My father was a professional athlete, and then became a university professor in sports medicine. I was raised with sports, lived and breathed it. I loved track and field, but I was made to golf and play competitive badminton, instead of following my heart and abilities. I became very disinterested in sports once I hit my late teens, took up dance, instead.
My husband, although athletic, and skied competitively, was not a sports fan either, we did well without it. I was still very active, but it was not the most important thing in my life, Jesus was from the day he saved me.
Along come the middle children, and our lives became devoted to hockey. No one practiced on Sunday mornings, in those days, so they were always in church, but missed some evening services. Most churches don't have those now. My husband got very legalistic about missing week night services, which was absurd. It made me fight to keep them in hockey even more. Plus, they were very gifted, so they skated year round. They also swam, played baseball and were in soccer a few years, till there were too many activities and I made them choose. They were good at team sports like volleyball and basketball and played on school teams.
My daughter was put in hockey, but she preferred pink dresses and figure skating. She competed up to provincial levels. But with her, we had more freedom to choose her ice times, making it easier. The boys went on to the WHL - major junior. One took his 5 year WHL scholarship and went to university and became a CA with his own consulting company. The other son went pro for 10 years. He's a hockey coach now. My daughter coached her way through university, after getting all the top levels in each branch of skating. The oldest son is a marathoner. Don't tell him it is not a competitive sport. He trains year round, and then flies to marathons around North America.
But, how did this affect our children's spiritual life? They picked up the basics in ethics, and are all honest, decent human beings. They all made commitments to Christ growing up, but none have followed through. I think they learned a lot of good things in sports. Perseverance, hard work, self discipline and team work. But, serving God is low on all their priority lists. I don't think keeping them out of hockey would have helped their spiritual growth, either. I think they just would have become resentful at us, and probably God. The world did influence them, despite our rules about Sunday morning services and daily family devotions.
As for my dad, who thought he was a good person, someone in sports told him that being a "good" person didn't save you. So, he became a humanist. My grandmother prayed for him to be saved, till her death in 1981. I got saved in 1980, and started praying for him. He got congestive heart failure, and in 2011 God opened his heart and saved him 5 months before he died. He told me, "Why didn't I know all my life that God was the most important thing? Why did I think money and sports were so important?" Why indeed!
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