We each have places where we choose… where we root for one over the other… where we deeply want one person or one team or one side or school to win. We passionately desire success and victory for a single one.
And if that team or side or school includes my kid, then regardless of the current respect, obedience level, or whatever-still-in-need-of-growth characteristic exists in my kid, I am going to root like the dickens for my kid’s team to win. I won’t be rude; I won’t call anyone names (and hopefully not even think them); and I won’t be unable to interact warmly with any of diverse desire sitting in the stands nearby. I simply will root like crazy for the one I love — regardless of the health or status of my current relationship with him. I will be my son’s advocate. Always.
And then it donned on me last weekend… sitting in the auditorium in the first high school show choir competition, a weekend where my kid’s choir did great — but another choir was deemed to have done better; we came in second. And as I watched the winning choir burst with ample enthusiasm — pleased to have won and to have surpassed this day a choir with a growing national reputation — it donned on me: each kid on stage is someone else’s kid… each young adult is someone else’s kid. Each person on that stage is the kid of someone — and regardless of age, stage, character, or health of their current relationship, there is a parent watching who is rooting like the dickens for their kid. There is a parent who is pleased and proud.
Such is true whether the competition exists…
In Little League…
In high school…
In college or the pros…
At a swim meet…
At an Olympic track and field tryout…
At a high school debate team contest or even presidential debate…
On the hardwood…
On the gridiron…
On the field or something online…
Steelers/Bengals…
Steelers/Broncos…
Broncos/Patriots…
Brady/Manning…
Bird/Johnson…
Tiger/Phil…
Alabama/Auburn…
Michigan/Ohio State…
Duke/Carolina…
Red Sox/Yankees…
Tastes great/less filling… 🙂
The point in (almost) each of the above is that someone’s kid is playing. And someone other than you and me is going to be rooting just as hard for their kid precisely because it’s their kid… it doesn’t matter if growing up, they’ve made poor choices — or even if they’ve made a series of poor choices lately. The parent will always want the perceived best for their kid.
Let’s take this awareness one step further…
How does it change all of the above — who we root for, how hard we root for them, and how we perceive the side or team that bests ours on a given day — if we recognize each of us, created by God (since there’s no way we could have come out of nowhere) — as one of his kids?
If we are one of his kids, then he must always want what’s best for us, too… working on that whatever-still-in-need-of-growth characteristic still exists in me…
Makes me think that winning and losing, even coming in second, matter a little less than we sometimes believe…
Respectfully…
AR