Ok, I can talk hockey...how's this? Let me paint a little picture here {lace 'em up..you're a hockey player now \:\) }...I'm coming down the ice with the puck, you stand between me and your goalie...Corri, God gave me a gift - sure I nurtured it with hard work and practice, but it was a gift that would allow me to make a move around you that would leave you looking for your jock strap....or...I also had the drive, grit, and determination to go THROUGH you. Either way, it didn't matter to me!...I was coming - my will vs. yours...and there was NOTHING you could do to stop me - Nothing! From studying the game, your eyes, your body language...I knew what you were going to do before you did...you were at MY mercy, the game was at my mercy...it was a gift, and while it lasted, it felt good...but that's all over now.
Read everything in bold, and rub those gratitude stones while you do it. And what is in italics... erase from your being.
You are still that very talented, determined, gifted hockey player. You didn't quit. You didn't get beat. You got sidetracked due to circumstances beyond your control. That doesn't change what you are inside -- the guy that took God's gift and ran with it. You used the gift in the medium of hockey, but all the talent, gifts and instinct you talk about up there doesn't belong to the game of hockey. It's yours. It's in YOU, to apply to whatever you want.
Remember that story you posted to me about the woman who gave away her valuable stone to the man who knew its material worth? He brought the stone back because he recognized that what she had inside was far more valuable that the actual material worth of the stone.
What we have here, what we are discussing, is the same exact thing. You talk of your hey day in hockey as if it were that valuable stone. The stone doesn't have anything to do with it, honey. The game of hockey didn't either. It's what's in the man and what he brought TO the game... it is the same exact thing inside the woman who had no problem giving her stone away in the first place.
You have that. You just don't seem to know it at the moment.
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Fast forward to now...I'm in your skates now..
You obviously have never seen me in skates or you never, ever would have made such a ridiculous comparison.
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and cancer is bearing down on ME...it's unpredictable. Where's it gonna go? What move is it going to make? Is it going to bowl me over? I'm at it's mercy..I'm at the doctor's mercy...I feel there is NOTHING I can do to stop it. I'm being attacked and I feel helpless, no control...I'm the one searching around the ice for my jock strap...I'm lost.
You are NOT lost, you are panicky. Can't say I blame you... I think I would feel the same way. BUT. I also have a bit of spunk in me. A tad or so. And I so loathe the feeling of panic, and even in my very worst moments, that 'grit' seems to act on its own accord and get me out of my Center of the Universe Chair. I can't imagine that while you were playing hockey you didn't get knocked on your azz a time or two... don't care how good you were, it happens, eh? What did you do?
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but yet he can't leave the play...he's helpless, he's vulnerable...I'm that player...I've broken my stick..I've lost an edge on my skates..I'm slipping and sliding all over the ice...I hear all of you screaming from the bench, instructing me on what to do....but yet I can't seem to get there.
Dude... I've watched TONS of hockey. I know this sitch. Our kids start kicking the puck like soccer players, and start throwing checks anywhere they can, if they can't get to the bench. If for no other reason than they are just pissed off they broke their stick.
I know what you are trying to explain to me, though. I'm really not trying to be a cheerleader right now, not even a coach. Not a 'come on IC, F-I-G-H-T!!' Though that does have its place and time... just not in this particular convo.
No, we don't know what this cancer thing is going to do. So take it off the table. No sense considering it. I know you know the difference between the performance of teams who are trying 'not to lose,' as opposed to the performance of teams who play to win, right?
Play your game. Play to win. Get in that 'zone.'
Now, if I'm pissing you off, by all means, rip me a new one. It might feel good to get it out of your system. But my above discussion still stands. Keep rubbing those stones, and you think on that story. YOU were the one who found it and posted it here. I think that's pretty interesting, don't you?
