Monday Quarterback

It's late. Rough day. Rough week. It seems impossible to escape the rigours of everyday life sometimes. I wrote a little while ago how these times are necessary. How they are important. How we can't avoid them. It's so much easier when you are talking about them in the abstract. There's a term that stems from football called "monday quarterbacking". I don't know if you are familiar with it. Basically it refers to how on monday, the day after a football game, all the commentators look back at the game, talk about the quarterbacks mistakes, and say "well he should have or could have". It happens all the time, even though the term is pretty common and always used in a negative sense. Yes maybe he should have, but it is a lot harder to make that decision or see that option or consider that unforeseen result in the heat of the moment. When things are coming at you so fast, sometimes you have to make the best decision you can with the information you have in a split second. Sometimes everything tells you to do something but the unexpected throws a wrench in your well thought out plans. It's impossible to expect the unexpected... that's why they call it unexpected. I've been being a monday quarterback on my own life a whole lot lately. Some of my decisions have come in the heat of the moment. Some of my long deliberated decisions don't look so great after the unexpected comes crashing in.

Life comes at you pretty fast. Sometimes it hits you so hard you become scared to death that you're going to make the same mistake again so you become so overly cautious that you become a prisoner to fear. This morning I was taking care of Benjamin. He was on the changing table getting a fresh diaper. I took my eyes off of him for literally 3 seconds or less as I put his diaper in the trash can next to the changing table. When I looked back he was in mid air falling face first towards the floor. I'm not exaggerating when I say I saw it all in slow motion. So many thoughts ran through my head in that half of a second. He hit the ground with a thud. We were both frozen for a second. Both of us scared out of our minds. He started crying. I picked him up and felt a way I have never felt before: useless, worthless. What had I done? How could I have left him unprotected for so long. I was just inviting him to get hurt. Why wasn't I fast enough to catch him? Why don't we have the floor in his room made out of safety mats. I second guessed myself for hours. He was fine. No injuries. He was shaken up for maybe ninety seconds. I was shaken up for the better part of a day. I wouldn't take my eyes off him for a second. "I need to grab a tissue, you're comin with me". I second guessed myself halfway to insanity. I grabbed the fear that stemmed from that fall and covered myself with it like a blanket. That episode today is just one example of the many I have from the past few months. Lately I've had days where I've been a poor husband, father, son, co-worker, and friend. I've let people slip my mind, given half hearted efforts, and have kept silent when I should have expressed my thoughts. I've taken the easy way out. I have withheld the love that my incredible wife deserves. I've taken things out on the wrong people.

I wish I had some incredible insight to redeem all of these thoughts. At least a poignant lesson learned. I don't. I guess what I'm searching for is a way to take the lessons from these mistakes and then leave the regret and second guessing behind. To man up and apologize, make amends and avoid repeating a mistake without being held prisoner by the fear of doing it again. For some reason the only thing that calms my heart right now is this: God is good. I have never felt the truth of that statement more than now. I'm not even sure what exactly that means and I think that may be why it rings so true to me right not. It is vague but it is true. It is all encompassing yet precise. God is faithful when I am faithless. He is patient when I fail. He is loving when I ache with brokenness. He is stern when I am wrong. He is right and just in the face of my trespasses. He is gracious in the midst of my sin. How does that relate? I don't know. What does that solve? Nothing right now. That's all to this story. No happy endings. No sweet redemption. Yet somehow a light in the distance. A reason to press on.