Lessons Learned

This is a guest post that I did for a very good friend. I am super excited to share it with you and I hope you enjoy it!!

❤

So these past two months I played volleyball. It was my second year playing and I was really excited when the season started. Last season was amazing and the friendships I built were amazing too. Here we were, the first week of volleyball and it was tryouts. I remember standing with my friends and teammates on the Varsity court waiting to hear who had made the Varsity team and who would be on the Junior Varsity team. The coach was naming off the people moving down to the JV court. I recall standing there as all my friends were called down and me standing there waiting to hear my name, praying I wasn’t on that list and when the coach finished reading the list of JV players, I looked around and I was standing by myself. Alone. I was excited and scared at the same time. Sure I knew the girls already on the Varsity team, but I wasn’t  friends with them.

 

That practice, after getting split up from all the girls I had played with last year, was really tough. I kept messing up, but all these Varsity girls never seemed to make any mistakes. These were the girls I had looked up to last season, the best of the best and I was practicing with them. Two of us on the Varsity court were still going to be sent down to JV. Not knowing whether or not you are getting sent down is way more stressful than you would think. After I found out I wasn’t getting sent down I was excited, but sad at the same time. All my friends, everyone I usually hung out with, were gone. The next week we got split up into Varsity A and Varsity B, still I felt like I didn’t belong. I started to wish I had been sent down to JV with my friends, but now I thank God that I wasn’t sent down. God showed me so much on this team this year, not just about the sport, but about life. I wouldn’t have changed anything this season.

 

I didn’t know you could be taught so much in such little time. I was taught about expectations. I thought these Varsity girls were AMAZING, which they are, but not like I expected. I thought they never made mistakes and were just the best. But as the season progressed I found out they did make mistakes and they did have their off days. I had pretty much idolized them the previous year, but God showed me that nothing on this earth is perfect and the only thing we should idolize is God and God alone.

 

God also taught me about friendship by giving me a special person on my new team who I thank God for every day. Additionally God taught me about dealing with a variety of personalities, something I thought I was good at until I had to deal with them day in and day out at practice and games. I was taught about doing what was right even when you REALLY don’t want to. When I was little my mom used to say, “You can’t control other people, you can only control yourself.” I hadn’t heard her say this in a long time, but this volleyball season I don’t know how many times she told me that.

 

I wanted so much this season for everything to go the way I wanted it to go. But it never did. Even when I knew what the right thing to do, I still argued and complained. When my mom would tell me her little saying, all I thought was, “If only they would change, then I would like them.” I thought, “Why should I give them their way? They should give my way.” Another one of my mom’s sayings is, “Losing builds character.” And I am not too happy to say it, but I built a LOT of character this season. But looking back, I see God had a plan for everything. His plan was to teach me to be humble and not demand my way. Being in the middle of all that was hard and I could not see God’s plan. I came close to quitting more than once. I’m glad I didn’t quite, for if I had I never would have learned all the things I learned. I learned that people are more important than winning. I learned to trust God even when things aren’t going my way. More than once I came home in tears, but that doesn’t mean looking back I would want to change it.

 

If you are going through a hard time, just hold on a little longer. I promise God has a wonderful plan for you. I know right now you can’t see that plan, but in the future when you look back you will see His plan and be thankful you held on a little longer.

 

~Kelly Kate