Confidence

by Michele Boy | February 6, 2025

It is an icy, foggy winter morning, a far cry from the 82 degree sunny day we had just a couple of days ago. 
 While the weather in western Kansas can be baffling, I enjoy the variances. It makes every day exciting. What will happen next? I feel like that is the climate of the world we are in today. 
 The end of my daughter’s basketball season is here. She shed a few tears because she didn’t want it to end. But quickly we are on to the next exciting thing. How often do we do that? How often do we get excited about what’s around the corner? 
 Sometimes we have to grit our teeth in life. Sometimes the losses outweigh the wins. So when you get a chance to smile at the sun on a rare 82 degree day in winter, you take it!
  On Sunday night, I had an agitation of spirit. It clouded my thoughts, actions, and decisions. I am grateful that I have grown some to be able to acknowledge the world isn’t the problem, my spirit’s unrest is. 
I heard news of several people battling major surgeries, I had a few miscommunications in some relationships, and was overall uncomfortable with myself. 
 How do you handle it when the world is throwing what feels like darts at you? Do you hide and cower and try to dodge them? Or do you stand and put on some armor. 
A friend of mine was battling some ugliness coming at her. This bible verse came to mind. - “They will fight against you like an attacking army, but I will make you as secure as a fortified wall of bronze.”
It was easy to say because I wasn’t in the middle of her battle. But soon that unrest came at me in my own frustrations. 
It is the obstacles and challenges that build us up. It is the failing, the falling, the losing that teaches us lessons. 
While I wish each lesson in my life came with candy and ice cream, it does not. It comes with painful hard tests that I don’t always pass and don’t always win. 
While I may eventually learn the lesson, the scars that come with it prove I am not the smartest person in the room. Surely someone else learned this faster. 
My greatest regrets in life are the things I failed and walked away from. I can’t redo them. I can’t go back. I let others dictate my path.
 What about you? What do you do when your spirit is uncomfortable? When your confidence is low? 
  Where does your help come from? My immediate reaction was God you are the vine and I am the branches. Apart from you I can do nothing. 
  It was a reminder to me to stop, breathe, check in with Him, and start doing some positive work on myself and offer grace and kindness to others.
  Watching junior high basketball, I saw referees miss calls, I saw coaches get frustrated and parents too. It’s not perfect. Just like life. Sometimes we win sometimes we learn. 
  But if I stop and focus on what went well, what we learned, how grateful I am that people stepped up to coach and ref. That kids got on the court and played hard even when the score was against them, that makes me smile. 
 I have shared before one of my favorite Teddy Roosevelt quotes. I feel today that is important to share again. - "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
 So to all the athletes out there, you stepped in the ring, or on the court. To the scholars bowl contestants that buzzed in with the wrong answer, thank you all for trying. Don’t give up because of poor sportsmanship from spectators, a coach, or a bad call from a referee. Life will hand you a number of people who will try to dissuade you. If you walk away from every hard situation, then you miss out. Don’t let them win. 
 But don’t be afraid to hear correction either.   And again, thank someone, help someone, give yourself the respect of getting up and trying again tomorrow. Your confidence comes from your willingness to get knocked down and get back up again.