More Than I Could Ever Imagine (Day 359/360/361)

Every time I think of myself in the design world now I can't even imagine it. That life was so long ago. And every time I think of myself being fulfilled in that job I can't see it. That would be because I have found myself being used for something so much bigger. Design is a wonderful thing and I still think it is necessary in our society, but I couldn't imagine choosing it over mentoring, loving, and teaching kids. I have found my passion and I'm not going back.

But I can't take much of the credit. Each day is different in this line of work and as I was telling a good friend of mine tonight, "God has blessed me with so much! I have so much going for me in this field because He keeps helping me succeed!" There is no way I could be this good of a coach without His help. There's no way I could have this much patience and love for these kids if He hadn't started preparing me for this a year ago. I really can't fathom any of this. I don't get why the kids want to be around me so much, I don't know why the parents love me, I don't know why my kids keep getting faster. The only answer is He wants this. Let me just say this one more time, this is ALL His doing. I'm just enjoying this ride. I'm soaking in every moment of the success he's granted me.

Some time in-between this post and the last one I had one of my high schoolers come up to me and ask if I would get together with a few of the other girls so we could talk about things like school, their swimming careers, God, and life in general. I asked her if she meant she wanted me to lead it and she said yes. Honestly, my first thought was, "no way, I can't do that", but after calming down I took this as an opportunity to get to know the high school team and to share the relationship I have with God with them. I want them to see the type of intimacy they can have with God now, so they don't have to wait until their senior year of college like I did to experience this blessing. Also, I'm not sure what type of role models these girls have, but I want them to have at least one positive one, and I want it to be me. I know I'll need a lot of help, wisdom, and love from God when I'm talking to them, but I am so excited He is using me in this way!

And then there was this past weekend. I was out with friends when my Instagram started blowing up. I opened the app to find that two of my very beloved swimmers had posted pictures of me with the description "role model." It took all I had not to start crying in the restaurant. Do you know what that means to me? I've said it a thousand times, I don't care about how fast they are, I don't care about how much time they drop, what I care about the most is loving them and letting them know they are loved. Those two pictures let me know they knew and it helped me know how much they loved me.

Another reason I know I can't take credit for my coaching is because of tonight. We had a coaches meeting like we do once every month and this time my head coach wanted his assistants to take an evaluation of how we were doing as a coach. There were eleven questions and we had to answer yes or no for each one. I started the test thinking I'd find myself marking no for at least a few but kept on being surprised when I answered each one yes. I thought I had somehow cheated or read the questions wrong when I got to eleven and marked my eleventh yes. We turned them in and as my head coach was going over the questions with us and explaining what yes meant he kept looking over and giving me a look of approval. Every question was the same. He'd start talking about how to succeed at the certain question and then he'd turn his head towards me and give me this look that I knew meant, "see I told you you were good at what you did." He finished with an explanation of how you would know if you were doing these things right and he described my relationship with the kids. They would always want to be around you, they would look up to you, they would want to please you in practice and outside of it, they would want you to tell you things about their life. I want to reiterate that I am surprised. I want to reiterate that there is no way that me alone could be this kind of coach. This is what I meant in the second paragraph when I said "this is ALL His doing." And now you know what I mean by God has blessed me immensely. I hope I just keep opening myself up to The Spirit so I can be used even further for His kingdom and His glory!