A LETTER TO THE WILMINGTON HOUNDS...

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Dear Members of the Wilmington Hounds Football Team:

You are used to hard work outs.

On any given practice you might do sprints and scrimmages, calf-raises and calisthenics, you'll work on your squats and your bench presses, you'll run drills and practice plays. You'll run the cones, you will work on your core strength. All this to develop your explosive power, your deep strength, your agility and quickness on the field, your speed and balance, your knowledge of the game.

You will work out until you are drenched, until you can't run another step or flex another muscle. Through wind, rain, snow and cold you will walk out onto that field to get better at the game. It is an odd love for that game - so much anguish through practice, so much satisfaction in those moments of flow when all the practice pulses through body and mind to explode with power and strange grace out there on the field.

You are used to hard work outs. And guys, we respect you for the blood, sweat, tears - and dare I say, faith - you offer the game.

Last year you were the underdogs. You worked out knowing that the odds were against you. You worked out with prayers for a deployed Army man knowing that there are goals that go beyond wins, but there are goals that inspire heart, flesh, soul. And somehow the combination of all that practice and prayer paid off on the field and you came home state championships. That nights when the sirens blared through town at midnight we all knew, for once, it was great news. We all ran to the high school to welcome you home. (Let's not mention the work-out that was for us who are more used to sitting in the stands then entering the weight room.) The auditorium was alive with the energy you have worked out so hard to accomplish. We celebrated every move you made.

This week you are faced with one of the hardest work-outs you will ever face.

As you grieve the loss of friend and teammate Clint DeRosa, the work-out you now face is the path of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression to some strange path of accepting this hardest of losses.

And, you will try to work out the hardest of questions:

- Why did Clint lose his life at such a young age?
- Why do bad things happen to good people?
- Why so much for one family to deal with in a lifetime?
- Why didn't I tell him I was sorry?
- Why didn't I call him the last time he was on my mind?
- Why did my best friend have to die?

When you work out on the field or in the bench room, there is always an end in sight - a goal, a win, a congruency in the way the team works together to accomplish its mission, a synchronicity when combined discipline, muscle and practice find a flow out there on the field.

As much as we want these questions to have an end result, the 'why' questions always leave us wanting, wondering and waiting.

I'd encourage you in the days to come to set the 'whys' aside and to consider the 'who'. Who is the person before you is aching? Who is the person to your right who needs a word of encouragement? Who is the person in my life I could do a little better job loving? Who is the person I need to work out a conflict with before it is too late?

This is the work-out you have before you in the weeks to come - seeing WHO you might just be an answer to their hardest of questions just by being loyal and steadfast. For you see, whys just leave you dangling with all those questions below the surface. The who, just like that circle it ends with, opens up a relationship - and creates a circle of support.

As many times as you will run those mental circles of questions through your heads, as many times as you will flex those heart muscles flinching with grief and sadness, as many times as you will sweat the hard circumstances that you are called to - NONE of those work outs will answer the deepest questions.

If a question mark formed the shape of your work-out, you would run a long slow curve that bends to the right. That path will lead you to that final point - the place where you must stand strong and steadfast and look around you. At that point, there is no place to turn. Instead, of the why you will see the who. For those of Christian faith, that who is Jesus Christ who comforts our every grief and knows the deepest of human suffering. Through him we can see the one in our midst - the very who - who needs comfort, encouragement, prayer, support.

For us here in New Wilmington, this isn't the ending we wanted to work out for the inspiring team that you are.

We love you, respect you, cheer countless games for you. We know you have a discipline and steadfastness of spirit that would give any one of us a challenge to attempt ourselves. We respect your coaches for the hours they put in. We value the leadership you offer the younger kids in our town who look up to you as heroes.

While we have one less hero, here with us now, we know that all things work out for those who love and serve God. In no way does that mean God intended this death to happen as a part of God's plan. But by God's good grace may we learn from Clint's life and death a secret to how we might work out the hard parts of our life - through conflict, grief, fear, estrangement, in whatever circumstance we face.

Today may you work out the secret of turning your whys to the who:

Who Clint was, inspired us all.
Who you are, will be changed by this great loss.
Who is the person you need to face today -
to reconcile? to help? to comfort? to love?

These are the questions that do have answers. Live into one of those answers as you work out your life today, for Clint, for Christ.

We love you Hounds. Our hearts ache for you. Play on.

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