Lessons of gratitude

After some prodding from my dear friend Kristin and an interesting experience today, I decided to update my blog once again:
Every once in a while Heavenly Father decides to step in and humble me in life and make me realize the immense blessings I have. I have had the great opportunity this year to play for the women's soccer team here at BYU Hawaii. Playing college soccer has always been my dream. I never thought I would have the opportunity to do it and yet here I am, out playing soccer with an awesome team and coach. I love it! I've never hard to work as hard in my life as I do now. As with most hard things in life, it gets exhausting. I found myself beginning to dread the daily 2-3 hour practices. I would complain and moan and roll around on the floor just to show my disgust. I knew once I got there I would enjoy it and I always felt so great after the hard workout. Well today was no different. I found myself hesitant to go to practice. I show up to practice and as I began warming up my coach comes up to me and says Dawn (the NCAA regulations lady) called her today and told her I wasn't eligible to play.. WHAT? She was working things out but said I might not be able to play in tomorrow's games. .. I was devastated! I couldn't believe that after all this time I suddenly wasn't eligible. I couldn't help but think that I would suddenly be kicked off the team. Today was my last practice with the girls.. so long dream... goodbye soccer.. I realized just how distraught I became at the thought of no longer being able to play whereas just minutes earlier I was griping because I had to practice. I could picture myself bidding the team farewell..Well throughout practice I wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to have the most fun and work my hardest.. after all this was my last practice with the team! Well as it turns out there was no problem with the eligibility. Dawn called back and said I was fine. Relief swept over me. I was safe. I could still play!! Boy what a lesson I learned though! I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to play college soccer. Playing soccer at this level is a whole new experience and I realize I need to embrace EVERY moment of it! I'm so grateful to have a strong, healthy body so I can play and live my dream. I'm also so so so grateful for the little lessons in life that teach me to be humble and grateful. Heavenly Father gives me so many blessings and He is my everything!