It's funny how the journey of life twists and turns and sometimes it takes a long detour to get back to where you were. I had that experience today. Two years ago our youngest son, Will, had a fantastic year of baseball as a freshman in high school capped off by a summer of playing with the varsity team in which he led the team in nearly every batting category. Shortly thereafter he was told that he needed to lose some weight to be a regular player on the team. He was too heavy and it was something he needed to change. What didn't need to happen was what did happen, he lost 90+ pounds in a seven month period and his ability to play the game was severely diminished because he lost most of his strength. His sophomore and junior seasons were near total washouts, only three at bats during his junior year.
I watched his hopes and dreams die and his joy in baseball, something at which he had excelled all his life, completely leave. In the process, my wife and I both died within, our own joy gone and our hopes for Will's future dashed. It has been a very difficult time for us emotionally. What had previously been one of the great joys of our life, baseball fields and baseball friends, was a place of deep pain.
In those two years Will committed himself to a physical fitness regime I could never have imagined. He became the healthiest eater I have ever seen, ran every day, worked out seven days a week in the gym, and hit baseball in the batting cage five days a week. In those two years of hard work, work he had never done before, his return on investment was zero. Over the last two weeks he has come home from either practice or scrimmage games prepared to quit baseball forever, we really thought it was done. His confidence was completely gone, at bats particularly were painful. In that same time he has become the best first baseman I have ever seen at the high school level.
Today, he hit his first home run in over two years. What I asked him when he got home was, "Is your amnesia gone?" That was what it looked like to me when I saw him at bat and when he got to home plate to a raucous greeting by his teammates, a young man who had long ago forgotten who he is but who suddenly remembered in two at bats. I too, rediscovered my joy in watching Will play baseball. If he had come home and told me he was done with baseball today I would have been okay with his decision, I needed him to remember how talented and gifted he is, so that he can call on those resources of faith in his life and I needed the healing remembrance as well.
Tomorrow - the spiritual implications of remembering.
