If you’ve ever had your kid struggle with something you just couldn’t give them a solution for, you’ll be right there with me on this post. It’s a long story, but I’ll try my best to keep it short. Awhile ago, Nina wanted to do dance with acrobatic moves. We didn’t really know what it was called or how to get into it, but she saw dancers doing acrobatic moves in a performance and was captivated - it was what she wanted to do. She has rhythm and can dance, but it was the acrobatic moves that she needed help with. I can barely cartwheel, and I never took a dance or gymnastics class in my life, so we just did our best to try to figure out where to start. We thought that getting her some tumbling classes would be a good start, and from there she could learn some of the tricky moves that she could apply to dance.
We enrolled her in a class, and her athleticism shined through. She did everything well, but once it came time to do a back handspring, she encountered a roadblock. Without the safety net of a spotter, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. We thought she was getting to the point of doing it on her own last spring, so we tried a different class, all looked super positive, then she broke her ankle in June (in a non-tumbling related accident) and spent the entire summer in a cast. She wanted to get back into tumbling by the fall, and since we were told by her orthopedic that it was ok, we let her start again. She worked back to the point she was at before the broken ankle but again battled the mental issue of the back handspring. She had all the tools physically, but she lacked the confidence to do it without a spotter standing nearby (even if the spotter never helped her or touched her while she did the handspring).
Several weeks ago, she finally did her roundoff back handspring without a spotter. She was beyond excited, her coach was thrilled, and we were so happy for her. She felt great, felt proud of herself, and we were just happy that she finally conquered this big mental obstacle, and we thought it was all behind her. Unfortunately it wasn’t. After doing her roundoff backhandsprings with no spotter for a week, she suddenly had another mental block and was unable to do them. It was almost worse because she had been doing them then just stopped for a reason she couldn’t explain or fix despite the fact that she desperately wanted to do this trick. We had countless conversations of encouragement, but she felt upset and disappointed, and to make matters worse, this all happened just a few weeks before she was set to try out for a team she wanted to be on.
The few weeks that followed were very frustrating for her. She just couldn’t win this mental battle seemingly no matter how hard she tried, but to her credit she never gave up. Even on one particularly hard day when she was in tears and feeling like she was ready to quit, she had a good cry about it, laced up her tumble shoes and went back to working through it. It didn’t come easy. Everything to this point HAS come easy to Nina. She’s a great student, she’s athletic, and she makes friends and gets along with people easily. And while she had all the physical tools/skills she needed to do her roundoff backhandspring, she couldn’t conquer it mentally.
The try out for the team was Saturday afternoon, and at her last practice opportunity the day before the try out, she did her roundoff backhandsprings without a spotter. It was a great confidence booster going into the tryout, but based on how things went before, we were very uncertain about what would happen at the try out. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if she didn’t care about it so much, but this was something she really wanted and she had worked hard to get to this point.
The only things we really could do for her were encourage her to just do her best and pray for her. I know that God cares about Nina, and my prayer wasn’t so much about her being able to do a certain tumble move, but my prayer was that she wouldn’t let fear hold her back from doing something in life that she really cared about, and in turn, cause her to live with a feeling or regret. So, we prayed for her, but my family also prayed for her. They were in her corner just as much as Mark and I were. They prayed for her confidence leading up to Saturday, and they also stopped during their busy day on Saturday and took the time to pray for her during her specific tryout time slot (as did we).
She ended up doing fabulously on her tryout. Parents weren’t even allowed in the building, so I had to sit and wait in the car for about 30 minutes - just wondering how it was going, but when she emerged from the building with a huge smile on her face, I knew God had given her the confidence to do her best. She did all the moves that the judges asked her to do, and she roundoff back handspringed with confidence!
So, after the tryout we thanked the Lord and headed off to Sweet Frog where she got the biggest ice cream she wanted. Later that day, Lyla just happened to get invited to sleep over at the house of some good friends of ours, so we had just Nina that evening. We didn’t know if she made the team she wanted or not at this point, but we went out to celebrate. Her goal was making a certain team, but that’s not the goal we cared about most. We wanted to go celebrate her hard work, her perserverance, her trust in the Lord, and the power of prayer - regardless of what team she made. If she didn’t make the team she wanted, then it wasn’t meant to be, but at least she could walk away with the confidence that she didn’t let fear stop her from going for something she really wanted.
We found out last night that she did make the team she wanted. She’s thrilled, and we’re happy for her, but more importantly, we were so thankful that the Lord cared enough to reach down and boost a little girl’s confidence at just the right time so she could see the power of prayer, love from family, and the reward of determination and hard work!
