Monday, January 24, 2011

SPECTATOR SPORT?

Football season is almost over...after the Super Bowl, that's about it. Listening/watching the playoff games there are speculations all over the place...coming from those sportscasters, plus the rest of us who are spectators. The players are where the action is...we watch, they play.


Do you think life is a little (or a lot) like that...just a few actually live, the rest are spectators. Jackie Robinson said, "Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your time."


When Michael and I were 'called' to go to China, it was my plan to merely be a bystander...that's honestly what I had planned. M was qualified to teach, I was not. Thus, I was going along as a 'dependent'...hey, that's what I was when we were on active duty. The four boys and I were dependents.


Our Director had other ideas though...he said I would teach...I said 'not'...he said I would and he won. Good thing. If I hadn't caved I would've missed one of the greatest experiences of my life...and the greatest life-changing experience of my life.


The Chinese loved me and I loved them...from Toast to Konan to James Bond to Swan to Apple...on and on. They probably taught me more about life than I taught them. Some had never been told they were loved; some were abandoned in trains...many never knew a mother.


Michael and I were known as 'the kindly foreigners' and they actually hung out the windows as they watched us walking to class together. They talked about how our eyes lit up when one of us would walk in the others classroom...they never knew love.


I went to China to be a spectator...an armchair quarterback...letting Michael be the player. That way, if things went wrong it wasn't my fault...being held accountable for nothing.


Facing God, I am accountable & I don't intend to waste my time! I've changed; I'm a player.


Balanced and Unafraid...

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