Hit Reset

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The tears in his eyes pooled at the bottom of his eyelids and he tried his best not to let them spill onto his cheeks. Peeking my head around the net screen in the batting cage, and squinting my eyes to block out the setting sun, I looked at my son holding his bat about 20 feet away. "What's wrong buddy?" "Nothing!" came his quick reply. I met his mom at one of my own baseball games when I was just a few years older than JB is now. Knowing her and our son as well as I do, I know "nothing!" really means "something!"

Walking up to him and looking into his clear blue eyes "nothing" became the biggest lie he would tell that day. "I know something is wrong, buddy. What's up?" He could no longer contain the tears that had been bravely dammed up, and they started to stream down his face. Through a cracking voice he mustered, "I was hit in the knee with a baseball."

"Warm up time" in 9 year old baseball is really like recess/play time, so it's not a surprise he was hit with a ball. He has accidentally hit other teammates goofing around through horseplay during pre-game warm ups as well. Getting hit with the ball before the game was only the beginning of one of the toughest baseball games I've ever watched JB play in. We stunk it up worse than the kids socks after a double header.

Two pitches into his first at bat, JB was pegged in the back of the helmet with a high and tight pitch. The pitcher was a kid at least a year older, a foot taller, and he was throwing hard. As I stood coaching first base, my instinct was to run to him, but something told me to let him take his time on the walk down the foul line to first base. Stepping on the bright white bag, he looked up at me and started to cry again. I don't know if his head or his pride hurt more, but certainly both appeared damaged.

After we batted around, JB was slated to pitch. From the minute he released the first ball, I knew something was off. He was playing timid and he hesitated with every throw. It was pretty ugly. When he finally made his way into the dugout after the inning I told him to "reset, and start again." It's one of the toughest things to do in sports. Shrug off what just happened to you and clear your head and start fresh.

Kevin Costner's character in the baseball movie, "For the Love of the Game," captures this moment well. Costner's character is a pitcher for my favorite team, the Detroit Tigers. On the mound, he tells himself to "clear the mechanism." Shutting out and quieting the world around him, is Costner's character's way of focusing on the work ahead.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, baseball is a lot like life. How often are we hit in the knee or the back of the head with a fast ball, leaving our bodies and our ego's bruised and battered in the wake?  Not literally hit with a fast ball, that would be weird if you were being beaned with baseballs every day of your life, but you know what I mean.

Life is all about how we hit reset. I learned that skill growing up as a kid in the 80's and every time a video game stopped working, you took the game cartridge out, blew on it, put it back in the game system, hit reset, and voila. There is something refreshing about a reset. You've had a bad day, go to sleep, hit reset and give it another go. "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." Lamentations 3:22-24. Actor's who flub a line or struggle through a scene, simply reset their places and take another shot.

People are watching how we face adversity and hit reset. They watch our new beginnings and fresh starts. The Lord renews our spirit all the time. "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 11:19. Therefore our fresh starts can make us better, not bitter, and our tests become testimony's rather than tragedies. We just have to "clear the mechanism."

Like in baseball, life is all about perseverance and overcoming adversity. The more games JB takes a ball in the head, sheds a few tears, and gets back into the game, the better baseball player he will be. Similarly, the more times life hits us in the knee with a nasty fastball and we reset and start anew, the more mature we become and the better suited we are for the next wild pitch. I've always loved the verse, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trails of many kinds, because you know that your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4 Also, "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:10. 

Just as I tried to console JB on the baseball field, our loving Father is urging and encouraging us as well. You've had a bad day? You got some bad news? Life is aiming fastballs of hurt, anxiety, worry and despair in your direction? I love you and I'm here for you, just hit reset.

Much Love, Adam

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