Sports have always been a passion of mine, especially playing them. No matter how bad I might be at times, I will always have a good experience in some friendly competition. This led me to ride bench on the Junior High basketball team at Maple Ridge Elementary School. This led me to play rugby and football (Canadian football, same game, just three downs) for the St. Peter Catholic High School Knights. I even got to play one year of rugby at the University of Ottawa. After years of school and club sports, I knew it was time to hang up my cleats when I moved to Lacombe, Alberta, to continue my education at Burman University. I tried getting into flag football for the intramurals, but I ended up dropping my shoulder into someone coming to pull my flag; playing it just wasn’t for me.
It was at that moment, when I realized that competing physically was over for me, an opportunity to join the Burman University’s acrobatics team, the Acronaires, came up. It was completely out of my comfort zone. I had used physical make-up to collide with others for years and now I needed to be intentional to find balance and hold others up. I went from silliness to passion, constantly seeking growth in my new art.
When I felt like I was approaching my peak, something horrible happened. We were putting up a move that called for me to base six people. It sounds scary, but if done right, the weight transfers evenly to everyone who is part of the move. While we were practicing one night, two people did not set their weight in a synchronized manner, and all the weight shifted one direction and, as the base, my left knee caught all the weight as we all came tumbling down.
The pain in my knee lingered. It became difficult to put weight on my leg, to bend it, and sleeping became tedious, so I finally decided to go to a hospital. They sent me to radiology and the result showed I had a torn medial collateral ligament (MCL). They said I had to take a long break from acrobatics. I was devastated. I was thinking of all the ways I could push through and still practice and perform and then I began to think of all the ways that this injury could easily turn into a lifetime effect on my body if I did not rest.
The choice seems easy in retrospect, but in the moment I was completely torn. Torn because my value had been found in my contributions to the team. Torn because I didn’t know who I was without being on an athletic team. Torn because I had believed, my entire life, that it was only acceptable to be a bigger guy if I used my size for sports. I was scared of what my life would be and how people would see me if I was not involved in a sport.
I am thankful for the people who have surrounded me during hard times. When I was wrestling with what I would do going forward and I realized what I had to do to take of myself in the best way, a friend shared a few verses with me found in Matthew 6:30-34 in the Message Bible:
“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”
It was this text that gave me the resolve I needed while I was torn. I was reminded that my value is not based on what I do but who I am, and who I am is a child of God. That is who we all are. No matter what we do, no matter what we are good at or what people praise us for, we are first and foremost children and image-bearers of God. When we hold onto this truth, that is being spoken from Genesis to Revelation, we are able to face the changes that life throws at us a little easier.
It was not easy, but I was able to boldly walk into a season of rest and recovery. I was able to let go of how I believed people would see me. I was able to hold onto the way God cares for me and loves me without me having to do a thing. I don’t need to hold up intense moves to be loved by God. I don’t have to be a certain size to be loved by God. I just have to be. God is already loving me.
Benjamin Amoah is youth pastor at the La Sierra University Church. With summer approaching, Benjamin is looking forward to trying new recipes for his wife, Kalmani, to try.