Glory Days....

There are only a few things that strike a chord of dread in my soul-- things that cause my stomach to knot up and my throat to run dry and a cold sweat to breakout on my forehead. One is helicopter blades or pretty much any large propeller of any kind. Those things scare the ever-loving crap out of me. Another thing that still makes my blood run cold is the word August.

Why August? Is it the heat? Nah. Is it the fact that school is starting shortly and summer's over? Nope. I'll tell you why August freaks me out-- Hell Week. No other event, no other reason can cause me to work harder or lose more weight than Hell Week did. It wasn't to impress girls, or for my own personal health, that I would sometimes shed 15 pounds in pre-season training-- it was for survival. Hell Week isn't called Hell Week because it's fun.

But the torture was worth it. The sweating, the bleeding, the sprains, and of course, the constant vommitting; it was all worth it. Especially your senior year. All that practice and training paid off on game night. And later. Walking to class on Monday morning, after you led your team to victory the previous weekend, wearing your varsity letterman jacket, having all the younger kids look at you and all the girls say hi, it was worth it. At least in a fleshly, gratifying, pride-filled sense.

But at most, a season can last 13 weeks. That's if you go all the way to the championship game, like my team did my Senior year. Then all of a sudden, it's gone, and you're just some high school punk. And it's Basketball Season (shudder).

I found myself really missing my football days yesterday, so I picked up a really good book I like. It's called Bleachers and it's by John Grisham. It's about a former High School football star going back to his hometown 15 years after he graduated and reliving his former glory days with his old buddies. I found a great quote in their that I thought would be appropriate for how I'm feeling right now:

"You count the years until you get a varsity jersey, then you're a hero, an idol, a cocky b*$t*&d because in this town you can do no wrong. You win and win and you're the king of your own little world, then poof, it's gone. You play your last game and everybody cries. You can't believe it's over. Then another team comes right behind you and you're forgotten."

How true. It reminded me of something else I've been dwelling on:

For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten... When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge and skill, then he gives his legacy to one who has not labored with them. This too is vanity and a great evil.
-- Ecclesiastes 2: 16, 21

All this thinking about the now-faded "glory days" has got me thinking about yet another thing, something I read in an awesome Piper book:

Only one life, will soon be past;
Only what's done for Christ will last.

Football was great. I miss it a lot, especially this time of year. But it's fleeting. It's over. There's more to life that High School football. And what's more, as Christians, we are to focus on the now, the present, and how we can glorify God with the time we have, not the time that has slipped away. To dwell longingly on the days when I was Captain and a starter and All-State is foolishness (to quote my good friend Hugh Jackson). My focus is to serve Christ now. It has to be. All other ground is sinking sand.



(In case you're wondering, the pics above are taken my Senior year. I was about 180 pounds but could bench 70 pounds over my body weight. Any of you who know me now know that that's definitely not the case now ;-). The photo of me and my brother was taken right after we beat our rivals in a comeback victory and in doing so, won the all-leage title. It was great.)