Encouragement

It is difficult to believe, but we are almost a quarter way through this 2016-7 season already!  AND… I think that it is time for a little encouragement!   While is hasn’t been quite the first quarter that we all would have dreamt about, I am encouraged with this Warriors team.  I recall other years when the first part of the season didn’t go all that terribly well, and yet things improved significantly as the season went on.  Personally, I like to be encouraged, for when I am I feel sharp mentally and emotionally.  There is a very good chance that you readers are not all that different that myself in this regard, in that we all fare much better when we are encouraged.  From my viewpoint, encouragement brings stability, confidence and determination to any group.

In our Warriors chapels, I really do try to encourage our players, to let them see a bigger picture and to leave our chapel times feeling that there is hope and expectation, both for them personally on and off the ice and also for the team as a whole.  A number of times I have used the verse found in John 16:33, where Jesus stated, “I have said these things that people might have peace, because in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.”

Such is the power of Encouragement!  Think about it, just how much better are we all able to handle our life challenges when we feel encouraged?  Now translate that same approach into the life of a young junior hockey player who is most likely living a long way from home.  It is amazing just how much better can they play when they are encouraged, confident and eager.  What a vast difference there is when this great and much celebrated Canadian  game of hockey is a played with joy, without heavy sighs, distractions and burdens associated with it.  I do understand that there are additional resident stresses involved when players leave their minor hockey days and enter junior hockey, but that is where encouragement comes in…. and that is where I want to be.

Thanks for reading my latest Chaplain’s Talk, and God bless you all!

With encouragement,

Chaplain Don