one last time.

::if you don't love sports - if you're not a superfan of any sports team - then you probably will not understand what i'm about to say. and that's ok. but don't feel like you need to waste your time reading this {unless you'd like to get a glimpse into the mind of one who loves their team}.::

{via the canadien press}

my steelers lost last night. {can you tell i started this monday?} it happens almost every year, yes. i know.  only one team still stands at the end of each year. every dynasty falls eventually. 

i

know.

but this year i wasn't just frustrated. i wasn't just mad. i was deeply sad. 

stupid, right? it's a game. it's a team. it's one year. 

but for my team, it's the end of the roethlisberger era. and that is a tough pill to swallow.

i could give you all of ben's stats, but you can just as easily look them up if you're curious. i will throw one out there - he never had a losing season. not in 18 years.

not in 18 years for the same team.

were there a couple of .500 years? yes. and guess what? those felt like losing seasons to the steelers' faithful because in our world it's a bad year when you don't make the playoffs. 

there's a higher bar.

excellence is expected.

the standard is the standard. {right, coach tomlin?}

and loyalties are applauded.

once you are one of our own, there will be hell to pay for anyone who says a bad word about you. {if you wonder about the truth of this statement, then please ask my husband to verify.}

but if you turn on us you will meet the collective "you're dead to me" of an entire city.

so here's the thing though - i love steeler football, and for my entire adult life, ben has been largely synonymous with steeler football. and his retirement feels like it's not just the end of an era for the steelers & for pittsburgh, 

but also for me.

figuring out who i am as an adult, graduating from college, moving to a new place, the ups and downs of early marriage, bringing babies home from the hospital; all of these life-changing moments were punctuated by my fierce love of my team and #7 as the gunslinger. steelers games filled the background of many of these moments.

my love of my city has never waned or dissipated over the years. the steelers have been my constant reminder - my constant tie to home every fall. 

last night i turned off the tv at halftime and instead listened to the steelers nation radio broadcast. this is in part because those guys feel like home, and in part because chris collinsworth tends to let his biases against pittsburgh come out and play when the steelers are losing.

anyway...

i had decided at the beginning of the game that i would tune in the whole way to the end. even if it was that one last time with ben. 

last night was a bonus game. 

the odds of the steelers making it to the playoffs before week 17 was less than 1% by some odds. but there they were. 

one more time. 

one more game. 

i slept in my roethlisberger jersey after the game ended. not because i won't wear it anymore, but because it won't be the same when i do.

so, in honor of this one last time:

dear ben, 

thank you for how you played all of these years. thank you for being a competitor and epitomizing what it meant to play like a steeler. i'm thankful you were my quarterback not just because of how much fun you were to watch, but because if you hadn't been i never would've paid attention to how much your character grew over the course of your career.

you went from a punk kid to a true man of character, and seeing the glimpses of where you are now as a person make me proud to be a fan and grateful for the way you've used the platform football has allowed you to have.

would even more success on the field have been great? sure. but 18 seasons at .500 or better is flippin' impressive. and at the end of the day, none of those lombardi trophies are going to show up in heaven anyway.

i hope and pray that you will continue to define yourself first and foremost as a child of God. i pray that as your identity to the world changes that you won't forget to remember that your ultimate identity is rooted in him. i hope you continue owning those moments when you revert to your punk kid ways - we all have them - and humbly ask forgiveness from your people. 

i'm grateful that Jesus met you in the midst of your career and changed the trajectory of your life. i pray that he would continue using your story to meet others exactly where they are too. 

Godspeed.

xx