I Used to Pray for Rest… Now I Miss the Chaos
6/11/20261 min read
For years, our family calendar revolved around sports.
Practices.
Weekend tournaments.
Summer workouts.
Hotel bookings.
Late-night drives home.
Laundry piles of smelly uniforms.
Fast food between games and after practices.
Early mornings and exhausted Sundays.
There were seasons where I prayed for rest.
I prayed for one free weekend.
One quiet evening.
One vacation that didn’t depend on someone’s game schedule.
And then one day, it happened.
This May, our family took our first vacation in over 12 years without having to plan around sports.
No practice schedules.
No travel ball conflicts.
No summer workouts.
No rushing home early.
And honestly?
It felt strange.
There was freedom in it.
But there was also sadness.
Because somewhere along the way, the chaos became part of who we were as a family.
Sports gave us more than busy schedules.
They gave us memories.
Life lessons.
Car conversations.
Shared goals.
Inside jokes.
Opportunities to grow.
Moments I didn’t fully appreciate while I was living them.
As sports moms, we spend so many years surviving the pace that we rarely stop to think about what life will feel like once it slows down.
But eventually, it does.
And when it does, you realize you weren’t just raising athletes.
You were building a life together.
That’s why Chapter 20 of Prayers From the Sidelines — “Transitioning After Sports” — became one of the most emotional chapters for me to write.
Because no one really prepares us for this part:
the quiet after the noise.
The beautiful part is this:
even when the schedules end, the lessons don’t.
The character built.
The faith developed.
The memories created.
The family bonds strengthened.
Those things remain long after the final game.
And maybe this next season isn’t about losing something.
Maybe it’s about learning who we are after giving so much of ourselves for so long.