Before I started my youth internship at the church in North Dallas, I spent a week fasting. As a group exercise instructor I had to keep eating, so instead of dropping all food from my diet I dropped and reduced three things: dairy, carbs and protein from animals (thank God for fish!). On day three of my week long fast, I felt my body consume the last of its stored carbs. I started craving meat and bread, desiring them the way a spoiled child craves a new toy in a toy store. My body hungered for these foods. Around day five I sat down to my usual fasting lunch: salad with celery, blueberries, cranberries, apples, hazelnuts and walnuts. I had almost a full gallon of this healthy and nourishing food with me and I ate more than half of it. When I finished my stomach was full, yet my body was empty. I had filled up with good things, but my body told me in no uncertain terms that something was missing.
This blog series has been about finding that missing piece, and the unlikely place I found it. I've spent most of the series writing about the spiritual hunger I've had post college, and the places I have been trying to satisfy an internal craving I never encountered before. I went to the places Christians often point to satisfy their hunger: reading the Bible, attending church, praying, fasting and living in community, and though each of these things is good, my spiritual stomach was still hungry. It craved something I didn't know how to find until I found myself at a little YMCA in the southwest part of Dallas.
I was there to audit. Early that week I knew there was something missing in my life, and I was praying I would find the answer. As I had never been to this particular YMCA before I wanted to explore the whole building, and in doing so I found one of my friends who I had connected with a few weeks earlier. We started talking about life, choices and being involved with youth. He knew of my prior coaching experiences in North Dallas and invited me to come back later that night to help coach the teen basketball team. I agreed, thinking I would at least check it out, that it wouldn't be for me and I would move on.
That was nine months ago. Yesterday, we finished our winter basketball season. We started with six teens and now we have become two teams for a total of sixteen players. What started out as me 'helping' ended up with me as head coach and then grew into the following: two very skilled assistant coaches, three passionate young men from Christ for the Nations who assist in everything we do, a program leader for our additional life skills lessons, and assistance from a program helping my players see past high school into their futures. What started out as "I'm not so sure about this, but I'll give it a try" has become the highlight of my time in Texas. I'm telling you that coaching basketball at this southwest YMCA has filled the void that none of my other Christian activities could fill, and its launched a program that will continue improving the lives of my brothers in southwest Dallas.
Why?
Coaching basketball has challenged my status quo. I have had to wrestle with the things I believe and the way in which I live them out. Working with my teams, and teaching them that basketball isn't about a scoreboard, but an attitude with which we play has been difficult. The most difficult part has been adjusting my own attitude, recognizing when my actions contradict what I preach. These come-to-Jesus-moments have prompted me to re-evaluate my approach as a coach. In North Dallas I learned how to manage and remain positive. In Southwest Dallas I learned how to fight: to embrace passion and make it an integral part of everything I do. What I have learned on the court as a coach has spilled out into all other areas of my life. It has been the single most impactful thing I've done.
Why?
It's not about being a coach, or playing basketball. It's been learning how to express myself through a medium, much like any artist. Except I've realized that the medium has been me and how I live my life. I've had the wonderful opportunity to recognize this on the court, for my attitude is constantly on display and challenged by game situations. I wholeheartedly believe we can live out our beliefs in any area of life: working a front desk, as a manager, as a single, as a couple, as an athlete, as a writer, musician, poet, IT specialist, car mechanic or simply as someone's friend. The challenge is to recognize when our actions are not aligned with our beliefs, and being aware our attitude has an effect on others.
Coaching has not been an easy ride. Especially in southwest Dallas basketball arena. I've experienced winning teams so upset they almost got beat, they couldn't shake hands with my players. I've watched parents lead their small children in inappropriate negative cheering. I've watched them flip out when the referee doesn't call the game in a way they want, causing technical fouls against their own team. I've also watched said parents chew out anyone associated with the functioning of the scoreboard. I've seen one of my players get ejected, because he got off the bench to defend his teammate who got punched when the referee wasn't looking. And I'm only describing the past three weeks!
Crazy would be the right word to describe what I've seen, but the joy of watching young men overcome, band together, fight for each other, celebrate the good in the bad and keep improving has all been worth it. Which is what my coaching has all been about: improving our hearts, changing our lives and drawing closer to Christ.
One of my players took another teen's iPhone. They used GPS tracker to follow the phone to his house. Because of this, and a few other missing phone incidents, we were ready to kick him out. I literally walked into the confrontation, and immediately saw what was happening- we were about to deny a young man the opportunity to grow and change his own life. He had moved to Dallas to get away from the juvenile detention life he had been living in Alaska. As a new kid on the block, he was befriended by the people his parents wanted to get him away from. Moving doesn't change our behaviors, confrontation does. I created more conflict by asking he be given a second chance, so long as he chose to apologize. We still turned him away for a week. This young man came back and has chosen to work with us, helping him break the bad cultural habits he's learned. He's fourteen.
That story is the reason I choose to be a part of the team working to make a difference in the lives of southwest Dallas youth. I simply don't believe we would be making this difference without Christ as our example. For it is through Christ we are humbled enough to recognize our own shortcomings. It is through Christ that we find the support and encouragement to keep going. It is through Christ that we change, finding healing from the bad habits we have learned. It is through Christ we are enabled to confess our sins and still be loved.
Coaching basketball has taught me about the love of Christ. That it isn't always easy, that we have to lean into conflict instead of avoiding it and at all times give everything. It has been a wild ride, but I would joyfully do it again.
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