What A Joy!

This inaugural season of UPWARD soccer at Cross Point has been such a blast. It has been so funny to watch the kids, most of which knew nothing about soccer when they started, learn and start to really play hard. It's been a learning experience for the coaches and referee's too! A lot of them didn't know much about the game either! Our first game, I thought, "Oh my goodness...Macy is going to stand around cheering and playing with her hair all season!" Well, she has proven me very wrong! Now, don't get me wrong...she's far from the star of the team. A lot of times, she kicks the ball toward the wrong goal. But to see the look on her face when her foot actually makes contact with the ball has been the biggest joy for me. She really likes it. For those of you that might not know a lot about UPWARD, we don't keep score, (unless we're winning!) prayer time with the team and a short devo at half time of every game, and every player is rewarded with a star after the game. There are different colored stars for different things. There are 5 different colors that they can be awarded after the game. Well, Macy had all the colors except for grey...that one is for best offense. As you read earlier, she is just happy to kick the ball in any direction! I told her this morning, when she was telling me how badly she wanted that grey star, that she was going to have to get in there and get after the ball. I explained a little about what offense was. Well, I wish you all could've seen her. She stayed right with the ball the whole time and kicked it more (usually in the right direction) than she has all season. She had such a look of determination on her face. Well, I say all that to tell you that she got the grey star! She couldn't have been more excited if Cinderella had presented it to her! She was jumping up and down and saying, "I got it! I got the grey star! Woohoo!" What a joy!!! I love the way that she has been introduced into sports through UPWARD. Everybody wins...everyone is rewarded...and all you have to do is try your best! What a lesson!