What Makes Us Whole – September 21, 2003
We don’t always know what we’re getting into or what we will learn from it. Such was the case with a young man named Matthew who agreed to coach a football team of 12-year-olds, not anticipating what that would mean to him and the boys. When Matthew met his football players for the first time, he noticed that they were all the boys not chosen by anyone else’s team. They didn’t have much athletic talent. One was born with a birth defect; another had lost part of his leg in a childhood accident. Some didn’t have the money for proper equipment. Several lived in one-parent homes and had no way of getting to practice. They lacked confidence, skills, and even a basic knowledge of the game.
Matthew was discouraged, but he pressed on, deciding that the boys deserved a chance. He picked them up from their homes, tossing their equipment in his old truck, often wondering if they ever washed their practice pants and jerseys, or at the very least, their socks. The team was an odd assortment of boys—gangly, disheveled, and clumsy. They struggled to pay attention and sputtered through plays, questions, and practices. After three weeks of wrangling and repetition, the boys somehow learned a few plays. Those who caught on first helped those who were behind. They progressed, but slowly. They lost the first three games. It seemed the world was against them no matter how hard they tried.
But then a miracle happened. One play by the smallest player inspired them all. Josh, all four-foot-three-inches of him, dove on a loose ball. He and the ball bounced two feet into the air, but he hung on. It was a turnover, a turnabout of fate. Somehow, the smallest and most unlikely player had changed the course of the game. They didn’t win a championship that year, but they did win three games—that’s three more than anyone would have imagined.
Football was not their only victory that season. Matthew often stayed after practice to help the boys with their homework or just to talk. The boys looked to him as an older brother. They came to his house; they showed him their report cards; they shared with him their problems and their joys.
There is a scripture that asks, “Are we not all beggars?”1 Each of us is in need of something. When we bond together, regardless of whatever shortcomings we have—whether physical or spiritual—we become whole. Somehow what one lacks another provides. And since we are all lacking in some way, we all need to come together, to be “of one heart and of one soul.”2
Program #3866
1. Mosiah 4:19
2. Acts 4:32