Eric Bailey's

It's a good thing that coaches are often given more than one game to see what they can do, because we did horribly. It was cute, but it was definitely a bad start. I lined up my team, they kicked the ball, then the other teams big player kicked and ran with it and scored. We did it again and so did he. And then once more for good luck. It happened that fast. Then the best player out there did not want to take over anymore. The game seemed pretty balanced except for that one guy.

My next strategy is to try to do some practice kicking the ball to each other. It is difficult to practice that when all the league lets us have is one ball, but we will try to find a way to do it. I don't want to get too complicated because I have to remember that for many of these kids this is their first time actually playing soccer.

If I was really concerned with having someone to score and dominate I would take my own son out to the field each day and work on ball control and kicking and those other little things that make a big difference. Then I could be one of those dads that is featured on the news (either the one like Tiger Woods' dad or some of these hockey dads that get kicked out of games). I am sure that would be fun!?!

Back to reality and the daily work. I guess nothing about this week is going to be routine through. I will be talking with a family and helping them prepare for the funeral. There is always the fear in this time of saying the wrong thing, or not communicating how much you empathize with them.

Have I posted on death yet? My wife read a book that compared our relationship with God to a dance (which is just wrong, I know). The last chapter was on death and spoke about how wrong it is, how it was not intended and so it is not natural and we can embrace our pain knowing that this is not part of God's plan, but instead a result of the fall that will eventually be stopped. We can also know that God hurts with our hurt, God mourns with us over this unnatural event.