We are born trying to find meaning in life. As babies, we try to figure out voices, objects, and how to move our bodies without falling. As toddlers, we try to figure out why mom won’t let us drink the containers under the sink. As kids, we try to figure out 1+1 and 4 times 3. As middle schoolers, we try to figure out why the boy sitting across the room from you doesn’t notice you. As high schoolers, we try to figure out what group we belong to at the cafeteria and as seniors, we try to figure out why we’ve lost friends along the way, why our parents are divorced, and what the heck will we do with our lives after high school ends. My life every day consist of trying to find meaning in my broken life. When I was seventeen I found the main puzzle piece. It would be just the beginning.
My mom says I was born with a soccer ball at my feet. When I was five years old I and those around me had already identified me as an athlete, but most importantly a soccer player. I was not good at anything else. I had no reason to try anything else because I loved the game. I spent countless weekends at tournaments, icing my ankles, and telling my friends I couldn't hang out because of soccer. I had found my identity in the game, until February 2, 2015.
It was a special day as we were finishing our second day of varsity tryouts. I was a junior and the previous year as a sophomore I had started on the varsity team. So this was my year to prove to everyone I was good enough to keep my starting position and play college soccer.
Unfortunately, that day ended very differently. I tore my ACL and was never the person I was before that day. My entire life I had found my identity in being a soccer player and suddenly I was living with a brace on my leg for the next five months.
My life did change on that day, but it was fives months later in July that my life had finally found meaning, true meaning. Not some temporary meaning that being a soccer player gave me. After five long months of recovery, I sat crying in a little room at a local church I was working camp at. I had struggled with myself. I felt I was so out of place in life as my fellow teammates were carrying on their seasons, having summer workouts, and planning for college soccer. I was empty. My life after February felt pointless. I had nothing to give to this world that was worthy enough. There was no reason to live if the one thing I was good at was stripped from me. It was there in a little room in a local church that God grabbed me and literally hugged me. That's what it felt like. It felt like a big bear hug.
For twelve years I had found my identity in soccer until it was gone. That day I realized my identity was found in the one thing that stays constant. When I laid my life down, when everything was stripped from me, when my brokenness was laid out on the table that's when I found meaning. I no longer identified myself as the one thing I was good at I had finally identified myself with the one person who never failed, Jesus Christ. That’s where I found true meaning and true worth.
