We’re at the last soccer game of the season for my eight-year-old son Isaiah’s team. Parents and grandparents fringe the field. There are lawn chairs and blankets and cheers from the crowd. The players bolt and dash in the still-green grass. It’s warm enough for them to be free, uninhibited by the bulk of coats, and they’re playing well together.
It’s been about teamwork this season.
I think about this, as my son dribbles a few yards and kicks hard. Teamwork, not only for the players as they’re learning to take positions and to pass, but for the parents, too. Many of us have children in different activities at different places, and we’ve relied on one another to get children to and from the soccer field.
This evening a friend left her son at our home so that she could take her daughter to softball. I took Isaiah and his friend to the game. Another son of mine, 10-year-old Gabriel, has soccer practice on a different field, and another friend will pick him up and deliver him to me because my husband Lonny’s at the pool with Samuel. Yet another friend is at her daughter’s volleyball game, and until her husband arrives, I’ll keep my eyes on her sons. Isaiah’s soccer coach is a good friend and the referee has been the boys’ buddy for years.
The sense of community is beautiful.
As families, we move our tent stakes out. We stretch our covering to cover others, and others stretch to cover us, too.
It hasn’t always been this way. When Lonny and I moved to the community 10 years ago, I thought I’d never find a friend. The village is small and family roots run deep as the river.
I prayed for a friend for years.
Quite a few years.
And in His timing, God answered.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:12, NIV)
Looking back, I’m comforted to know that those friendless years, those praying years, had purpose. I learned to lean into the Lord and not my loneliness. I learned to trust in His timing and care. And I learned that I would be okay, in His Presence, if His answer was “wait” or even “no”. I began to understand that the outcome, whatever it would be, was in my Father’s hands, and His hands offer grace, strength and love.
When answer to prayer comes long, there is always value in the wait.
The game is soon over, and we fold our blankets and chairs. We collect our players and move across the field to where we’ve parked our cars. Though it’s dark, we gather to chat a bit longer under the tall lights.
This is my community.
And an answer to a long-time prayer.
Lord, there’s now another answer to prayer that’s slow in coming. Help me to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful to keep praying. Amen.
