MONDAY...A Soccer Season Reflection

Today is Monday...the start of another week, and another day closer to winter weather and the soon coming Holiday season...

But to be honest, it's a different Monday than any other because we are not going to be together on the field as a CU men's soccer community...for the first time since August 10th we won't be in season...

We won't be thinking about an upcoming match or which passing sequences we will be doing to start up practice at 330 pm...

To be honest, this Monday always comes too early...and perhaps more than ever in 2012...because we fully expected to be practicing today and playing in a NAIA National Tournament game this coming weekend...our players had done everything possible to put us in the place for that to happen...

Today came too soon because our season ended so suddenly, so quickly, and so harshly when a 5th penalty kick in a Championship match found the back of the next on an amazing Friday night on our home field in front of all our family and friends and classmates...

But in the midst of lingering disappointment and many thoughts of what could and should have been, today also brings so much joy as we think over the last 3 months...and ultimately 4 years in this soccer community...

We celebrate 14-3-2 this year, back to back WHAC conference titles, so many golden goal wins, and perhaps the finest classes of players we have ever had in our current senior group...

We celebrate young men who enter as freshman and now leave as men of character and commitment and authentic faith who will bring great good to the people and places God calls them next...

We celebrate over 6000 families in Africa and a community and school in the Dominican Republic that will never be the same because a group of soccer players believed that Scripture's call to care for the least of them invited them to use the platform of soccer to take on global giants like malaria and HIV and extreme poverty...

And we celebrate the word legacy...a legacy that leaves for all to see beautiful and passionate soccer, a fun loving spirit giving life to a campus, future doctors and lawyers and teachers and coaches and future business leaders who learned what they needed to do in CU classrooms, and so, so many relationships that have changed the lives of their teammates and their coaches in transforming ways...

These are the things we think about today and give praise to our God for as we reflect on 14 seniors who have changed the face of a soccer program, the athletic community of a university, and global village communities on the other side of the world ...

Today is also a day where we watch our seniors leave the locker room meeting while many other CU soccer players stay on the locker room benches...

This is the day where the baton is passed to a new group of seniors and a new group of players and leaders...it's a day filled with hope and to be honest some apprehension about what happens next season...

Today offers a chance for players to work harder than ever before in the next 9 months so we can do the unthinkable thing called a WHAC Conference THREE-PEAT...

Today offers a chance to read and talk and pray together in small groups this spring to develop accountability and get on the same page spiritually as a group of Jesus followers...

Today offers the chance to travel to Zambia and use one's soccer gifts and compassionate heart to bring healing and hope among truly amazing people in a beautiful land...

Today offers the chance to grow NIGHT OF NETS into something truly a community event as we invite more people, more teams, more churches to come together to provide nets that do indeed change lives...

And today offers the remarkable challenge and opportunity to build a new legacy, for new players to emerge as outstanding college soccer players, to keep the locker room as the living room for a family, and for dynamic graduating leaders to be replaced by a new group of young men who will follow the example and continue the model left behind by those who they have watched in previous seasons...

Today is a very different day, a difficult day...and a day that is the first day of a new chapter in the continuing story God is writing in the lives of past and present members of  the Cornerstone men's soccer community...

I for one, can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring as we build on yesterday...

Philippians 1:3-8 (New Living Translation)

³ Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. ⁴ Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, ⁵ for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. ⁶ And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.⁷ So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News. ⁸ God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus.