Beach Volleyball is my Life

Not literally. I don't play beach volleyball. I've never seen a match live. But I love, love, LOVE beach volleyball in the Olympics. I love the game, the athletes, the way it doesn't require a long attention span. I will watch games on replay, even though I know who wins. I don't just like knowing who wins, I like seeing how they win.

My favorite part of beach volleyball is how athletic the players have to be. When they dive for a ball, they have to get right back up. If you have the first touch, you know that the third touch is also yours. There isn't the luxury of staying down. The strength and courage of the athletes is amazing. To constantly get up and keep going, not letting a bad pass or poor serve to dictate your attitude is encouraging for life in general.

Life seems to be a constant battle of picking myself up after I've just seemed to give everything I've got. Especially the spiritual life. Sometimes, there seems to be that person on the other side of the net who is intent on hitting the ball all over the court making me run and dive and jump all over the place to see how much longer I'll go on, hoping that one of these days I'll decide the game is no longer worth it, and just give up. That one day I'll just let the ball fall and stop giving everything to prevent it landing in the sand.

Beach volleyball is also like life in that sometimes, no matter how much you try, you serve the ball into the net, or your pass goes off into the stands, or you just can't pick yourself up off the sand in time to finish the play. These pitfalls can be even harder to overcome. At least when you miss a serve that you dove for, you know you gave it your all. But when you just don't quite hit the ball hard enough to sail over the net, it's easy to start beating up on yourself, to think that you'll never improve, and to forget that being human means imperfection.

Of course, I'm not talking about volleyball anymore. It's life- those times I snap at my sisters instead of having patience. Those times I hit the snooze button and end up sleeping right through daily mass. Those times I would rather be doing anything other than praying, or I sit down to pray and can't seem to sit still for the life of me.

But then, on the court of life, my partner is Jesus, and the opponent is Satan and the terrors of Hell. Satan really is trying to get me to give up the game. He really is hitting the ball all over the court, trying to get me to give up. Luckily, this isn't a new game. It's the game on replay- I know how it ends. So all I have to do is get up and go to Mass the day after I sleep in. All I have to do is sit still and pray for one hour or one minute or one second at a time, and then start over again the next day. I'm passing the ball to Jesus, and I know He will spike it over the net and, one of these days, knock the devil out of the game once and for all. Until then, I will simply keep going, praying for the strength and courage of those Olympic athletes, who keep playing until the game is done.

"Israel, hope in the Lord, now and forever!" Psalm 131:3