He Loveth His Children

About a year ago, BYU football coach Kalani Sitake spoke at a BYU devotional and shared a personal story about his attempt to be in the NFL. He related, “My beautiful and visionary wife, Timberly, has a favorite quote from President Ezra Taft Benson that has become a theme for our life together: ‘Men and women who turn their lives over to God will [discover] that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can.’ I learned this firsthand after I graduated from BYU and focused on a possible professional career. I trained really hard and performed well at the NFL workouts and pro day. I signed a contract as a free agent fullback for the Cincinnati Bengals. It was everything I had wanted since I was a boy. I was in the NFL, ready to live the dream in Cincinnati. The setup was actually better than anything I could have imagined.” He continued, “On report day, I met with the head coach, who informed me that I would need to provide depth and competition as both fullback and a long snapper. Everything was going my way, and it felt like all my plans were lining up perfectly. I was full of appreciation and gratitude. It was happening! Before going to bed that night, I knelt down and thanked God for everything. I thanked Him for the blessings and even the struggles I had endured during my playing days at BYU: the three major surgeries followed by rehab, the strength to play through the pain and the hurt, the knowledge I gained from all the coaches, and the fact that I was able to play in fifty games at BYU. I was full of gratitude. Now living in Cincinnati, I was the healthiest I had been in a long time, ready for my first practice. I thanked God for his guidance and ended my prayer by saying, ‘Heavenly Father, I trust you. Whatever is best for me, let it happen. I’m ready to do so much good with this gift and this opportunity.’”

               But what he thought he wanted is not what happened. Sitake related what happened next, “The next morning, I woke up sore, which was normal because of the back surgery I’d had three years before. But today felt different. My body was not responding like normal, making it more difficult for me to move. I compare it to having your foot fall asleep, but it was affecting both my legs and my lower back. In a panic, I tried to warm up. I took a hot bath and stretched but something was definitely wrong. The feeling wasn’t going away. It was the first day of practice. I remember pleading with my body to respond and desperately asking God to help me. In pain, I went to the football facility and attended meetings and eventually practice. I was doing my best to hide the pain I was experiencing in my lower back and legs, but it wasn’t working. It was obvious to the trainers and coaches that something was wrong. Not long after practice started, they took me into the training room for an evaluation and then later to the hospital for tests and an MRI. There I sat in the hospital room—alone, confused, and nervous. Eventually, the team doctor walked in followed by the general manager—never a good sign. I was told that my back was in such horrible shape from my preexisting injury that continuing to play would put me at risk of permanent damage. My football career was over. I was forced into retirement, never to get another opportunity. My dream had ended before it had even started.” This was his first day of practice at the NFL, and he found out that his body was in such bad shape that he would never play. His dream of playing professional football was dashed in a moment. He perhaps felt like Job who had everything he could hope for: a wife, ten children, and “his substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.” He loved the Lord and was doing what was right, and yet suddenly in one day most of what he had was gone. He lost his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his servants, his camels, and his sons.

But Job “charged [not] God foolishly” and did not lose his faith (Job 1:3-22). And Sitake learned not to either. He described what happened next. He related, “A short time later I was in my hotel room, still in shock. As reality set in, I started to speak out loud to God. I was angry with Him. I said things like, ‘Are you kidding me?’, ‘What just happened?’, ‘When I said, “I trust you” and “whatever is best for me, let it happen,” this is not what I meant!’… Then all of a sudden, I felt this warmth that was very familiar…. It felt like a hug from the Savior and His angels, saying, ‘Everything is going to be fine. I love you and God loves you.’ I was healed immediately—not physically, but spiritually and mentally. My anger quickly went away, and my goal now was to find God’s plan for me. Because if playing football in the NFL wasn’t it, then there must be something better.” He described how over the next fifteen years he was indeed prepared for something better: “Then on December 19, 2015, I spoke out loud to God again, ‘Are you kidding me? What just happened?’ I got my dream job. The dream job I never knew I always wanted. But God knew. He knows!” It was then that he became the football coach for BYU, a job that has allowed him to make an incredible difference in the lives of so many young people.

               He encouraged us with this well-known quote from President Benson: “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will [discover] that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life to God will find he has eternal life.” Our lives will be full of ups and downs, but if we trust in the Lord and strive to do what He wants us to do, we will find that He will make much more of our life in the end than if we had been given everything that we wanted. Like Nephi, we can trust that even though we do not “know the meaning of all things,” we can know that “he loveth his children” (1 Nephi 11:17).