Picked up kids from soccer. Grace and James jumped in the car and started clambering for a sonic drink. I had a gift card so off we went. Soon as they had that settled James says, "Hey mom, Grace totally racked me in soccer practice."
Grace, "It was an accident."
James, "Was Not"
Grace, "Was Too"
James, "Was Not."
Grace, "Was Too"
This went on for several minutes before I regained control of the situation and heard the whole story. It seems that Grace and James were both running after a stray soccer ball. Grace beat James to the ball and kicked it towards him. About that time he realized she had the ball and turned away to run back toward the goal. Grace realized the ball was going to hit him and yelled, "James" thinking he would duck. Instead, he turned and the ball hit him full force.
He said he crawled around on the field crying like a girl for about 5 minutes, and he was still walking kind-a funny when I picked him up from practice.
I had to laugh...what a practice....your little sister outruns you and racks you all in one night. Gotta stink.
But then it made me think about the difference in perspective. From Grace's perspective it was accidental. But James was convinced that Grace had run after the ball with the intent to kick it at him and cause injury. I think he finally realized it was not on purpose, but there was lots of yelling before he calmed down.
I've had relationships like that. Where I've gotten hurt or I've hurt someone else really bad. Maybe it was completely unintentional, but sometimes it's hard to believe that it was not on purpose. Seeing the kids yelling at each other made me stop and think through how much easier relationships would be if we could just give each other the benefit of the doubt. If we could just believe the best about each other and be willing to repair the relationship.
So the whole event made me laugh, but it also made me think a little harder about some relationships that I've had problems with over the years.
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