And the theme of March will be grace. Grace upon grace.
grace [ greys ]
noun.
a pleasing or attractive quality; a virtue or excellence; favor or goodwill.
Cancer has changed the way I see everything. The way I experience everything. The way I value everything. It’s widened my view but narrowed my focus. And it’s changed the way I coach.
I sent a text (and a homework assignment) to my team today, including our managers and our team of coaches. The text is inviting them into something bigger than volleyball. And then I figured I’d share it here, too, because it invites us all into something bigger.
I’ve been thinking about you all today. And I’m giving you some homework. 🙂
PLAYERS: FIRST: Take some time before Monday’s practice to consider each of your teammates. Think about and write down for each: 1. The trait you most appreciate about them as a teammate (attitude/EQ) and 2. As a volleyball player, what do they have that you want to aspire to in order to add to your personal tool belt to improve your own game (physical and/or mental skills). SECOND: Consider each of your managers and write down one thing you notice about them that you don’t think anyone else notices. THIRD: Consider each of your coaches. Write down one point of positive feedback (what’s working and why). And then write down one point of constructive feedback (what’s not working and a suggestion for solution).
MANAGERS: Please write down 1 thing you see in each player that you don’t think anyone else sees.
COACHES: 1. Please write down 1 thing you see in each player and manager that you don’t think anyone else sees. 2. Please write down 1 thing that’s working with your fellow coaches (and why) and 1 thing that’s not (and a suggestion).
*I do not need essay-length answers, brief but thoughtful is great!
Here is why I am asking: Relationships, in my opinion, are the one thing that ultimately matters. There are a lot of other things that are important in life, but the biggest lesson I am getting from the ugliness of cancer is that if I meet Jesus tomorrow (and I’ve been so close before), what would have mattered most on earth – the people God put in my life. How did I learn from them? How did I treat them? How did I love them (when it was easy and when it was hard)? How did I SEE them and value what only they could share with me?
The reality, guys, is that while memories teach us things and what-ifs are valuable visions of what could be, we do our LIVING in the space between. And we live with the people there, in that space. People designed to be there.
I want us to learn from our losses and I want us to learn how to lose. I want us to learn from our wins and I want us to learn how to win. ALL of that, yes. I also want something WAY bigger for us. So, write all of this down. And then take a picture of it and send it only to me. What comes next with it, I’ll tell you on Monday.
Love you all, Coach.
Is there an implication from this for you? Could you apply the same invitation to consider those in your life…those designed to be there? How might engaging in this same process help you reprioritize the WHO of life and not the WHAT or HOW or WHY? And what good could that do?
Now, I gotta go. I have homework to complete. 🙂
*Post 1088
Tomorrow :: 3/27/18 :: Post 202
Tomorrow is my last day of radiation. Whoa.
As tedious as it has been, as obnoxious of a routine it has been, as overwhelming the breathing has been, as painful as it has been…..it’s gone by pretty fast.
I’m gonna say something downright crazy — but I’m gonna miss my radiation team. I’m gonna miss seeing those people that have been woven into my story in such a hard, dreadful, dark (but also transformative and God-filled) chapter. At my most vulnerable, they have been most kind. At my lowest, they have been joy and light. At my weakest, they have helped breathe life back into the battle.
So grateful for them. So grateful for their place in my story. So grateful tomorrow is here and all that it represents.
Itch :: 3/27/19 :: Post 561
The large majority of my torso (from my armpits to my hip bones) has no feeling. I can feel some deep pain, like behind my implants, but really, on the surface I feel nothing.
But today I was in a meeting and I felt an itch on my torso…I went to scratch it but I couldn’t feel the relief of that…instead the itch got worse. It was maddening. And then I felt twinges of pain in random places in my shoulders, back and chest. And then I was taking a deep breath and it hurt to do so.
Ugh.
Don’t Wish Away Tomorrow :: 3/27/20 :: Post 855
I’ve lost track of time…I’m almost_almost_certain it’s Friday but I’m not actually sure…And I only know what time it is because I can shift my eyes to the upper corner of my screen to see that it is 12:45pm. That said, I can’t remember what time I woke up today. Was it 6? Was it 10:30? When did I eat last?
Time is such an odd thing. On one hand, time can be watched on a clock, seeing the second hand tick to each next one, seeing the ‘big hand’ move minute to minute and watching the ‘little hand’ turn another hour. I can look outside and see if it’s day or night based on the present amount of light. I can measure the progress of a year based on the seasons, however slight or stark. When in routine……time feels track-able, it feels tangible and trusted. It feels predictable, fated and certain.
On the other hand, though, when life’s routines are disrupted, time morphs into this weird boundary-less, free-for-all rebellion against the constraints of predictability.
This pandemic-required-quarantine has caused an anarchy of time and while cancer has provided me a solid lesson in living in this place, I, too, find myself feeling upended. Initially, not so much, but in the last few days I’ve noticed how edgy and impatient I am in varying degrees and at varying times of the day… How uncomfortable I feel in my own skin… How obnoxiously loud the quiet is… And I’m feeling somewhat thrown off by how uncomfortable I am because this ‘place’ isn’t unfamiliar to me. I’ve been ‘here’ before – in the days and weeks and months following diagnosis and all throughout treatment and during each surgery’s recovery. Even in survivorship, there is an element of anarchic time (my desert that has no reference points) that I have grown accustomed to. I do not fear the quiet of *these* places because I have learned the richness of what they have to offer so why am I suddenly so bothered by *this* quiet?
Maybe it’s my brain and body’s memories of the cancer traumas experienced and the discomfort is subconscious. Maybe it’s uncomfortable because I’m learning HOW to apply ‘old’ learnings to ‘new’ lessons. Maybe it’s because *this* quiet is attached to a brand-new unknown. Maybe it’s because even though I’ve learned much about the certainty of uncertainty, this is a reminder that uncertainty is *still* the only certainty. And in that, maybe it is a harsh little reminder that although I’ve walked an incredibly hard road and learned some incredibly hard lessons, there is more learning to come. How do I sit *here* with all that I’ve learned while remaining open to what *here* has to teach me.
Ah. I just got it. I sit here *vulnerable*. Cancer forced me to learn the VERY INSIDE of that word and just how dreadfully hard it is. And because of that, I also know how easy it is to escape the vulnerability of now by wishing away time. But I’m going to attempt to live changed in *this* place because of what I learned in *that* one…even though I know it’s a whole new hard.