{"id":181,"date":"2012-05-03T10:08:25","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T15:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/decastro\/?p=181"},"modified":"2012-05-03T10:08:44","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T15:08:44","slug":"181","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/decastro\/2012\/05\/181\/","title":{"rendered":"RAIN AND SOCCER&#8230;and then God Speaks!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">RAIN AND SOCCER&#8230;.and then GOD speaks<\/span>! \u00a0Both my kids love soccer. \u00a0My husband was a baseball guy and I was all about basketball. \u00a0So when our daughter was strongly influenced at a young age by some teenagers we knew, toward soccer&#8230;we went with the flow. \u00a0In Oklahoma sometimes it was hot when she played, but overall&#8230;we really enjoyed it. \u00a0And then we moved to Chicago! \u00a0Soccer when it is above 50 is a special treat. \u00a0We invested in everything North face and have huddled through snow, rain and wind. \u00a0 On Tuesday I had a God moment. \u00a0We were watching all these kids playing in the cold rain. \u00a0It was windy, the rain was chilly, and the sky was gray. \u00a0Kelsey had a game that just couldn&#8217;t be rescheduled. \u00a0So the 22 girls on the field had to dig deep and play hard. \u00a0At the beginning these 13 year old girls were slowly adjusting to being warm and dry to soaked to the bone and cold. \u00a0Water started to pool a little on the turf and the play area was slick. \u00a0About 8 minutes into the game was when a difference occurred, a HUGE difference could be seen. \u00a0All of a sudden each individual player made a choice. \u00a0They chose to embrace the storm or to bow down to it. \u00a0One girl in particular huddled in her thin jacket shivering with teeth chatting&#8230;not running or moving; lets call her Sarah. \u00a0Another girl on the same team decided it was fun, an adventure, a challenge&#8230; and embracing the rain and wind with a smile on her face&#8230;she laughed, ran, passed, cut, and overall enjoyed herself; lets call her Mary. \u00a0Her joy was contagious as water from a pass would splash in a team mates face, to which both girls would laugh and charge after the ball again. \u00a0Pretty soon Mary had at least 4 players on her team and 2 on the other team embracing the challenge and laughing at the adversity. \u00a0Mary approached Sarah with laughter and tried to get her to participate. \u00a0&#8220;Run, it will keep you warmer&#8230;come on Sarah&#8230;it&#8217;s fun&#8221;. \u00a0Throughout the game many players subbed out due to lack of performance and many players played the entire game and came off the fields beaming.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">SO WHAT DID GOD SAY?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">IT IS UP TO YOU IF YOU CHOOSE TO HUDDLE UP AND BE MISERABLE IN THE STORM OR IF YOU EMBRACE THE CHALLENGE ? \u00a0KEEP RUNNING, KEEP LAUGHING, AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO JOIN YOU!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2012\/05\/Rain-and-soccer.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-182\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2012\/05\/Rain-and-soccer.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"295\" height=\"171\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/decastro?moderation_action=report_form&object_type=post&object_id=181&width=250&height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RAIN AND SOCCER&#8230;.and then GOD speaks! \u00a0Both my kids love soccer. \u00a0My husband was a baseball guy and I was all about basketball. \u00a0So when our daughter was strongly influenced at a young age by some teenagers we knew, toward soccer&#8230;we went with the flow. \u00a0In Oklahoma sometimes it was hot when she played, but &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/decastro\/2012\/05\/181\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>RAIN AND SOCCER...and then God Speaks! - Jen DeCastro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/decastro\/2012\/05\/181\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"RAIN AND SOCCER...and then God Speaks! 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