Susan Chrostek

Sermon:
January 30, 2000
Laity Sunday

Scripture:
Psalm 19:1-14

Dave and I returned to Michigan three months after the birth of our first child. We lived on Cedar Street, within walking distance to the Birmingham YMCA. Shortly after the birth of our son (18 quick months later), the neighborhood (which was teaming with young families) provided cooperative child care, so I began working part-time at the YMCA as a gymnastics coach. It only required two nights a week and Saturday mornings. Dave covered a lot of the child care duties, which enabled me to coach. This experience would be invaluable for my future, both from the standpoint that I was supported in my activities by a great husband, and that working with children was something I was good at. It was fun figuring out how to relate to the kids in relevant ways and accomplish goals. When I became pregnant with our third child, Jill, a move became necessary and I stayed home, cooking, cleaning, diapering, laundering and practicing being a parent. Parenting is a difficult puzzle to piece together. It takes a lot of time, it never ends, and it always seems you are missing pieces. Dave and I worked together and found that our ability to develop relevant relationships with our children, our parents, our friends, our church and God would become the foundation upon which our lives are built. Keeping the relationships relevant sometimes is challenging as our children grow and our lives continually change.

Jill was two when I was approached about coaching the Seaholm gymnastics team. What an intriguing opportunity! I had three young children at home, and working provided me the opportunity to be out of the house every day from November through March. Again I worked within walking distance of my home so I could be easily reached if I was needed. I would be helping young women athletes do something I only dreamt of doing myself. (Title IX was passed the year I student taught and all the female coaches went on strike for equal pay. I did a lot of volunteer coaching.)

Coaching at Seaholm was the perfect balance to the days of preschool potty training and early elementary homework. The first year of coaching was similar to putting a puzzle together. Everything seemed to be difficult and there was no particular order to anything. When you begin a puzzle, the start is slow as you organize and sort the pieces. My brother was my meet assistant. He was a recent graduate from Seaholm and in college, but his support during that first season was invaluable. He knew nothing about gymnastics, but was the back-up I needed struggling to host my first meet. The girls on the team were fun! We worked hard together to learn enough tricks to complete routines and prepare enough routines to earn a team score. We learned about time management, conditioning, weight lifting, dance and boys.

It only took a season for me to discover that if girls were late to practice, it was because of boys. If they were distracted at meets, it was because of boys. Sometimes the boys wanted to hang around practice ... we closed the gym. Sometimes they peered in the windows ... we covered the windows. At meets, the boys could inspire a performance by whistling, but more often would devastate a competitor by holding up their own brutal score cards. The team developed a coach inspired mantra, "Boys are bad during the season."

For the next five years, the gymnasts trained harder and I expected more from them. I had a young family, was a role model for family values, and they watched me "mother." My kids frequently came to practice, and the meets were family affairs. Dave and other dads would help set-up the equipment, my children would run the scores to the judges, and my parents, sisters and brother all took turns coming. I was included in all the gymnasts' conversations and consulted on a regular basis about their social lives. I realized that falling off the balance beam was the least of their problems. In the seventh year of coaching, just as in some marriages, the job got much tougher.

The team didn't fit together. I had gone through many cycles of coaching and experienced mid-season lows, post-season highs, and seasons that peeked too soon. Despite my growing confidence as a coach, this team seemed uncoachable. I turned 40 that year; my oldest daughter was a freshman on the team, which meant she was now in high school. All the changes in my life and the conflicts on the team seemed to be colliding. I was scrambling to keep my dignity in front of my daughter who in many ways was one of them, but still my daughter. There is no easy way to coach your own child on any team; she was in the middle between incredible peer pressure and a parent. During my tenure coaching, the team faced abortion, broken relationships, alcoholic parents, stealing from the locker room, divorce; all the heavy issues of the day. The seventh season was no different and I remember spending much of it crying. I found comfort in a women's study group led by Dr. Ritter, who at that time was our new senior minister.

The Word and works of God started supporting my efforts. I was strengthened at church learning: "That the teachings of the Lord are perfect. They give new strength. The rules of the Lord can be trusted, they make plain people wise." (Psalm 19:7) I was praying for wisdom daily.

The two captains the team picked that year were popular and the envy of every girl on the team. I wanted these girls, seniors, to end their gymnastics careers having done their best. They would never get this opportunity again. They were not going to make a college team. Living on the "front line" with teenagers for eleven years teaches you they don't care about tomorrow, they don't recognize and often waste the opportunities of youth, and they challenge authority like it is their duty!

I looked for new ways to push, encourage, reward, and relate to them in relevant ways. This was the last opportunity they would ever have to go to regionals and lead their high school team. It was very important to me, probably because I didn't have the opportunity to participate on a high school athletic team, yet they never made it a priority. I think they resisted, possibly because I represented the rules and regulations they didn't get at home. They had cars and all the independence they wanted.

Over the years, when I called parents with concerns about their daughters, on more than one occasion I was informed that "cool" was more important than school. The captains in the seventh season challenged me because I was the only person placing limits on them, setting goals and expecting results. The harder I pushed, the more they slacked. Seniors in high school all seem to question the wisdom of putting in time practicing and studying because they view it as their last year to party. What are they thinking? The team talked openly about boys and parties. I heard it all, and it was scary. The boys and parties made them feel good and it was easy. I wanted them to feel good by accomplishing goals through hard work and discipline. That was hard. That seventh season, I never stopped challenging them and they never reached their potential. It was a season where mutual respect was developed but neither side would quit trying to fit their piece into the other's puzzle.

The team understood my position on drinking, drugs, sex, and tattoos ... they were unacceptable! They signed conduct contracts for the school and one for me. I was very good at talking openly about this stuff, and often they were shocked and surprised to find out how much I knew. Birmingham can be a very small town at times. I guess kids still don't think adults have eyes or ears. In the seventh season, the captains came back from mid-winter break with tattoos. I couldn't believe they would abuse the bodies they had worked to get in shape and permanently mark them. After they convinced me they weren't temporary tattoos, I had them cover up with Band-Aids for competition. Not only did I not approve, gymnastics is very subjective and to the judges it would just be another deduction.

I was disappointed in them. They were natural leaders who could have led a team, accomplished goals, competed with pride, and they laughed it off. Or where they laughing at me? The captains never matched the scores from the previous season, and wasted many of their chances to compete because they weren't prepared. They were among the most difficult girls to coach of my career. I sometimes wished they would quit, but I was glad they never did. I learned from them!

The youth of today are in a battle. They need positive role models and the Bible to discover how God's Word can make a big difference in their lives. "How the orders of the Lord are right; they make people happy. The commands of the Lord are pure; they light up the way. Respect for the Lord is good; it will last forever. The judgments of the Lord are true; they are completely right. They are worth more than gold, even the purest gold. They are sweeter than honey, even the finest honey. By them your servant is warned. Keeping them brings great reward." (Psalms 19:8-11)

The final chapter on these two captains has not yet been written. They never fail to visit me when they're in town. I got a Christmas card from both of them this year. Four years after they graduated from high school, the team had just completed a small section of my life's puzzle. Girls I had worked with at the YMCA as babies years before were now graduating from high school. I had received Coach of the Year honors and had many championships to be proud of. Out of the eleven years of coaching, Seaholm's gymnastics team was named as a National All-American Team eight times. I had two children in college and needed to be home with our one remaining child. I always wanted to leave at the pinnacle of my coaching career and I was there ... so I retired. Guess who applied for the job?

All grown up and out of college, these same two girls wanted the team. I couldn't have been happier. Turning the team over to former Seaholm gymnasts was a dream of mine. For them I hoped...a challenge of a lifetime. One of the young women has moved to California. The other one remains and is currently Seaholm's Varsity Gymnastics Coach.

You just never know how the Word and work of God will be used to complete a puzzle. I can't visualize a better picture or a greater reward. This young coach now faces the same challenges I did. Motivating gymnasts to find out who they are through hard work and through the accomplishment of goals, build their confidence and self-esteem.

Coaching taught me about life as a teenager and how to communicate in relevant ways. It would prepare me for teenagers in my own house which, at the time I began coaching, seemed so far away. The development and the importance of relevant relationships and respect was practiced in the gym right alongside kips, handsprings and double pirouettes.

My work career began with coaching and then was changed through a series of messages on my answering machine. The most interesting message was for the position of an adaptive physical education teacher with high school students of various special needs at Groves High School. I didn't have any previous experience in special education. I had just been teaching for two years in our church's preschool and had done some substituting for Birmingham Public Schools. The Director of Personnel told me my experience made me the perfect "fit" for the job. While I didn't know it at the time, that position became an integral piece of my career puzzle. Even though I didn't see the "big picture" at the time, I said "yes" anyway.

I do not always say yes to everything. So if there are people out there looking for a committee chair or an event coordinator, I can say "No." However, I did say yes to Cliff Bath when he called about and asked me to do this puzzling preaching assignment. With confidence, I will speak knowing the real entertainment of the day will be the Super Bowl game after the services have ended.

I am now teaching at the Birmingham Public School's Early Childhood Center. It is housed at the old Midvale Elementary School. I am teaching a class of 18 four year olds in the very same classroom I was in for fifth grade. We are providing full-day preschool educational opportunities for typical students as well as mainstreaming, reverse mainstreaming, and inclusion of special needs students. My experience at Groves now helps me fit the pieces of this new puzzle section together. In fact, every day there are 18 puzzles within a puzzle to figure out. During circle time alone, I have to teach the physical learners who have grabbed on to my legs, the auditory learners who are listening to the noise coming from the room next door and ask if the "music lady" is over there, the visual learners who remind me every other sentence they can't see, and the mobile learners who are crawling away or rolling on the floor. The children who are challenged learners may not be giving me any pieces to work with. They may sit silently, waiting for me to shape a piece that will fit into their puzzle and open a window of learning.

Our church demonstrates the same skill when fitting the pieces of our lives together. The church is built on many different kinds of relationships: church and children, children and parents, parents and grandparents, groups and members, committees and directors. Our church has the amazing ability to relate the Bible - the most relevant book for living there is - to all of us. Fitting the Bible, like an integral piece of a puzzle, into our daily living and into our relationships.

Preschool age children sing about the Word in our choirs. Elementary children learn from outstanding teachers and programming. The junior and senior high youth hear, see and feel the Word in youth group, service projects and retreats. Triads, Merry Mates, the singles ministries, Charlie's Angels, United Methodist Women ... you get the picture, living the Word by sharing it within the church walls and beyond. Each group has a unique and relevant way to connect us to the Word of God. Whether it is through Jell-O fights, choir camp, University of Life, or rafting down the Arkansas River in Colorado, the Word and work of God is present.

When Matt Hook asked me to teach the Parents of Confirmands, I was sure teaching adults was not a piece that would fit into my puzzle. Now, in the fourth year of teaching, it was exactly the right fit to begin a new section of my faith journey. Sometimes the Word and the work don't seem to fit together. But "the heavens tell the glory of God and the skies announce what his hands have made. Day after day they tell the story; night after night they tell it again. They have no speech or words; they have no voice to be heard. But their message goes out through all the world; their words go everywhere on earth." (Psalm 19:1-4)

If we use the Bible as our guide, we can begin to put our life's puzzle together. Building from this solid foundation, other pieces can be added to shape a section and help you see a more meaningful picture. In our church, we are continually encouraged to faithfully keep at it ... be persistent. Slowly the picture in our puzzle takes shape. The pieces of our lives become meaningful, related and relevant. When only a few pieces remain, the puzzle gets easier ... you can see exactly where they belong. The triumph of the final assembly makes the days, months and years of work worth it.

Our church has helped me put the border of my puzzle together. The relevant relationships within its walls have, piece by piece, person by person, helped me begin to understand the Bible and God. It has given meaning to my life.

In closing, if you are looking for the missing pieces to your life's puzzle, they could have fallen to the floor. But I believe they're in the Bible.