I was busy investing in the lives of four kids from Homewood. When I was in high school, all I would have done was obsess about Homecoming and the battle that would be happening to win that game. Seventeen years later, all I could think about was LAMP and the battle that is going on for the hearts and minds of kids in Homewood. My values and goals in life were much different when I was seventeen. On this Friday night, those two worlds collided for me. At one point in the evening, someone came up to me and said, "You know, they're honoring the football alumni tonight." I thought to myself, "Oh yeah. I'm a football alumni, and this game should be really important to me." There is nothing wrong with being a proud football alumni, I guess. But there were probably some football alumni attending that game who are still stuck in that one small story of there lives when they were young and glorious. Believe me, I can embellish high school football stories with the best of them. But I've moved on to a different story now. God is moving, and I'm trying to be obedient to his call on my life. It's hard to look back when the best moments of my life are happening right now, almost every single day. I'm living in God's adventure. I have an amazing family to invest in each day. When I wake up each morning, I look forward to what God has planned for me in the work I do with LAMP. The work is hard, but God knows that I have what it takes. God is so good to have blessed me so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment