I Wish You Could See

I coach middle school and high school girls volleyball and I have for many years now. One of the things I tell my young charges is that when I watch them play I see two versions of them. I see the young, just learning the game player and the player that they can become. I tell them this so they know that when I am pushing them it isn't because I am mad at them or don't like them, it is because I see what they can become and I am trying to get them to the point. I am also a middle school and high school math teacher and I treat my students the same way. I see the people they can become and I push them as hard as I can in that direction. Some fight it and others flourish under it. This has really hit home in the last few years when I have had students that have faced issues that no teenager/pre-teen should ever have to face and are dealing with real world things that adults would crumble under. These struggles have manifested themselves in classroom struggles that allowed them to get overlooked and just passed along. I keep gently pushing and nudging them toward the future that I know they can have if they could just see themselves like I see them. I thought that was what I wanted to write about, but I was having trouble forming it into something "spiritual" as that is apparently what this space has come to be. I have had this title for months. I have had the parts you have already read for nearly as long, but I haven't had any idea what to do with it. The I realized that I am them. I am the person floundering and thinking that I will never get this. I will never be good at this. I will never be... fill in the blank. I keep saying those things ad God is looking at me saying, "I wish you could see you the way I see you. "When we look at ourselves we see the grimy, sinful person we are while God sees His child made in His image that was made for a purpose. He sees the purpose that we not only can, but will, fulfill. God is looking at you saying the same thing, "If you could only see..." When you feel God pushing outside of your comfort zone, it isn't because He is made at you, it is because He sees what you will be, not what you are.