But we are not single parents. Because tonight, even it’s really late, even if I'm already in bed and my eyes are already closed, at some point my husband will slide into bed and inch his body near; I'll feel his fingers slip into mine. And I'll sleep a little deeper knowing he's home.
If you are a coach's wife and this is your first time heading to this testosterone festival, here's a behind-the-scenes guide of what to expect.
Give it time. You are going to fall more and more in love with this life than you ever knew was possible.
We know coaches are a tough crowd this time of year. So to lighten your load, we thought we'd do the heavy lifting for you. We asked over 150 wives in the FNW Facebook group which Christmas gifts their coaches loved most and compiled a list of our 10 favorites to help you out this holiday season.
This is part of marriage. It’s not as if one of you is choosing to only be 20% or 50% or whatever percent. The percentage may be dictated by what’s going on with your job, with your children, or with your family.
My husband began his career as a large high school’s Athletic Trainer and now serves as a middle school Athletic Coordinator. The high school in his cluster has many responsibilities given to their middle school coaches, including scouting trips, sideline responsibilities, game filming and more. This year has been particularly challenging as the district opted …
I have loved him through the perfect, undefeated, state championship seasons, the heartbreak of great competitive losses, and the fickleness of high school athletics. After years of learning how to accept that he’s perfectly alright with doing NOTHING for literally H O U R S at a time except watching game after game, he began more than one morning of this holiday break with something like, “Babe, which of your projects would you like me to help you with today?”
My coach and I have a list of things we would love to be gifted when these holidays sneak up on us. So here is what you're really after: WHAT’S ON HIS LIST?
I hate this feeling of distance, like you're holding me at arms length, even if it's just to protect me. Protect me from issues at work. Protect me from hard stories. Protect me from the anxieties racing through your head.
This thought continued to nag me. Why do I care? Because he doesn’t care. He finds it completely wasteful. He doesn’t need anything, and neither do I. So why do I want one?? Am I really that worldly?
But maybe it’s not about the gift,. Maybe it’s more about what the gift represents.
Thank you for understanding it takes time to get all this. The schedule, the time away from home, modifying our parenting, social lives, hopes and dreams and everything in between—there were many lessons and routines that weren’t easy to come by.
Suddenly, I have a teammate. And this teammate wants a say in things. (The nerve.) I buck against this relinquishing of control every single year. I hold it close to my chest, tight-fisted, wondering why you don't trust me, why you don't respect me, thinking, "Don't you REALIZE I'm fully capable of doing this on my own? Don't you REALIZE I've been doing it on my own for months?"
There will be times that you may not fully understand my struggles. There will be times when the crazy feels too overwhelming. There will be times when you may not show us your love as well as I’d hoped, and vice versa. There will be times when you may feel like you aren’t giving your all. But the beauty of this is that good teammates don’t ever give up on each other.
What I do know is there will be many more days filled with tears as we drive away from the field. There will be many more missed moments and milestones that have to be sent to our coach via video. And there will be more days where 40 minutes is all we can get.
But there will be many more highs too.
Today is my husband’s first day of football camp, and I cannot help but get so excited thinking about this upcoming season. It is so easy for us to get wrapped up in the excitement of the beginning of the season, as we anxiously await the first game day. However, as coaches’ wives, we know …
But Coach, it’s important to remember that while she CAN independently handle the flat tires, collapsed pipes, and mice even when they happen all in the same week, the more she handles alone, the more she can begin to feel isolated.
So I will take the hard because it means we haven’t given up; we’re still in the fight, still hanging on. It’s what gives us depth and makes the good times feel so good, the peaks feel so dang high. I’ll take it because I know whatever follows it will be worth it.
Because you, my love, will always be so worth it.
God can turn The Hard into grace, compassion, empathy, understanding. He can use it to sand away our sharp edges and turn the ugly parts, the broken parts, the crusty, calloused parts of our hearts and make them smooth again, not necessarily new, but better -- hearts that more closely resemble His own.
This love is not always exciting. It’s not always easy. It’s not always eager.
It’s never effortless.
But maybe focusing on what it isn’t, is missing the point. Because maybe what it IS, is better than all of those things.
It’s refining. It’s sanctifying. It’s life-altering and soul-saving. It’s sacrificing and persevering.
It’s holy.
He knew many wouldn't understand the importance of his world, that this life was so much more than blowing whistles and running sprints and charting plays, so much more than a game. He knew he would need someone who got it, who understood that this was a mission field, plain and simple.
So God made a coach's wife.
