I believe

There is something in high school sports, at least in Wichita, that I love. It’s a chant from the student section. And when you have a couple hundred teenagers jumping up and down and dancing and yelling at the top of their lungs “I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN” it is truly something fun to see.

At Whitney’s volleyball game last Tuesday night we played a school that is undefeated in city league. It’s a privileged school, private catholic school. Heights has a lot of disadvantaged kids. Not so much on the volleyball team, although there are a few. Our tallest player is about the same height as Kapaun’s shortest player. We look like underdogs. We lost our first game of the match 8-25. Big ouch, but we had lost to Kapaun already this year and we weren’t expected to win. And then the unexpected happened in game two. We beat them. 25-21, I think. And to game three, the tie breaker. We were down. By more than 5. But our scrappy little team kept playing. In a gym that had about 100 Kapaun students in their student section, making a lot of noise, and 3 Heights students in our student section making a lot of noise. (And one extremely brave 6 grade sibling of one of the volleyball players, she ran with a poster board that said “heights point” in front of their student section. It was awesome.) And we started coming back. And we ate at their lead. And heard their voices screaming “I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN.” Right up to the point we tied it at 24-24. And then beat them 26-24 to win the match. But until that last ball hit the floor, they believed that they would win.

AND…Whitney told us on the way home that when we caught up to them she knew we would win.

I wondered when the last time I had that much confidence in myself or my team was. I wondered how it would look for me to stand up and jump up and down and yell at the top of my lungs “I BELIEVE THAT I WILL WIN”. Why not? Everything in life that is important to me is Jesus, my husband, my children, my friends, people in general. I will fight for what I believe in, but I try to make sure I’m on the side of what’s right. (And I prefer to avoid conflict. I don’t much like it, I can easily walk away.)

This verse came to mind Romans 8:31 “What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us”?

Makes me want to be sure God is for me. Keep my actions honoring him. Keep my words pleasing to him. Keep my heart tender to him. And then, I can say it.

I BELIEVE THAT I WILL WIN!