Wrestle Mania…sort of

So my oldest starting wrestling this year and, when we went to the first tournament, I was a little bit bummed when it didn’t look like this…

I still had a great time, it just wasn’t what I expected…

And the ring wasn’t the only thing that wasn’t what I expected.  I am still a little shocked at how emotional the sport is.  I felt like I was in a Folgers commercial or something with the amount of tears that were flowing.  I wasn’t sure if I should hug the boys, hand them tissues, or pretend like I didn’t notice half of them angry-crying after their matches.  I choose the later, mostly because I didn’t have tissues and some of them looked kind of sweaty…I’m a fair weather hugger.

Even though I had been watching all of this, I personally wasn’t emotionally prepared to watch my baby boy get thrown around the mat.  And thrown around he was.  On his last match he wrestled a pretty good kid who basically manhandled him for 3 minutes, while Nate’s coaches and his incredibly supportive mom, cheered him on from the sideline.

I will never forget the moment when my son, my sweet, innocent child, looked up at me, agony in his eyes, while his opponent was smashing his face into the ground.  Nate stared at me, almost in disbelief that I was allowing this to happen.  I will always remember, as his face was turning a deep shade of fuchsia, him panicking and saying, “Mom, I can’t breath, I can’t breath!”  And me, lovingly, encouraging him, “you’re doing a great job, keep going!”  Move over ladies, Mom of the Year coming through.

Which of course meant I had to turn this into a blog post.  So I thought that maybe how I felt watching Nate lose was similar to how God felt watching Jesus being crucified.  As soon as that thought came into my head, I immediately thought of the below image.

Okay, so maybe not the same thing.

Then it hit me, and this gives me the perfect opportunity to take a slight detour and clear up a scripture that is misquoted in my presence at least once a week.

Grab ye old Authorized King James version of the bible and read the scripture Philippians 4:13, I’ll wait….

For those of you that may not have access to that version it says, I can do all things through Christ WHICH strengthens me.

It’s WHICH, which, which, which, which, which, which, which…NOT WHO!!!!

I know what you’re thinking, okay crazy lady, what’s the difference; which, who, same thing.

Oh, I’ll tell the difference (read in sassy, diva voice)!

Here’s why it matters, if the scripture read ‘who’ (WHICH it doesn’t), then if you were to fail (and trust me, it happens from time to time), who’s at fault?  Well, if the word is ‘who’, the logical person that would be at fault would be the one that provides the strength.  So if Christ provides the strength, when you fail, it would have to be because Christ didn’t provide you with enough strength, the right type of strength, or maybe He didn’t give it to you at the right time…  The point is, using ‘who’ puts the fault solely in Christ’s court in regards to the outcome.

Look I don’t know about you, but my God NEVER FAILS!

When we use the word ‘which’ the meaning completely changes.  This time, that scripture says that REGARDLESS of the outcome, regardless of the results, if you do it through Christ, you will be strengthened.  You will grow, you will learn from it.  Now doesn’t that make more sense?  Isn’t that more in line with all the scriptures.  We know that God can take any circumstance and turn it to His good.  We also know that God knows the plans that He has for us, plans to prosper us.  And the scriptures are very clear that God never fails.

Look, Nate failed that match, he lost, big time.  But he did gain strength.  He did learn, he did grow.  And that’s the point.  If Nate looked at the results of that one match and saw those results, he could very easily get discouraged and just give up.  But he didn’t let those results define him, and that’s what we have to do too.  Looking solely at the results can keep us from what God really wants us to do, and that’s to grow in a greater and more meaningful walk with Him.  Sometimes though, the growing part requires failing, sometimes we need to fail in order to learn.

And let’s not forget, God is on our sideline, He’s on the mat with us, cheering us on.  As we’re rolling, wrestling with our issues, God is telling us,

Keep Going, don’t give up!

You’re doing a great job!

…and, my personal favorite,

I am so very proud of you.

So the next time you hear that scripture misquoted, I hope you correct them or that you at least remember the true meaning of that scripture.  But, if you learn nothing else from this blog post, remember to always bring tissues to a wrestling match…