The sacrifice of a coach’s wife is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It has dug out my selfishness like a splinter while also bringing me the deepest joy. ⁣

⁣All of us coaches’ wives have done the bedtime routine by ourselves more nights than we can count just like I did tonight. Most of us have packed up from our comfortable towns or states to move to the next. We have sacrificed date nights for recruiting, family time for team meetings, and prayed as hard for the boys on our husband’s team as we do our own little ones.

RELATED: I Am A Coach’s Wife

If we could jump in and just make a difference quickly, we would, but it doesn’t work like that. It takes late-night sacrifices, one by one, bit by bit, year by year to really build something—to make a difference. ⁣

⁣So on nights when I’m doing it alone so my husband can chase his calling, I see my boy shooting buckets in the bathtub, and I remember he’s being shaped by all of this, too.

His daddy is showing him how to work hard and pour his heart and soul into the work God has called him to.

He’s shown how to pray for the people he loves and to go after something with all he’s got even when it’s not going his way. ⁣

RELATED: Before You Yell at the Referees Tonight, Let Me Tell You About My Daddy

⁣I tell my husband, Casey, every day, we’re in it with you—even in the sacrifices. All of the sacrifices in hopes it turns into more than a few wins. It’s putting faith in the fact that seeds are being planted and maybe these student-athletes can have a college athletics experience that will impact them the way ours impacted us—for eternity.

Win or lose, what a joy it is for me to be his wife and him to be his son!⁣

Previously published on the author’s Instagram page