Our surroundings...

I witnessed a softball game yesterday that made me think about our surroundings. My daughter and her team had a home game scheduled, first of the season and we were talking about it during the weekend that it should be nice as the high was going to be in the 70s. Well it was around 10:30 then the tempature started to drop. By game time it was in the low 40s and the wind was howling out of the north about 20 miles an hour. Well you can guess it was a bit cold out there. Many of our girls were not prepared to play in cold weather, I heard over and over that it was not that cold this morning. We we played a sloppy game at the first, finally got into it in the last inning, tied it up and eventually lost in the 13th. Now here are my reflections on it.


1) Some of the girls were prepared for the cold. I don't know if they looked ahead or had stuff stashed in their car but they had the right equipment to play in the cold. As leaders of the Faith, we need to be prepared for everything and be aware of our surroundings, looking ahead and prepared for the things that might come.


2) Some of the girls ignored the cold, others did not. What I observed was that there were some girls who just forgot about how cold it was and played the game. What I noticed was these girls made the plays that they had to make, while the others that let the cold affect them failed to make the plays that they normally make. As leaders, we need to not let the conditions surrounding us affect how we perform. Conditions are going to change, that is part of life but our performance can still be at the highest level if we commit ourselves to it.


3) Strength comes in numbers. The first part of the game at least for our team it was every man (or girl in this case) for themselves. What I saw was that when they came into the dugout between innings, they were all individuals. Sitting or standing by themselves. By the 7th inning, when they came back to tie the game, they were so cold they started huddling together. It was pretty funny to see two or three girls all wrapped up in one blanket or sharing a coat or just standing side, by side, by side. All of the sudden instead of being a bunch of individuals, they were unified and I believe they drew strength from that. We draw strength from those around us, so when we are feeling down the last thing we should do is draw away from others, we should lean in and let them warm us up.