On Dream's Edge
CBN.com - You sit alone in the phosphoric glow of yet another tired old movie that you have seen countless times before. Despite the urge to change the channel you are too caught up in the emotion of moment to do so.
Can you call someone to talk about it? Nope. It is much too late in the evening to call home. While it would be comforting to hear a familiar, warm voice telling you they love you no matter what happens, you remain frozen in a nearly catatonic state.
You keep telling yourself that you have done your very best, that you have left it all out on the field. Either way, you gave it your all and can stand proud knowing that you even made it there in the first place.
The clock ticks on as your thoughts continue to ebb. Seconds seem like minutes, minutes become hours. You begin to dissect every play you have made in camp. Many were good but it is the bad ones you concentrate on. Did you make the right reads? Did you spend enough time with your playbook? You think so. Did the coach notice your mistakes? Of course he did. And even if he didnt you are sure that someone caught it on videotape.
Your roommate apparently doesnt share the same anxieties that you do. He seemed completely relaxed several hours earlier when he said he was going out with "the boys" for one last night of training camp revelry. Maybe this is just the way he handles pressure. Oh well, you cant worry about him, you have yourself to worry about.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
You ask yourself why didnt you buy a quieter wristwatch. Looking down at it you realize it is not your watch but your stomach doing flip-flops in an almost rhythmic cadence.
Curfew is just 10 minutes away, and your roommate still has not returned. You are quite sure that he should have no problem making the team. After all, he is a third round draft pick from a Big 10 school. You? You are a seventh rounder from a Division II program in Connecticut not exactly a hotbed for college football. Seventy thousand people attended his games each week while you were lucky if 700 showed up to yours.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
It is now five minutes to curfew and he still hasnt come through the door. You stand up on wobbly, swollen, achy knees and shuffle to the window of your dorm room. Drawing back the sheet that has served as your curtain for the last six weeks, you scan the parking lot in squinted eyes looking for signs of life. You spot the first round draft pick standing confidently among a group of aspiring NFL wannabes talking about the season to come. He has the poise of a veteran but you ask yourself does he have what it takes to stand up to the physical rigors of a 16 game season?
Slowly, you turn to face your current existence. You see a bed that is not your own, a television playing the same bad movie, and a lifelong dream that is suddenly teetering on the verge of extinction. You want to cry. You want laugh. Part of you wants to go home but the other half screams to stay. You ponder how 13 years of preparation has brought you to a stuffy dorm room in the middle of Wisconsin.
Then you remember. The dark indigo of night will soon dawn upon a new day. You are on the cusp of fulfilling that dream. Will you make the team or you will be making travel arrangements for the long, long ride home. In just a few more hours you will know your fate.
You bow your head. You raise your hands to the heavens. You cry out for guidance.
It is final cut down day in the NFL.
Perhaps you have found yourself in a similar situation at one time or another in your life. You may be there right now. You dont necessarily need to be an athlete to relate to the thoughts of a seventh round draft pick in the NFL. Maybe you are away from home for the first time attending a college that you are not so sure about. You could be at a career crossroads trying to determine what direction to head in. An important decision in your personal life may loom ahead. Or, you might just be wondering if God really loves you.
Stop. The love of God will always be there for you. He is with us in all situations whether it is amidst fear, sadness, desperation, embarrassment, humiliation, hurt, rejection, sickness, or exhaustion.
In the New Testament book of Romans, the apostle Paul writes in chapter eight, verses 38 and 39, "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
God cared enough about us to send his own son Jesus Christ to live upon this earth to experience the human frailties of our existence. He came to earth to die on the cross so that we might experience victory through Him.
You can experience victory through Jesus Christ. The power and presence of Gods love is always available to us. He is there through the heady, high point days to the days of despair and discouragement. When we rely completely on His love, He will see us through all circumstances good and bad. He loves us that much.
I know that Gods love for us is sometimes hard to comprehend but you must accept it. His love is a pure, unadulterated gift to us. It is vaster than the sky and ocean combined. We need only to accept this love and concern by applying it to our lives.
That is the power of His love.
Material from The Transformer, study Bible used in this article.
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