“We have troubles all around us, but we are not defeated....

We often don’t know what to do, but we don’t give up."

― St. Paul the Apostle

Life is tough sometimes. Sometimes the unexpected happens and it feels as if the earth has fallen from beneath our feet. When those “take your breath away moments” happen, they can be scary, anxiety-ridden and perplexing.They can cause us to call everything into question.

The “what if” has come to pass. What if all of the other “what ifs” come to pass? Then what?

I have had to face this question recently and my response to myself has been: we keep going.

Please understand that I do not mean to imply that what it will take to keep going will be easy or pretty or comfortable. It almost assuredly will not.

What I do mean to say is that while we give all respect to the gravity of the difficult moment in which we find ourselves, we must soldier on. Those moments, no matter how gritty, ugly, hard and gut-wrenching they may be, do not exist in vain. They do not exist to wreck us emotionally and leave us eternally in ruins.

They will pass, and we will be better.

The real tragedy would be if we refused to let our hardest moments make us stronger, wiser and more resilient.

If we make it through to the other side of the seemingly insurmountable trials that we thought we couldn't, imagine what else we can do.

World Changer of the Month — December 2022: Briana Scurry

Briana Scurry was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Ernest and Robbie Scurry. She was the youngest of nine children born into the working class family. She started playing sports at age 10 and started soccer at 12. When she joined the soccer team, her coach put her in the position of goalkeeper to “protect” her. She was the only African-American and the only girl on the team.

Scurry played soccer competitively throughout high school and was recruited by over 70 colleges, but eventually accepted a full scholarship to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she continued to dominate in soccer and other sports. In 1993, while she was still in college, the U.S. women’s national team coach recruited Scurry to play goalkeeper for the team.

Scurry was a goalkeeper for the United States women’s national soccer team for most of the years between 1994–2008, earning a record 173 caps for the United States. She started in all 159 of the games played during her time on the team and finished her international career with a record of 133–12–14. She also earned 71 shutouts. Scurry was the starting goalkeeper for the United States women’s national soccer team at the 1995 World Cup (3rd place), 1996 Summer Olympics (gold medal), 1999 World Cup (champions), 2003 World Cup (3rd place), and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games (gold medal). She played in the semi-final and playoff for third place in the 2007 Women's World Cup (3rd place).

“Cherish every moment because soon all moments turn into memories.”

― Zac Ochsenbine

I admit it. I am goal-oriented. I am ever-working toward achievement. I am focused sometimes to a fault. I am in good company as many people who are successful in rigorous environments are wired this way. And while it serves us well to be task-oriented, we must be intentional about not missing the moments in life that happen in between the big accomplishments.

The other day, one of my daughters asked me to help her with an art project. At the moment she asked me, I was feeling extremely overwhelmed. My “to do” list runneth over. I had some research I needed to do for work. I had an upcoming speaking engagement for which I still had not gathered my thoughts. I had two parent board meetings for my daughters’ respective schools for which I needed to prepare. I was behind in my team manager duties for my younger two daughters’ soccer teams. And I still wanted to get a workout in that day. I had too much going on. I didn’t have time to color.

As I fixed my mouth to say, “No,” something gave me pause: her face. Her expectant, hopeful face made me stop and think. I had prayed for motherhood and the prayer had been answered; and unlike many of my accomplishments, this blessing was not a box to be checked. Parenting was not a task that was accomplished once and for all at one finite moment in time. It was an ongoing, moment to moment, day by day endeavor.

Yes, my “to do” list was important, but my daughter was more important. I decided to focus on the opportunity that I had in that moment: to put the “to do” list on pause and turn my attention to my young daughter who would be overjoyed to spend an hour on a Saturday coloring with her mommy.

As I told my daughter that I would indeed color with her, a feeling of peace came over me. I knew I was making the right choice. I was choosing to enjoy life with my daughter. This was a precious, sweet moment in her childhood that we would both remember.

Life is precious and it is short. It is imperative that we do not forget to embrace each of life’s moments as we strive toward our goals.

I don’t want to look back on my life and feel like I missed a moment of it.