A reading by Eric A. Clayton

Here’s a theory: Coaching soccer for girls under six is 90% tying shoes and 10% everything else.

“Coach — my shoe’s untied!”

“Coach — my shoe!”

“Coach — you gotta see this!” (This, spoiler alert, was a pair of shoelaces that were anything but tied.)

This is the first year I’ve coached soccer — and, if we’re being precise, I’m actually the assistant coach. This is also the first year either of my girls have played soccer, so it’s a real learning experience for us all.

One thing was made very clear in the many coaching-related emails I received in preparation for our U6 soccer debut: At this age, just make sure the girls touch the ball.

It quickly became obvious why. Complex drills, waiting in lines, gaming out strategy — this stuff is too advanced; the girls don’t have the patience for that kind of coaching. And frankly, they don’t need it. A lot of the girls are like mine — this is their first time on the field, and they just need to feel comfortable. They need to build their confidence. They need to have fun.

Just make sure the girls touch the ball. Develop those initial instincts, their balance and their coordination. Get them in the game. Maybe it’s not the most exciting bit of coaching; but it is essential to their future success.

Which brings me back to that theory I started with: Coaching U6 soccer is mostly about tying shoes.

“Sure — let me take a look.”

“Yep, we’ll get that sorted.”

“Just stand still…”

It’s not heroic work; it’s simple and necessary. But here’s the last bit that needs to be said to each of those girls with newly tied laces: “Now get back in there! Keep going! You’re doing great!”

They can’t get comfortable touching the soccer ball if they keep tripping over their laces.

I’ve belabored the point, perhaps, so here’s a question for you: Whose laces do you need to tie this week? What humble little act of service are you being invited to provide to get a friend or a neighbor, a colleague or a family member, back in the game?

You might not find yourself offering some profound bit of insight or rescuing a kid from a tree or putting out a fire in your neighbor’s garage. We like these dramatic gestures, these things that make us feel heroic.

But that’s not always where we are called to serve. Sometimes we just offer a cup of sugar, pick someone’s kids up from the bus stop, grab a colleague a coffee. Little things that allow another to keep going, that alleviate one little stressor.

We tie shoes so others can run.

And where’s God? God’s in it all, of course: our big, life-spanning, epic vocations, as well as those tiny, perhaps forgotten details upon which the scaffolding of our lives is built. God is in the small and the large; the quiet and the mighty; the humble and the epic.

And that means tying those proverbial laces isn’t just important — it’s also holy.

The words of Eric Clayton