Prayers for Chubb

Heartfelt prayers are always heard.

On the very first play of the Georgia versus Tennessee football game, Georgia’s star running back, Nick Chubb, suffered a serious injury to his left leg. When I say serious, I mean I saw the up close replay several times, thanks to CBS, and I was just sick for him. I mean, I seriously thought his bone would come through the skin. It was horrible to watch.

He was obviously in excruciating pain, which CBS was all too happy to capture from every angle, but the network also captured something else. Almost every time the camera zoomed back in on the injured player, there was someone else from the team, praying with him. There were coaches, trainers as well as his teammates, bowing their heads to pray for him.

It was truly inspirational to see. This is SEC college football. It’s a rough sport. These kids playing are giants with big NFL plans in many of their futures and they had a full four quarters to play, yet they took the time to pray with their teammate.

The trainers and medical staff could have focused solely on his physical injuries. They were certainly severe. But, they too, seemed to have understood at the moment, that the spiritual was just as important.

Of equal interest were the prayers that appeared on Twitter. Almost as soon as Chubb went down, the Twitterverse got busy with prayers. Todd Gurley, a former UGA player and current NFL player, who tore his ACL in college, tweeted that he was praying for Chubb and his tweet was retweeted 7,957 times.

I find it interesting that parents have lamented for years about the poor role models that sports figures play for kids. I haven’t seen too much attention given to NFL players praying, unless it was to ridicule Tim Tebow as much as possible, for his strong faith.

There were Tweeted prayers from Aaron Murray, Marcus Lattimore, Tim Tebow, and Carl Lawson to name a few. A couple of those guys had knee injuries in college too and went on to do great things. Each young man allowed God to use him to publicly reach out to a fellow athlete, a fellow Christian.

Early Sunday evening, Chubb’s mother posted a heartfelt prayer and thanks of her own. “I thank God for being an awesome God and what an awesome God he is;” she began. She went on to say he had torn three ligaments, (not the dreaded ACL,), and would have surgery in a couple of weeks. She thanked everyone for their prayers. Then she said, “I do not doubt God or his plans…. We are going to increase our time with God and continue watching him work. Stay tuned….”

I guess we now know why Nick Chubb is said by all who meet him, to be a remarkable young man. His mama has clearly taught him to love the Lord.

You can Google the video and watch the injury play. While he is out for the season, he will be up and running again sooner than later. It could have been so much worse. Do prayers work? I suspect Chubb and his mama both, would say a resounding, “yes.” I’m sure they would also appreciate it if we would continue to pray for Nick.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂