The BIG GAME!!!

I am a sports enthusiast.  I love watching sports.  I love them live and I love them on the TV and I love throwing super bowl parties.  I watch as much of the Olympics as I can and I really do follow certain teams in sports that I love.  I'm very eclectic in my choices I suppose.  But at any rate, I love watching great athleticism. Having said that, I am in awe of the wonder and amazing things that people do to themselves.  Drugs, alcohol, self mutilation, self loathing, self destruction.  I am aware of them all.  I am a victim of two of those.  Self loathing and self destruction.  I don't like my physical form.  I hate it.  And because of that, I have let it become my disability and it has led to a destruction of certain aspects of my body.  Looking back, it wasn't intentional, it was simply a bi-product of my circumstances and of the abuse that happened to me.  It's not an excuse.  It is what it is.  However, I have had in my life one reoccurring poem that always gives me hope.  Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I would do everything I could to turn back the clock.  And I know that reading the scriptures should inspire me to do what is necessary to pull me out of my situation.  BUT  Below is the Poem.  I hope it will remind you that there is always hope.  For all of the hype and fun and everything that goes on around these athletes and how amazing their skills are and how amazing this Super Bowl will be, there is one game that is far more important.  The game of life.  And this life...well, it truly is THE BIG GAME!
The Touch of the Masters Hand
T'was battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it scarcely worth his while, to waste much time on the old violin, but he held it up with a smile; "What am I bidden, good folks," he cried, "Who'll start the bidding for me? A dollar, a dollar; then two! Only two? Two dollars, and who'll make it three? Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice; going for three.." But no, from the room, far back, a gray-haired man, came forward and picked up the bow; Then, wiping the dust from the old violin, and tightening up the loose strings, he played a melody pure and sweet as the caroling of angels sing.
The music ceased, and the auctioneer, with a voice that was now quiet and low, said; "What am I bid for the old violin?" And he held it up with the bow. "A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? Two thousand! And who'll make it three? Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice, and going and gone, said he.
The people cheered, but some of them cired, "We do not quite understand, what changed it's worth?" Swift came the reply: "The touch of a master's hand."
And many a man with life out of tune, and battered and scarred with sin, is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin. A "mess of pottage," A glass of wine; a game, and he travels on. "He is going : once, and "going twice, he's going and almost gone." But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought by the touch of THE MASTER'S HAND.------Myra Brooks Welch