296 | Reaching the Mountaintop, Retiring as a Rookie, and Being All-Out for God (Gaelin Elmore: Part 2)
Episode Description
In the second part of our conversation, Gaelin Elmore describes the spiritual awakening he experienced in his journey through professional sports. He also shares the lessons he learned by walking away from the things he idolized in order to be all-out for God.
-
Gaelin Elmore is a leader, writer, and motivational speaker whose childhood was marked by foster care, abuse, and homelessness. Now, Gaelin advocates for youth with adverse backgrounds. He and his wife, Micaela, have two young daughters.
-
· There is an internal conflict between following the real Savior and the things you thought would save you.
· Be all-out for God.
· Never underestimate the power of being present as a husband and father.
· What does your church do to actively engage the foster care community?
-
·SAVE THE DATE: October 19, 2023 at 7pm CT - Episode 300 Live Event: 30 Voices, 90 Takeaways
· The Reel Hope Project
· GaelinSpeaks.com (Gaelin’s Website)
· The Forgotten Podcast - (The Forgotten Initiative)
· Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches by Russell Moore
-
Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:00:39] I was a 22 year old, six foot five, 270 pound, defensive line. But I was a kid, six years old, coming home with an A-plus on my exam, my spelling test, wanting my parents to celebrate it, put it on the fridge and admire it. And I felt like they took it and they threw it in the trash.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:58] This is episode 296 of DadAwesome. Guys, this is the second half of my conversation with Gaelin Elmore. If you missed last week's conversation, this is not going to be that helpful because this week, this week, last week are really, really tied together with his story. We go back and forth from Gaelin's story of being raised in foster care and just the miracles and God providing along his journey, and then now him being an advocate for helping kids in foster care, helping fatherless kids, but also being an intentional dad for his two little girls. So go back to last week's, listen to episode 295, first and then jump in this week. As a quick reminder, now we're four weeks away from the October 19th 7 p.m. Central Time Zone, the Episode 300 live event. So save the date, 7 p.m. October 19th is the Episode 300 live event. Guys, let's jump right in here. This is the second half of my conversation with Gaelin Elmore. Before we go into kind of being the top athlete, going D1 and then playing pro like what did you, what did you see in your coach that you're like, man, I want, I want to carry some of that into the dad life? Any characteristics that you take away?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:02:24] So, think about your like literally envision this stereotypical Midwestern football coach, right? Like lifelong football coach and it's like all about the game. It is everything in life is a lesson to be better at football and everything in football is a lesson at being better at life and it is very little emotions, hard hat, lunch pail kind of thinking, like go to work. And so my coach was always a man of few words and he didn't wear his emotions on his sleeve all the time, but there were just some profound gestures and words and postures that changed the trajectory of my life, that happened often enough that it wasn't by accident, right. And so I think there's there's one story in particular, and I think this will resonate a lot with the listeners. I had been living in their home for about seven months before I really was accepted, open to the idea of like being an active contributor to their family unit. I tell people I was a, I was a subleaser in their home. Like I had a bedroom and I would come home with their two kids, drop our stuff off the door, they'd sit in the kitchen, talk to their mom. I'd go up to my room, do homework, play video games, come down for dinner, go back up. That was it. And so for months that's all I did. There's one night I broke routine, came downstairs, tried to get some snacks before falling asleep at, like 12:00, 1:00, and my coach's awake, asked me to come sit with him. And as we were watching reruns of SportsCenter, he just broke this silence and he's like, Gaelin, I'm not trying to be your dad. I'm not trying to be anything you don't want me to be. But I am trying to give you a break in life that you haven't gotten. And I'll be here until you figure it out. And it was just this exchange of in three or four sentences, he spoke to all of my reservations and all of the frustrations I've had in years of foster care and years of people wanting to step into my life that didn't or couldn't or failed. And this acknowledgment of honoring my father, being real about what next steps are, what like the uncertainty of what the future looks like and the acknowledgment of I'm going to be here until we figure it out. Like, I'm going to be with you until it becomes clear. Like those things changed my life and that's when I committed. That's when I was like, okay, I'll go where you want me to go. I'll do what you want me to do and it wasn't, it wasn't until recently that I really understood what he was saying. Like I understood 85, 90% of it. So my coach actually passed away last year. So in February of 2022, he passed away. And just a lot of like wrestling with this feeling of I lost a father, but I didn't get to live in the reality of having him as a father. Like, I never really fully accepted the invitation and acknowledged it, but here I am, mourning like I did. And so really wrestling with that as a father myself. And it was going back to that statement, that conversation we had, he was like, where he said, when he said, I'm not trying to be your dad. I heard it. And I like, locked on to it. But the next thing he said was, I'm not trying to be anything you don't want me to be. And so really, he was willing to be my father, a father, if I was willing to let him be and I didn't realize that. And so I think for us as dads, as I think about, like, how he shaped me. It's this ability and and vulnerability to be as transparent as we can with those that we care about. I think we can have a tendency to really keep our cards close to the vest and just try to shoulder weight that we don't want those that we love to to shoulder on their own. But the reality is the transparency of like we're like, I'm wrestling with this. I don't know. But I'm here, like I'm committed to being a part of the process of figuring it out. My coach did that so well every step of the way and respected and honored boundaries. And I will always carry that with me at every stage of life, regardless of what I do.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:27] Yeah. Wow. What a gift. Now, that stepped into this next phase, which was being recruited to play football all over the country. And you chose Minnesota?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:07:38] I did. I did.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:40] And then what did God have there for you that was unexpected?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:07:44] A faith journey. So actually, my commitment story was a spiritual experience or encounter with the Holy Spirit that I don't think I understood until many years later. So I was literally within ten months of living in my coach's house, I was a top recruit for football and had scholarship offers for basketball. And so I'm doing this recruiting tour, and we had just went to like Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State. We did this Big Ten tour and on the drive back, Minnesota wasn't even a part of the tour, like we lived right by Minnesota. And it just was like, I'm sleeping in the back, back right of the van. And I hear, in my right ear like, go to Minnesota. Literally, like, and I'm like half asleep and I wake up and I'm like, What was that? Like cause there are other people in the car And I'm like, What was that? They're like, What are you talking about? And I'm like, someone, you guys didn't just say something? Like, we're not having a conversation right now? And they were like, No.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:51] Wow.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:08:52] And I just kind of like played it off and went back to sleep. But after that moment, I couldn't help but think about Minnesota. And again, I just thought it was like, Oh, everyone told me when I was getting recruited, when you knew, you knew. They say that about like your wife, too, when you know, you know. And so I was just like, that's what it is. And so I was like, thinking like, okay, what does it look like to go to Minnesota thinking, like finding all these reasons as to why it was a good football and business decision. Little did I know, like it was going to lead to a spiritual awakening in my life. And yeah, I got involved with athlete ministry my freshman year doing Bible studies like once a week or every other week thinking that, all right, whatever, like, I'll, I'll do this, but I'm going to live life the way I want to. And then attended a camp after the transitioning from my freshman, sophomore year and totally surrendered my life to Christ and became a new creation. Literally started to change how I looked at, saw the world, and how I saw sport, how I saw my past. It all just, it was never the same.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:02] That was between freshman, sophomore year. And then there's three more years of of you know top athletes into recruited to play in the NFL.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:10:11] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:11] As a believer, but a young believer. How did yeah, how did it change those three or four years?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:10:17] It in so many ways sport became my idol. It became my God, it was going to be the thing. And whether I explicitly said that or believe that or not, the actions aligned. So it was going to, excuse me, it was going to be the thing that saved me. It was going to be the thing that saved my family. It was going to be the thing that brought my family back together. It was going to be the thing that made sure that my nephews and nieces or my future children would never have to deal with the things that I dealt with. It was going to be the end all, be all. And I never knew, I never had to say that out loud. It's just like, man, if I can get to the NFL, everything will be okay. And when I gave my life to the Lord it as, let's say, sophomore, I didn't know that I was going to feel this conflict between my actual creator and the thing that I thought or my actual Savior and the thing that I thought was going to save me. And so it was just kind of like buying time for a couple of years. And then I got to the NFL at the Mountaintop, it was just like, this isn't it. And literally, like so my my last year of college ball was awful. I did not play well. I did not have success. My junior year, I was contemplating leaving college early to enter the draft because I had agents telling me was like, Hey, you could be a day two pick. With some good testing, some training, like, we need to focus on this if you really want it. Last game of my junior season, last regular season game, I tore my shoulder. So I was like, okay, well now I got to come back for my senior year. Come back for my senior year. Worst year football that I ever played. Not just like on college, like it was bad. We were bad. It was, it was bad. But spiritually, I was doing well.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:06] Yeah.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:12:07] And so I was fully committed. And no one expected, I was like, I'm not going to get a shot in the NFL right now. I'm, my site's shifted to the CFL. I was in Tampa Bay, Florida, invited to their mini like their training camp, and I was actively like starting to participate. Draft ended. I get a call from my agent and he's like, Hey, the Cincinnati Bengals just offered you a contract. I know you're like with the CFL right now, do you want it?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:33] It doesn't make any sense. Right.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:12:34] No. Like, I didn't, I didn't really, did not earn it, right. Like, there was no reason I should get a shot. And I was like, Yeah, I will leave right now. Like, this is not a question. And so in a room full of, like, a hundred other men that are my age, if not almost 40, still chasing this dream of playing football, I get to walk in front of all of them and let these coaches up here know, like, Hey, I got an NFL contract. I can't be here.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:03] Yeah.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:13:04] And so this prideful moment, right.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:06] Sure. You got it. Yeah.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:13:06] Yeah. And so I walk out, I'm in Tampa Bay, it's like this beautiful sunset, and I'm just like, This is the moment. Like, this is where it all, like, just feels like it was all worth it. And if you can't tell, like, I thought, like, pinnacle moments in my life would be cinematic, like cinema. So, that time with my dad, where I thought, like, that was anticlimactic, this sucks. And this same moment, I'm like, sunset, I just, like, reached the mountaintop. I'm going to call my mom. Call my mom, she's with my two sisters, and I'm just like, like I'm saying all the things I think I need to say. Like, Hey, Mom, just want you to know, like it's all going to be better. I just signed an NFL contract. It's not, like it's not, I got to make the team, but everything is going to be better from here on out. Like this moment of like being able to, like, I wasn't a first round draft pick, so I couldn't say, Hey, mom, you can quit your job. But like, I'm like, This is it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:06] Yeah, there's hope.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:14:07] And I kid you not something that I thought was going to be the most powerful, beautiful, emotional conversation I ever had in my life, was like 60 seconds. And it was just like, that was weird. I have this pit in my stomach. I'm not going to let this moment be robbed from me, let me call my dad. So I call my dad, he's with one of my brothers who I was homeless, we were all homeless together. They understand it more. We've been in the struggle longer. I haven't live with my mom since I was like five. Same thing happened. And I just hung up the phone, distraught.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:48] So, there's emptiness, both calls.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:14:51] Yes. And it was just like this realization of like, they don't know that I did this for them. They don't know that this is, like, they don't understand the weight of this moment in the way that I do.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:07] Yeah.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:15:07] And how I explain it to people as I was this kid, I was a 22 year old, six foot five, 270 pound, defensive line. But I was a kid, six years old, coming home with an A-plus on my exam, my spelling, my spelling test, wanting my parents just celebrate it, put it on the fridge and admire it. And I felt like they took it and they threw it in the trash. And I was like, you know what? I'm, forget them. Like, this is my dream. I'm going to, like this, this is weird. I don't know why this is happening. It's not going to be this way. So I just kept training, kept going, went to Cincinnati and spiritually darkest couple of months of my life, like desert. Just going through it and feeling so alone, feeling feelings of that I haven't felt since I was a kid in foster. Like just so many memories coming up, things that are like being like people are just in normal conversation, poking at really big insecurities in me. And I was just under attack and I got, we got a couple of weeks off in between, like leading up to training camp, and I came back to Minneapolis because two of my really good friends were getting married and I was in the wedding. And so I got back here and it was like the clouds parted and I got back in community with people. I started to, like, feel like I could breathe again and this this this beautiful bridesmaid named Micaela was also in the wedding.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:46] You met her there, that day?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:16:47] We met each other a couple of years before, but this was like the first time we got to spend time together. And I just, I left, like, a week into those couple weeks home, I was just like, I don't want to leave this again. And just slowly started to try to process what I feel like the spirit was really like bringing up in me. And ultimately, I ended up like retiring from football before I was expected to report back for camp. Didn't have a job lined up. No idea what I was going to do. I just, I felt the Spirit speak to me like audibly of, you've been all out for football your whole life. Just asking you to be all out for me right now. And it was just like, okay. Like I'm being called to, called to walk out on the water and I will never forgive myself if I don't say yes, if I don't start walking. And so, yeah, called them, called Cincinnati. They asked me what I was going to do and I was like, I don't know, go in a ministry. And they were like, Well, good luck. And there was so many God things with that too. Like, I was contractually obligated to give them money back that I didn't have, right. Like I had paid for my training and all this stuff that was happening. I didn't have any money to my name. And they were just like, No, like we wish you the best. And so, yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:27] Wow. And that started a season of, well, your dating, you started dating your wife?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:18:31] Yep.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:31] You're doing ministry, I believe youth ministry for a number of years before stepping into foster care ministry. Maybe just to fast forward in and we're going to pivot back to kind of the dad life. So knowing your story, there's already been all kinds of nuggets of like, Oh, that impacts me as a dad. So thank you for the power of I mean, testimony is the most powerful thing.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:18:55] Absolutely.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:55] We can come with lists of ideas for the dad life, but how do you think like that journey of where you heard God's voice a few times going to Minnesota of like you felt the climate change when you came back to Minnesota? And usually it's not the weather in Minnesota. It's it was the people I think is what you got after. What are some like, man, you're, you know that this is important in the dad life. I know belonging is part of your story, your coach, so many I'm like like I use the phrase hopelessness earlier. Like there's so many reasons you should have been a very hopeless person because of circumstantial. But, like, it felt like you, you lived with hope. And I know you coach people on that same thing. I'm like, No, that's real. So maybe it's those themes, maybe it's other themes. But what are some of like, you know, that this is important to carry into being a dad?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:19:46] I would say, just we can never measure or fully comprehend the power of being with someone while they're going through the good and the bad. If you like, listen to this and you hear any consistency through my story, it's at the lowest low, at the highest high, I just wanted my people. Like, as someone who didn't have it, that is what I wanted. And so never like underestimate the power of being present as the head of your household, as the father, as the husband. Like above it all, be present. And that is going to communicate so much more about how you feel about the people you care about, then what you can say in the moment. The the like prayer, you can pray over them or all these, like, extrinsic feelings, emotions, values that we can potentially communicate. Being there is that. Being the someone looking for them while they're looking for you, like that is what we can be. And that is, to me, that is the peak of fatherhood. So like when my daughter goes, like she went to her first, she played T-ball for the first time and it's like just practices, right? But like, when she gets to hit the ball and she gets to look back and see me standing there like it's being there. When she falls and scrapes her knee because she was doing something, I told her a million times not to do, and she's look, she falls because she's looking back. She's checking to see if I'm there.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:21:34] You're watching.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:21:35] Yes. And then when she is hurt, she wants me to come pick her up and make her feel better. But it only happens if I'm there. And as someone who I do travel for work, I'm gone often. She appreciates calls and she wants me to talk to her before bedtime. But it's when I'm there. Like that is what we can do the best and the most. And again, as someone who experienced abuse and homelessness and neglect and all those things, I wanted someone to be there. And as someone who signed an NFL contract and thought I reached the mountain, the mountaintop, all I wanted was someone to be there. And so that, to me, is is what I hope people take away from this conversation and hope that dads out there can be encouraged by, right. The fact that, again, you may not have always had the right words to say or you might not have always done things perfectly, but you can be proud about the moments that you've been there and continue to pursue in a way that you will always be there for as long as you can be.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:42] And, Gaelin, to tie it back in with what you said about your little girls and the grace that they extend to you, that being there and the grace that you've extended through this whole conversation to your dad.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:22:53] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:54] Is being there is not being perfectly there. We're going to miss-say, speak some words, we're going to show a little bit of frustration in moments and it's going to happen. But the being there overwhelmingly makes up for, not that it's not a scale that we're making up, but like it really does like our kids are resilient and they are grace filled. But we can choose to be there with our whole hearts.
Gaelin Elmore: [00:23:17] Yeah. Yeah. And again, no greater example for this than, then God's sending Jesus to live and be there with us, right. Like if if we use that as our example for how we show up as men. Like Jesus was the most intentional human being, God incarnate, but human being that could ever walk this earth. He was always intentional when he knew what was about to happen, first and foremost, he chose to be there. He chose to be present with people, to feel what they were feeling, but even the task of dying on the cross for our sins. He wanted to come and be there for us. And so, man, I think we we live in a society where there's a there's a lot of information out there and a lot of different books we can read and a lot of different like strategies and ideas out there, but man kids, we, we need to be there.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:20] Yeah. We've recently just kind of re clarified our mission at DadAwesome. We say we activating dads to lead with wonder. It's the with is what you're getting at right now with, like, be present. But like, having a curiosity, seeing the dad life with wonder. Like staying hopeful, like all that is packaged in that that word wonder. There's some, some of us that are like man, I want a few next steps in the area of helping in the area of foster care that like just your story is inspired at least to explore. So we have to shout out to our friends, you know, Kaycee and the Reel Hope Project team, because they're the ones that introduced us. So that's a no brainer resource, they're a partner with Fathers For The Fatherless. Are there any other like either book or ministry or resource, if you're like, if you want to learn a little more in the area of foster care, anything you'd shout out?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:25:08] Yeah, I would. Let's let's think. So one book I would say it's Adopted for Life by Russell Moore. So good. So, like, beautifully and tactfully, like interwoven between gospel and how we're all like, adopted and the beauty and power of us actively living out that same vision right now for fatherless, right. So that's one book. Podcast, I would, I'm biased, but I would say the Forgotten Podcast by the Forgotten Initiative. I worked with them and really their mission is to be the bridge between the church and the foster care community, trying to actively mobilize God's people to serve for those that are experiencing loss and feeling forgotten and feeling hopelessness, right. So that's they do a great job of talking about all the different sides of foster care. So biological, the kids that go through it, the foster parent, the social worker, all of it, so good. And then I think here in the Twin Cities, a important way to to try to get engaged and involved is if you do have a church home to like, learn more about what they're doing to actively engage the foster care community. And if they aren't doing anything yet, like holding it, like hold them accountable to do more. Because again, it's just, foster care doesn't make sense if Christians aren't the ones leading it. Does not make sense. It is not a a wisdom of this world. It is something that is such a greater calling in ministry that that only God could call us to and and support us in. And so there's never like too many, too many churches involved in that space. So I would say chances are, in some way, your church probably has some next step to get involved. And if they don't, ask them, like, hey, are we willing to get more involved and then reach out to Jeff, reach out to Kaycee, reach out to me on any social media, and I will lovingly and gladly help you find some next steps of what can happen. Because we need more dads, we need more Christians, we need more churches that are actively supporting and caring for people so that they can experience God's love before they have to hit rock bottom, before it's like there's no other option.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:47] Amazing. Gaelin, thank you for this conversation. Would you say a short prayer for all of us?
Gaelin Elmore: [00:27:51] Absolutely. Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate it. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this conversation, this platform. I thank You for every listener out there, every dad and maybe not dad that is happens to listen to this conversation. I pray that they can be lifted by it, that they can be encouraged, and that they can feel your spirit calling them to do something else. We thank You that we live amongst a group of believers in a community where we can we can actively and proudly live out our faith. I pray that they can do that and that you will lead the way and guide them with Your spirit to to figure out what it is that you're calling them to do next, whether it's in their home with their own family, in their community, or in the church body that you've connected them to. We thank you for your sovereignty and your power and your divinity, God. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:28:49] Thank you so much for joining us for episode 296 of DadAwesome with Gaelin Elmore. The conversation notes and the full show notes for this week's podcast are going to be at dadawesome.org/podcast. So check out that link along with, as I mentioned last week, all of the filters to search old episodes. You know, now that we're nearly 300 podcasts into this this journey, you can search by various topics, you can search, you can even click on multiple filters to kind of sort out all, all the previous episodes to find, you know, helpful content for you guys in your journey of being DadAwesome. So check that out, dadawesome.org/podcast. Guys, thanks again for joining this week. Thank you for being DadAwesome. Have a great week with your kids.
-
· 19:49 - "We can never measure or fully comprehend the power of being with someone while they're going through the good and the bad. If you listen to this and you hear any consistency through my story, it's at the lowest low, at the highest high, I just wanted my people."
· 26:40 - "Foster care doesn't make sense if Christians aren't the ones leading it. Does not make sense. It is not a wisdom of this world. It is something that is such a greater calling in ministry that that only God could call us to and and support us in."
Connect with DadAwesome
Learn about our Fathers for the Fatherless events in 2023:https://f4f.bike/
Follow@dadawesome on Instagram
Make a Donation to DadAwesome (tax-deductible)
Join the DadAwesome Prayer Team
Receive weekly encouragement by texting "dad" to 651-370-8618