Across the world right now a bomb drops, a mother hides her children, and civilians take up arms. There is fear and chaos and tragedy. We read about it in our morning paper, hear about it on our evening news, talk about it over lunch with our co-workers, questions and worries hovering around classrooms and offices.
But here in our world, the most beautiful and rare of everyday ordinary is still happening. The daffodils are blooming. Ingles finally got a pick-up option. Soccer practice started. And my hometown will bleed blue and silver this week as the Elbert County Lady Devils head to the 8-AA State Championship in women’s basketball for the first time since 1957.
This is a big deal. Maybe not to the national news or the bigger picture of our world today, but this incredible moment – earned by teenage girls on a basketball court in a tiny town – is one of many reminders that the world is not all pandemics and wars. It is not all fire and brimstone. It is sweat and glory and tears and fighting for what you want, what you believe in, and if today that something is a high school girls’ basketball team it will be enough. Because it is in celebrating the small moments that we learn to persevere through the hard ones.
While the Lady Devils are stomping the court, my family will be raising a toast. There’s a wedding this week. Fancy dresses and shoes not right for the weather. Vows and rings and promises made on a hilltop between my sister and a man who sat in the stands watching her cheer for a different set of Lady Devils over a decade ago. We always circled back to each other, they told me, as we wrote their ceremony outline.
Somehow, maybe, they always knew it was inevitable they would end up together, creating a new life. Planning for a future.
Because no matter what may happen in our world today or tomorrow, there are games to play and weddings to officiate. There are promises to keep and drinks to pour. There is happiness to celebrate. There is joy.
These are the small, mundane moments that make up a life. This wedding, this championship, these are not the biggest days of our lives. These are the beginnings of the next new thing. The next right thing. The next chapter in our story. These are the moments all strung together – like those twinkle lights around a porch – that make life worth living. Worth protecting.
It is for these moments civilian Ukrainian fathers put their children and wives on a train, lifted their first weapon, and turned to defend their homeland. We lay down our lives to protect the everyday ordinary we cherish. If we let only big moments define us, our lives would be filled with disappointment.
But look to the roadside. The daffodils bloom. Promises keep. And somewhere around the world, a mother believes, as long as there are children, there is hope.