Are you all excited about the fall sports season? I love all the inspiring movies based on true stories have been coming out in the past few years. One I missed from 2018 until recently is The Miracle Season, which recounts the triumph of joy over sorrow just a few years ago during 2011 when a group of high school girls from West High in Iowa City tried to rally after losing their star player through a tragic accident.
Caroline “Line” Found was the sort of person who loved everybody and was loved by everybody.
Her father, a surgeon, was also very involved in trying to foster team spirit and good will between the team members and throughout the community.
However, he had his own set of heartaches,
not the least of which was the fact that his deeply loved wife was dying.
Their coach (who won National Coach of the Year in 2011)
was dealing with a lot of pain and loss in her personal life as well.
Of course, the kids on the team—and especially Caroline’s best friend from childhood, who was chosen to replace “Line” as the team’s center—were all totally traumatized by the loss and emotionally immobilized.
Although West High’s volleyball team had been the state champions in 2010, they lost every game in the fall of 2011 until they would have to win all fifteen of the last games in order to qualify for the championship playoffs.
Could they do it? What happened? Wanna know?
If you’ve got a free evening for a heart-rending, heart-warming story of overcoming sorrow to “Live Like Line!” (giving life all the best you’ve got), take time for The Miracle Season.
You never know, it just might spark a miracle season this fall in your own life too!
After all, God is the God of the impossible, and He delights in helping us when we cry out to Him for help!
“Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I” (Psalm 61:1-2).
“Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee” (Jeremiah 32:17).
Of course I admit to being prejudiced, but I have some of the world’s coolest relatives, and among them is my brother-in-law, Frank. (In this photo, he’s part of a floating parade themed on the explorers who discovered the Californian coast, although he doesn’t usually dress in velvet for his fishing trips. 🙂 )
Because, I’m convinced that even though we are often afraid to launch out, God usually blesses us with an amazing “catch,” just as he did for the disciples.
So, what are some of the lessons I learned from talking to Frank? I’m going to mention what I learned about fishing, but I’ve also been having fun thinking about spiritual parallels between catching “fish” and what it might take to become a “fisher of men.” If you think of anything as you read this list, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
*You have to be willing to get up way earlier than normal people need to, even when it’s cold and wet and dark out! (I remember Frank getting up at 4:00 a.m. to take his young son out salmon fishing on Saturdays.) 
*You have to watch the weather and water conditions constantly and make sure your boat is mechanically sound so it can handle the trip and withstand any unexpected storms. 
*You always need to have radio communication with the Coast Guard in case you need rescue, which did happen to Frank once when he was 14 miles out. His boat quit unexpectedly in really rough water and had drifted to within a quarter of a mile of some deadly rocks. Frank’s uncle had drowned just the year before, so he was extremely thankful that the Coast Guard was able to rescue him in time! 
*It takes a lot of love and work to share your experiences with others, but it’s worth the cost, because that’s what it’s all about! Frank’s scariest adventure was when he had taken a group of 13 friends 27 miles out from the Golden Gate to fish near the Farollones Islands and a vicious storm blew up. (The photo above is not from this trip.) Everybody was so seasick that they couldn’t do anything to help but throw up (which wasn’t really helpful), so he tucked them all inside while he and his (double-lifejacketed) eight-year-old son wrestled to keep the boat upright. Despite their best efforts, the boat rolled over, and he thought she was going down and they’d all drown. Thankfully, the boat righted itself, and although they lost all 13 rods and reels and their 3 tackle boxes, everybody survived to tell about it!
*It’s a lot more fun to fish with friends, but it’s also almost impossible alone if you’re doing something complicated, like crabbing.
*If you want to catch anything—be it fish or crabs or shrimp—you have to go where they are! Frank’s longest trip was a 5-week cruise up the coast to Alaska and back in search of crabs and shrimp. 
*You have to use different types of bait depending on what you want to catch. You can troll for salmon with anchovies or a lure called a “watermelon.” Rock cod like squid, but you have to use a small, round weight and bounce the weight off the bottom, because rock cod swim near the bottom. 
*Crabs like any kind of meat that smells bad. Frank saves the guts, heads, and skeletons of his fish for bait, although crabs also like chicken parts and squid. 
*Crabs live about 200′ deep in the ocean, so after the crab pots are baited, they are lowered with 230′ of line and 2 floats about 8-10′ apart to mark the spot.
*Frank uses his GPS to retrieve his pots, and if he doesn’t have enough weight on his traps, they can be caught in currents and carried away so that he never finds them again.
*Also, sometimes people find his crab pots and steal the crabs when he’s not there. 😦 
*It’s not unusual for Frank (and his crabbing buddies) to fight 10-12′ waves while trying to pull up the traps. He has a big crab pot retriever and a hook to help lift the pots into his boat.
*There will be some unforgettably wonderful experiences if you persevere in fishing. Frank’s all-time favorite memory of deep sea fishing was a trip back in August of 1977 with his friend Bill. It was a perfect day, and when they were 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, he hooked a 58.5 pound yellow fin tuna. It took him 2 hours and 40 minutes to reel in that beautiful baby!
*As a last reflection, Frank said that fishing is great, and catching fish is a thrill, but the greatest thrill of all is just going fishing, whether or not you catch anything!
*However, just like Jesus blessed his disciples with a huge catch, if we’re willing to follow Jesus, we’ll probably have many wonderful experiences where we are visibly rewarded for all our hard work! 
Ready to go fishing?
When John F. Kennedy became the president of America, I was ten (and very impressionable). My mother told me that he and Jackie Kennedy had honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico, and among other things, they’d watched men diving off steep cliffs into the Pacific Ocean. 
Somehow the glamor and mystique of their experiences became bigger than life in my imagination, and ever after I thought it would be exciting to visit Acapulco. 
In honor of our forty-fifth anniversary, Alan took me on a cruise through the Panama Canal, and we enjoyed touring Acapulco…a bit of a dream come true! 
Acapulco is an incredibly beautiful city, which caught me by surprise, because in recent years, its had such a bad reputation for being unsafe that most cruise ships won’t stop there, and I thought it was burned out and run down. No so!
However, the military police presence (to subdue gang warfare) is intimidating.
Israel and Palestine are the only countries I’ve ever visited that are more heavily guarded. There, a soldier with a machine gun got on our bus to check us out! 
All this to say, I wouldn’t recommend hitch-hiking down to Acapulco on a whim or wandering about on your own, but we loved our guided tour of the area. 
Our guide took us to El Mirador, the hotel which overlooks La Quebrada Cliffs. 
Since the La Quebrada Cliff Divers attained recognition as one of the world’s extreme sports in the 1970’s, they’ve become international “stars,” popular with tourists and highly regarded by professional high divers worldwide. 
Several times a day, these brave and daring young men scramble barefoot up the sides of the cliff and dive into the deep, blue sea below. 
Once they’re at the top, they have to get their courage up to plunge down, down,
down to the sea from as high as 137 feet…an unbelievably long way to dive! 
I was reassured to learn that although many of the young men do suffer broken bones, it’s my understanding that none of them has ever died diving here. 
How do they do survive? 
Well, many of the divers are sons of previous performers who start very young and spend years learning from their fathers, diving off lower points on La Quebrada Cliffs and practicing how to jump from higher and higher points. 
As I watched the divers, I couldn’t help but think of my own six sons—and the many “high divers” out there…perhaps you included! It takes years of inspiration, hard work, training, and lots of bumps and bruises along the way to accomplish those amazing feats that sometimes feel like jumping off a cliff. 
One of our tour guides on the trip was Armando, who’s about our age and was a cliff diver when he was young. He said a little sadly that he is the only one of his cohort who is still alive. I asked him if he had any thoughts on why he was still alive, and he said, “I married my wife at 4:30 pm on April 12, 1975, and from that day to this, I’ve been faithful to her. I also stayed away from alcohol, drugs, and crime. You gotta live clean and stay healthy if you want to live a long life.” Amen? 
Amen!
It is a bone chilling January morning. As I back out of my driveway, the snow crunches under the weight of my car tires. I’m leaving for the MVP therapy pool in the darkness of early morning. My back pain has pretty much put a halt to life as I have known it. Immersing myself in the warmth of the therapy pool every morning is about all I can do. 
One morning a week, I am attending a Back Splash class offered at MVP. There are usually ten ladies in attendance; all of us with muscle and joint problems. Our instructor directs us to the deep end of the pool, which prevents us from touching the bottom of the pool. 
She continues to instruct us saying, “place the swim noodle under your arms and hang straight down, straight as a pencil, back straight, legs together. Look straight ahead; your head is the eraser.” These instructions sound easy enough. However, as I try to follow her directions, my legs float off to the right. I struggle in the water trying to control my body, and I attempt the pencil formation once again. This time my legs float off to the left….and this is when I hear, “You MUST strengthen your core!” 
After weeks of daily trips to MVP and attending my Back Splash class, faithfully practicing all the exercises that I am being taught, I am finally able to hold a perfect pencil formation as my instructor counts off the seconds. 
Spring is approaching, I am back on my bike….riding down the bike path, enjoying a strengthened core and the freedom that brings. 
I have another core: My spiritual core. How do I strengthen my spiritual core? The same way that I strengthen my physical core. Daily, I must practice the spiritual disciplines that keep me on the path that God has asked me to walk. “Not turning aside to the right or to the left.” 
In Celebration of Discipline, R.J. Foster tells us “God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving His grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us.” 
……hence as I practice spiritual disciplines, it is God who strengthens my spiritual core. 
As I read and mediate on God’s Word, the Psalmist tells me, “His Word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.” The path God has chosen for me. “The Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” This is my powerful promise from God. 
Prayer is how I communicate with God. I hear His “gentle whisper” and feel His “Divine nudging.” In Luke one of the disciples asks, “Lord teach us to pray.” The Lord will teach me to pray as He taught His disciples. When I do not know what to pray the Holy Spirit directs my thoughts. The more I pray the more, I long to pray and “praying without ceasing” becomes a reality in my life not just a desire. 
Fasting has been a part of the Christian tradition for centuries. It is a discipline that Christ talks about in Matthew… “when you fast.” Why am I not pursuing this discipline like I do the other disciplines? Probably because I think it sounds like too much work and sacrifice. Maybe this is the discipline that would bring me closer to God ….. 
The key to my success in strengthening my physical core has been my daily trips to our health club and practicing all the exercises my caring instructor has given me….hence leading to the healing of my body and the freedom that brings.
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice
The object lesson for me came from her training. She was taught that she can’t focus on the boards but must focus beyond them at the man holding them. If she aims for his chest, instead of the boards, she will have enough momentum to break through.
In 2 Corinthians 9:8, it says that “God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”
Super Bowl LI set nearly 25 new records and tied another 7, making it the most startling and exciting in Super Bowl history! A sampling of the firsts included:
Talk about an exciting game!! Did you watch the Super Bowl? I didn’t. Alan watched until near the end of the fourth quarter when Tevin Coleman received the six-yard pass that left the score at 28 for the Atlanta Falcons to only 3 for the New England Patriots. In all of Super Bowl history, no team had been able to recover and win with stats like that, so Alan didn’t want to stay up just to watch the bitter end. Fine by me. I was getting sleepy anyway, and I didn’t know one team from another.
As one who taught life saving and served as a water safety instructor for ten years, and as one who swims around our little lake most days during the summers, I thought we’d do okay at the Devil’s Pool. 
Alan wasn’t going to go at all, but he did sign up at the last minute—mostly in hopes of keeping me from drowning, I think. We did survive, but after thinking it over, I personally feel that the adrenaline rush and excitement wasn’t worth the risk to life, limb, and health. Here are my reasons:
1. We had to swim in the Zambezi River,
2. Even though there had been a twenty-year drought and we visited just before the rainy season began, there were all kinds of safety issues. 
3. There was a definite current to negotiate. 
4. We had to walk on somewhat slippery rocks to reach the river. 
5. We had to feel our way over slippery rocks under the water
6. We also had to swim upstream (up river) for a short distance.
7. Logs or other debris could have hit us at any time. 
8. Fish nibbled at our feet and made us all jumpy. 
9. One false move could have sent one of us over the edge. 
10. The rock ledge, though sturdy, will doubtless one day give way. 
May it not happen when anybody’s nearby!
11. Last, but perhaps most importantly (and I didn’t know this until we were having dinner a week ago with some friends who do medical mission work in Africa), the Zambezi River is known to have a strain of parasitic Schistosomiasis which is a common in Sub-saharan Africa and can be lethal if not treated. There are some 200 million people affected world wide, half of whom live in Africa. Since learning this, I’ve made an appointment with my doctor for testing. So, to answer my question: Did the Devil Make Me Do It? No. I chose to do it. Was it a wise choice? I don’t think so. Would I do it again? No. Did I pray about it? Yes. Why didn’t God tell me not to go? I’m not sure. I think sometimes God allows us to do things that aren’t wise, just like a parent allows his child to do things that the parent knows are risky. I do believe in God’s divine will (which cannot be altered) and His permissive will (which allows us freedom of choice). I prayed and didn’t get a clear “No,” so I went. And, as with all unwise decisions, there may be consequences I didn’t consider when I made my choice. In future, I think I want a clear “Yes” before making decisions, not just a “You may!”