life lessons

Today, I had the privilege of teaching my 5-yr old niece a couple of lessons. One in teamwork and one friendship. Then, I had the honor of learning a lesson in love from her.

I went to my sister’s house today to keep my nieces for the afternoon, while my sis and her husband went to the UT football game. Dhad a soccer game this morning, and we had decided that I would go with them to the game, and they would leave D’s game early to head down to the stadium. So, in addition to babysitting, I got to see a 5-6 year old soccer game, which is great fun.

They had been telling me how well D has done in the past couple games. I think in the last three, she has scored 2, 3, and 2 goals, respectively. Well, she was not so into the game today. In fact, I’m not sure she was on this planet the entire time. She has what some call a vivid imagination, and at times, she lives in it. What we found to be the problem, though, was… well, more than meets the eye.

Team
D was obviously not “in the game.” She was tugging at her shirt, twisting her arms behind her back, and just generally not paying attention. We explained to her that her team counted on her to play hard to win. It didn’t matter if she scored goals or not, but if she wasn’t playing her best, then she was letting her team down.

Friendship
My sister was all worked up about D not “being in the game.” I’m a little more easy-going than she, and I’ve coached some young kids, so I tried to talk to D. It turns out that one of her good friends from Kindergarten played for the other team. I asked if she was worried about playing against her friend and in fact she was. I explained to her that it was just like playing against me or her daddy or her sister. We were still friends, even if she beat us, or stole the ball, or whatever. I pointed out that her friend was playing hard, even though she was on the other team. And there was some other good stuff, too – well, maybe. She played a little more focused toward the end, but still somewhat spacey.

Love
Well, I left out something important. I’m not sure who did the teaching today. Let me just quote her, because it will just work better. “This is just a game, right? If it’s just a game, I’d rather let her win. I don’t care if she scores, I want her to do good. I’ll let her score, because she’s my friend.” Mind you, all this was coming from a conflicted 5 year old with tears coming down her face. Beside the fact that I think she’ll make a better cheerleader than competitive athlete, she’ll definitely make one heck of a friend. This is the most recent in a long line of extraordinary life lessons that she’s taught me.

Let me pass along a little secret for living (if I ever write a book this will be in it). Spend as much time with children as you can stand. If you’re not good with kids, you need to find ways. Aside from being smarter about life than you are, they have a lot more fun with a lot less than you do! Bank on it!

As a friend said recently in reference to my niece, “She’s the best Christian I know.”