Perspective

My husband, the man of not so many words and a well-controlled and moderate temperament, lost his cool today.

I sat on a green fleece blanket, Mikayla asleep between my legs and Mia & Maggie playing under the bleachers, and watched my groom stomp onto the soccer field, shouting, cheek muscles twitching, giving the referee a solid piece of his mind.

The ref, who had failed to call a hand ball which resulted in a goal for the other team, fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a red card, ejecting Isaiah from the game and the complex with only 47 seconds left in the match.

Our women lost 0-1.

Isaiah got the first red card of his life.

If you want passion, my friends, today had it!

After the game ended I decided it might be wise to remove our energetic and non-empathetic children from the area while everyone settled down. Fortunately there was a playground adjoining the field.

Maggie wanted to swing, of course.

I pushed her awhile and then told her to slide while I calmed my own heart rate.

Both of the girls headed to the slide area where there was another little girl playing with her grandma. I watched as they all started playing together.

After awhile it was time to head back to rejoin the team so I walked over to the girls and said it was time to go.

The grandma struck up a conversation with me, asking if I was a student at the college.

I thanked her for the complement to my youthful appearance and explained we were visitors for a soccer game.

"Are you affiliated with the college?" I asked her, just to return the courtesy of conversation.

"Yes," she said. "I'm an alum, but I'm here because my brother, who was a professor here, died Tuesday."

All of the sudden the loss of the soccer game, the red card, the swing... None of it seemed so significant in the face of the accepting grief of this grandma.

I stopped everything in me and concentrated on simply listening.

The words poured out of grandma. Her brother had a heart attack Saturday, completely out of the blue. He was in a coma until Tuesday but never regained consciousness.

To make the story more heartbreaking grandma told me that her sister-in-law's mother had died Saturday. So in the course of a week her sister-in-law lost both her mother and her husband.

I don't believe we're called to compare our pains to one another. Pain is pain.

But there are certainly some pains I hear about that make me incredibly grateful for the struggles I face in my own life.

So tonight I'm driving home with a heavy heart for the women's soccer team, but also praying for the Collins family of York, NE.

Would you join me?