Anyone Can Win

“That should be your next Brushstroke,” my wife said after I sat trying to make sense of what had just happened. A team that shouldn’t have won, did. Despite all the odds, the hours of commentary before the game, they somehow pulled it off and returned to the locker room victors. I sat in my chair shaking my head. “Anyone can win,” was all I could say.

That’s going to be my spiritual mantra for awhile. Reminding myself that anyone can win somehow changes my outlook. A life based on the commentary that surrounds me, living by the odds, constricts my soul. More important, it constricts God. 

I’m not sure how all this God thing works, how God is involved in the world. I’m not sure God cares much about the outcome of a game, but I do believe God cares a lot about each player and coach, just as God cares about each banker and janitor, each homemaker and homeless soul. I believe in God’s very soul (If God has a soul. It sounds redundant.) is the belief that anyone can win. Defying the odds seems to be what God does best. Proving pundits wrong must make God smile.

Give God a murderer, and watch him burn bushes. Give God someone who thinks her time is all but over, and watch a child be born. Give God a broken-hearted husband, and watch God create a prophet. Give God a bunch of frustrated fishermen and watch the nets overflow.

The next time I hold back because someone says it won’t work, the next time I beat myself up for trying and failing, I hope I remember what I said last night. Anyone can win. All things are possible. Just remembering that causes me to take a deep breath and smile before walking out the door to begin another game, oops, I mean day.