Joy Comes in the Morning

Week seven.

I'm not gonna sit here and pretend this part is fun, because it's not. The early weeks of this recovery had a kind of adrenaline to them — first steps, first bends, little wins you could actually see. Week seven is different. Week seven is slow. It's repetitive.

I've actually hit every range of motion goal I set out to hit, which I'm grateful for — but now it's just weight training. Rebuilding strength, rep after rep, with no finish line I can see yet. This is the boring part. And I've had to be honest with myself about how much that boredom has been messing with me.

But here's the thing about slow — it makes you pay attention. It humbled me in a way I didn't expect. It's given me perspective on things I used to just blow past because I was too busy being hectic and in-season and everywhere at once. I've had actual time to sit and reminisce on the last five years — everything I've experienced, everywhere it's taken me — and just feel grateful for it instead of already onto the next thing.

I've gotten a lot deeper into my devotions during this stretch. I read one daily, and right now I'm going through a book called All the Hard Things. It's a devotional built entirely around walking through hard seasons and trusting that God is with you in them — even when it doesn't feel like He's doing anything at all. Even when He's not visibly fixing it.

The book talks about how He can test you mentally, physically, emotionally, all at once, and still never actually leave you out to dry. That's been sitting with me a lot these past few weeks.

I miss soccer. I have such a long way to go, and some days that's a hard truth to sit with. But I actually believe this time is going to build my joy for the game back up in a way I couldn't have gotten any other way. I've been given this weird, unexpected gift of free time — time to try new things, to work on parts of my personality I never had space to work on before, to figure out capabilities I didn't know I had, and to pour into other people instead of just pouring into training.

One of the biggest things this season has taught me is how much it matters to actually be around the people who've been there since before any of this — before the accolades, before the games got bigger, before any of it. I've gotten to spend real, quality time with family and the people who've supported me through my whole career, and it's done something for me mentally that rehab alone never could. Getting to give back to them, even in small ways, has meant more to me than I expected.

If I could tell you one thing from this season, it'd be this: protect your inner circle, and be intentional about who's in it. Pray about the people around you. Pray about what's actually serving you and what isn't. Recovery isn't just physical — honestly, the mental and emotional side of it might be the harder battle — and so much of how well you handle that comes down to the environment you've built around yourself. Who's speaking into your life. Who saw you when you had nothing and stuck around anyway.

I read a verse recently that's become kind of the anchor for this whole season: joy comes in the morning.

Some days rehab doesn't go the way I want it to. Some days I'm frustrated, or sore, or just tired of waiting on my own body. And on those days, that verse is what I come back to. Today didn't go how I wanted it to — okay. Joy comes in the morning. Tomorrow's a new day.

That's kind of become the whole basis of this blog, honestly. Not that every day is going to be good, because it's not. But that joy is coming, even when today doesn't feel like it. Even in the boring part. Even in week seven.

See you in two weeks.