Dreams Often Survive Challenging Circumstances

​We sat there, side by side, and watched him kick the ball. The ball initially headed right - (insert panic) - then curved back in and soared through the two uprights.

Without even a look at one another we clapped one single boisterous clap. A shared sigh of relief that felt a lot like celebration. Our claps were so synchronized it was as if we'd been practicing that clap for 18 years.

In my dreams, I supposed we had been.

When you find out you're going to have a baby boy, your wildest dreams do indeed go to places like sitting together one day, watching Notre Dame play in one of the biggest football games of your lifetime, that baby boy beside you, now grown into a teen who loves your team as much as you do.

It is actually no longer your team but OUR team.

You imagine that last second kick to win the game, sending your beloved Fighting Irish to the National Championship game.

You imagine that late night moment, much later than any other moment you would even consider staying up past midnight for, as magic.

As pure joy.

What you don't imagine is you'll be watching it in a small one bedroom apartment.

What you don't imagine is that you're teen son will be visiting you and not living with you.

What you don't imagine is how much love will fall apart in your life on the way to building this shared love for a team.

And as that ball sails through the uprights, as the crowd roars and the players celebrate, as your shared clap echoes through your tiny home, you realize that dreams come true don't really care about the circumstances you experienced along the way.

Dreams come true are going to deliver the joy they were always dreamed to deliver. Turns out our dreams can survive challenging circumstances.

Some may read this and think, wow, that's a bit much for a simple college football game.

Maybe.

But that moment, that shared clap, it had as much to do with healing as it had to do with a football game.

Maybe God allows us to have dreams over our babies that he knows will one day come true at just the right time. A reminder that we have a lot more victories in front of us no matter how heavy the losses might feel behind us.

Some folks say it's just sports.

I get that, but it usually never is.