Your Favorite Baseball Player Pitchin' Like An All-Star

Zoe's friend Chris Sampson, relief pitcher for the Houston Astros, is getting some huge acclaim for pitching so well. He's a better man than pitcher, all the time.

problems.

I have a huge justice problem. I want justice and I want it now. I want to see people experience the pain I am. Wrestle with supporting their family like I do. I want revenge.

Maybe I just have a waiting problem. I don't want to wait to find out what's on the next page, or what's in store. Not when so much seems to be riding on now. I don't feel like my family or my creditors or my dreams can wait.

Maybe I just have an arrogance problem. I've put myself in the middle of the universe and now that I'm searching, filled with questions and pain, the whole universe is. If I'm impatient, then the universe is impatient.

In this moment I am alive and Zoe's in God's arms. And the wind outside is wafting through the lilacs. A lawnmower grinds and hums. There's not a lot of problems in this moment when I live it with Him, in Him.  The moment isn't the least bit clausterphobic.

Control

My dad used to play medium pitch over hand softball. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it since, but it was a good idea: you pitch overhand but you can't pitch too fast. So instead of altering your swing radically for those moonball slo-pitches, you are kind of taking batting practice.

If this means nothing to you, it's ok. It meant not much to me when I was in second grade.

But my dad was good at the sport. He could pitch overhand - his high school career included several no-no's and even a perfect game. He could throw four pitches. And, he could hit. Now that I'm bigger and older, I realize that his ability to hit was pretty profound, all desire and physics. But he could rip the ball.

By second grade, Dad had already spent a good amount of time talking to me about the correct transfer of weight synched with the swing of the bat. Eyes on ball, wrists back. Efficient and powerful. Follow through.

So, I'd go to Dad's games and I was tasked with watching his swing. After the game, Dad would get in the VW Bug and ask me about each at bat, about what I saw. It was the gateway into so many aspects of what I was taught, who Dad is, and who he wanted me to be. At second grade, he wanted me to have excellent powers of observation and critical thinking, to offer my opinion to a superior unafraid. To assess an action independent of my overwhelming emotion.

I remember telling him that I thought he was moving in the box. Rocking back, then forward. That his eyes had left the ball and looked to where he wanted to hit. Looking back, it's occurring to me as I write this that one of Dad's biggest obstacles was when what he wanted to do got in the way of what he was doing.

So it's 35 years later and I'm breaking down what was and is. Critical thinking has allowed me to get a degree and success in a variety of fields. I've gotten pretty good at it. I realize I could have worked a lot less hard at work and still have my job. That I wish I would have made my older kids work harder at what they loved. That I should never have bought that conversion van. It's a long list.

I just got back from visiting my little brother. When I asked him about his life, he gave me a shockingly uncritical response. If you had xxxx and then xxxx happened, what would you have done? I asked. His response: that didn't happen. But, I offered, if you had xxxx in the past, then of course you'd be in a different spot. True, he responded, but xxxx didn't happen.

Everything is as it should be. God has guided events so that where things are today is where He wants them to be. No amount of critical thinking of the past or future is going to improve, add, or subtract from where we are now.

Our God Is In Control


by Steven Curtis Chapman


This is not how it should be
This is not how it could be
This is how it is
Our God is in control

This is not how it will be
When we finally will see
We’ll see with our own eyes
He was always in control

And we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
And we will finally really understand what it means
So we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
While we’re waiting for that day

This is not where we planned to be
When we started this journey
This is where we are
And Our God is in control

Though this first taste is bitter
There will be sweetness forever
When we finally taste and see
That Our God is in control

And we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
And we will finally really understand what it means
So we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
While we’re waiting for that day
We’re waiting for that day
We’ll keep on waiting for that day

And we will know
Our God is in control
Holy Holy Holy
Holy Holy Holy
Our God is in control
Holy Holy Holy
Our God is in control
Holy Holy Holy

Pin Prick

Izzi told me that they were testing their own blood in class. They had to stick themselves, get some blood, and then perform a series of tests on it.

She couldn't prick herself. It was too hard. So hard that she actually had to ask someone else to do it for her.

I remember experiencing the same problem when I found out my Selah had type 1 diabetes. In 48 hours, you're in a class, and the teacher is telling you you have to stick your daughter. I wasn't the only parent in tears. Why was this happening?

I'm guessing there are more than a few of you out there who aren't quite sure what I mean. It's a pin, it sticks you. It won't kill you. It won't even hurt that bad. There's only a little blood, and then it stops.

That's all I have when I think of how we'll recall our lives here on this Earth. The odds of us remembering pain will be akin in amplitude and duration to remembering a pin prick. Remember that time you pricked your finger in high school? Kind of. I remember doing it. It didn't last long. I remember being afraid.

I Know My Redeemer Lives

Job 19:25 (New International Version)

 ²⁵ I know that my Redeemer ^[a] lives,
       and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. ^[b]


Job lost it all. His wife and his kids and his riches and his health. Job lost way more than me. And when it came down to the end of himself, Job just said: I know my Redeemer lives. 


And if I could help, I'd say: that's it. I know the ending. I know that I'll see my daughter in her glory and my father in his, and all of Heaven rejoicing. 


And there will be no tears. And this moment will be just a sliver of time.


I know that my Redeemer lives. And that's it. I don't know if I'll ever do the job I loved, or work with the people I love, or the clients I truly enjoyed. I don't know if we get to stay in this house.


I know my redeemer lives.

About Those Writing Samples

Self-sabotage? I don't know what I have for writing samples. I always thought I'd be doing video, so I started to just get rid of them.

..he wrote.

The best, maybe the only, non-script I've written in the past three years I've written for you. Just not sure that's what a potential employer had in mind as he/she/they are looking for that sa-weeet web copy. Or billboard.

Right now, the goal is to scoop up whatever I can and hopefully not let my former employers do too much to Isabel's graduation, Selah's insulin, or Kellen's basketball camps.

distracted

A cloudless blue sky and the sun - gone for weeks at a time through the winter - explodes through brand-new leaves and bursts through my window. Energy's 93 million mile journey ends on my skin.

Even in the spring warmth, the air of this place is harsher without my Dad. Without my daughter's smile and gurgle. Without a job.

We're pretty simple people, far less complex than we'd like to think. I heard an ad on the radio yesterday where a guy said his fiancee' had parted ways with him, and he was broken and despondent, but then she changed her mind, and he was so blessed. So thankful.

And I mocked him a little. To think our faith would be bolstered by the whim of a woman is as silly, I guess, as thinking that God is raining judgement on me through the shallow, selfish mind of my former boss. Why am I associating blessing and joy - or pain - with people's affirmation, or a few rays of  sun? Am I that easily distracted?

What I've Got

Woke up this morning and feel so confident that God will make this all right. I just experience spiritual and emotional decay throughout the day, as the worries and troubles mount. But for right now, I am the richest man alive. Family, brother, sisters, friends. And the cross. 


And this song by my friend Robbie Seay. So lay aside the heavy doubts you bring:


Got brothers by my side | Sisters at my right | And hands that hold my own and won’t let go | Got a love that won’t subside | Leaving all my fears behind | And grace at every turn, and so I know || I am not alone | I am not alone | I will ever find that You’re my home | I am not alone || 


There’s a narrow road to walk | That’s wide enough for all | So lay aside the heavy doubts you bring | The strongest and the weak | Oldest and the meek | All meet at the cross, and we will sing || 


We are not alone | We are not alone | We will ever find that You’re our home | Oh, we are not alone | We are not alone | We will ever find that You’re our home | We are not alone ||


‘Cause You said You’d never leave us | When You came and when You freed us | You never left us for a moment, God | And You never will disown us | When we know that You are for us | You never leave us for a moment, God || The greatest and the least | Broken and redeemed | All meet at the cross, and we will sing | We will sing | We will sing | We will sing | We will sing || 


You came, and You freed us | And You will never leave us | Now we are singing, oh 


What?? You haven't bought Robbie's album? What's wrong with you? If you follow this blog, then you love his ministry. And you know what he's done for this family.