Basketball Charity

"The reason charity never fails and the reason charity is greater than even the most significant acts of goodness he cited is that charity, “the pure love of Christ” (Moro. 7:47), is not an act but a condition or state of being. Charity is attained through a succession of acts that result in a conversion. Charity is something one becomes."

-Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

I have actually been thinking about this post for a long time. I shared a lesson about charity when I went visiting teaching and that got my mind rolling and thinking about all of charitable acts others have done for me. So, these are not in any specific order but just some stories of things others have done for me that have really touched my heart and have stuck with me over the years/months/days. I have labeled the stories just so you know where one ends and the other begins... As it turns out, I think there are too many for one post, so I will just post one at at time and you can look forward to future heart-warming stories.

Basketball
In high school I played basketball. My senior season started out great and I thought I was going to be a big shot. Then, the tables turned. I started have bad game after bad game. I was really down about this. It seemed that no matter how much I pushed myself or tried to do better, I would only stress myself out more and have another terrible game with lots of turn overs and missed shots. To be honest, at the time it was devastating to me. I remember after one game I just cried me eyes out the entire bus ride home. Thankfully it was dark so no one else saw how pathetic I was.

Before one away game against a team who creamed us on our home court we all headed to the locker room to get changed for the game. It was kind of a foreboding feeling, as we all trudged out of the gym. Especially for me... because that one little red-headed girl was going to make me look bad again... and she was like the tiniest thing you have ever seen on the court.

As we were putting on our uniforms and fixing our hair (very necessary for girls, or else you end up eating fly-aways all night) I pulled my shoe out of my bag and started to put it on. I felt something in my shoe and investigated to find a note. Written in my little brother's scrawl was something like this.

"Dear Sadie, you are the best sister ever and I just wanted to let you know that I look up to you a lot. Good luck tonight. Love, Brett"

Well, I usually tried to hold my tears until after the games when I knew for sure it didn't go well, but Brettski's letter was an exception. It was just what I needed that night. It felt so good to know that even if I wasn't an amazing basketball star that my little brother looked up to me.

The game didn't go well. I got pulled after making all kinds of mistakes. But looking back, it really didn't matter.