There Was Another Time in My Life

So I planned out this whole blog in my mind while taking a shower five minutes ago, as I so often do. (Showers and cars are catalysts for inspiration.) I was ready to get on here and vent about how Coach Cu gave up on me today. How after only one day with him, in which he didn't even teach me, he throws two balls at me and when I miss one and don't hit the other right, he sends me over to the corner of the court to practice a swing he hasn't taught me with a stance I don't know and a grip I learned from Charlie two months ago. He's merciful enough to send one of the boys over to help me for thirty seconds. And then he leaves me, two guys, and four other girls alone for the next hour so we can go hit against the wall (which I'm entirely happy with) but with no instruction aside from "brush the hair, brush the hair" and "RIGHT ANGLE!" and the dizzying thought of incorporating circles into our swings. I was ready to tell the whole blogging world (or the like three people that read this) that those two hours were the most discouraging of the past year, that I thought of giving up about every five minutes, about how I felt worthless, about how I'm not used to failing miserably--I've never even gotten a B! If I can pass the Physics AP and get perfect on APUSH and Lang&Comp, how come I can't hit a ball? Or, really, I can hit the ball, just not how Cu wants.

I even had the ending lines of the journalblog ready--I was going to say how my style normally utilized juxtaposition and how normally I would end with some glimmer of hope like "I'm getting better" or "It's going to be so worth it" but how I didn't see any hope for tennis, I was just going to keep swinging and missing.

But then I sit down at my desk to type it all up, and hit the spacebar on my keyboard to start The Bird and the Bee Sides back up in iTunes, from part-way within some random song that I had paused when I left to pick up Kimmy from school at 1:30.

And the words that attacked me, that floated out of the speakers, the soft melody that swam through the airwaves and into my consciousness, the words that stabbed at my heart:

But I have emerged unscathed because I know You.
There Was Another Time In My Life--Relient K

God just has this way of messing with me. Of sending in his own divine juxtaposition--of letting me wallow in my self, in my "worries" and "sorrows," of letting me vent and complain about Coaches and my lack of skill, but then gently reminding me with Matt Thiessen's subdued vocals that I have Him. That I have been blessed immensely. That I am intelligent and that He has blessed me with two FIVES. Yesterday I was full of constant praise and adoration. I mean, I got a five in US, a five in English, and a four in Physics! It's amazing and I was so shocked, I felt so blessed. And the truth is I am so blessed. Academics aside, I have life eternal, everlasting, abundant, real. I have hope and truth and love. I have the God of the universe and I worry about moving my arm the right way to hit a silly little tennis ball.

Divine juxtaposition will always make my sorrows flutter away.