Motivational Growing

It was a long time ago, but the memories are vividly etched in my mind. Little league baseball was an experience that few should miss out on. I was eight and had never really even played catch before trying out for the team. I can remember my dad and I going down to Sears and buying my first mitt. It was a dark brown leather mitt similar to Ken Griffey's (Senior that is). I can remember walking down to the field for the first time. It was a warm, slightly damp day, under the shaded oaks of Rockwell International's intramural park.

Though playing baseball was great, it was not the thing I remember most about my time on the Rockwell Dodgers. It was our third baseman... well baseperson actually. Over two seasons, I played with three of the Reese children. The younger brother and sister were not much into baseball, but the oldest of the three, Kate, was one incredible ball player.

Kate could throw a bullet of a ball from third to first, and was as consistent a hitter as anyone on our team. As far as age, I was one of the youngest on the team, and she was one of the oldest, so two and a half years separated us. She constituted the first girl that I liked that was close to my age. Before that, there were only babysitters, my sister’s ballet teacher, and one of our neighbor's oldest daughters, a girl twelve years my senior. I really liked Kate and she really disliked me... Ah! Isn't love grand?! The next few weeks would be some the strangest times of my entire life.

Eight year old boys don't really know how to express feeling very well, at least compared to us men, and as a result, a lot of trial and error occurred. First I tried grossing her out: frogs, crickets, spitting food out, the usual genre of unveiled disgustingness. I found that Kate could not be phased by such things (I think she must have had older brothers or been raised by a pack of wolves or something), and her retaliations were always swift and brutal. I had many a baseball thrown at various parts of my body, not to mention fists, even a bat once. It was time to progress to plan B.

I tried to be really nice to her, but one of my friends found out that I liked her and told Kate: this was not good at all. I know this is a shocker, but girls can be really mean when they want to be. Kate would taunt me to the point of wanting to abandon love all together and hit her right in the nose. What saved me from her beating the tar out of me was that I was not allowed to hit girls. My solution was to make some silly comment and just run away. I was miserable beyond measure.

I finally decided that if she wouldn't like me, I'd just have to play better ball than her. That would show her! I had vision, goals and motivation: a strikingly effective combination. I progressed from a part time outfielder to getting the full time position and my hitting improved to the point that I even made the alternate position on the all-star team in spite of having such a poor batting average at the beginning of the season. This enthusiasm was climaxed when I hit an in the park grand-slam. It was an error-laden play that should have only been a base-clearing double, but this is little league and that’s all you need to know.

Kate never did return my affections, but by the end of the season, she had developed a healthy respect for me and she even stopped hitting me. As a result of my little crush on her, I became a much better player and in the following season, was one of the elite players in our little league organization. Kate moved on to the next older league and only her two younger siblings remained with me, but something really good came out of my misplaced motivations. I even survived the heartbreaking loss of Kate.

'All things work to the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.' I've always fretted with this scripture since I don't feel like all things work to my good and I feel strongly called to God's purposes. All of our experiences are for a reason, even though there are events that I would have liked to avoid, there is a higher plan associated with wisdom and it is God who has hold of the map.

My first inclination is to look at the little picture rather than the grander scheme of things. Someone once told me that if you really want to see how important a news article is, wait a month and read it again, if it still has significance, then it is probably of value. As we are all too painfully aware, God's time table is not our own and God is also much more into fitting the seemingly random events of our life into His big puzzle. Focusing solely on our current state is much like the person who looks in their checking account and says 'Let's throw a party because I have a $1500.00 balance in my checking account, so I can buy some great food and drinks.' What this person has forgotten is that the rent is due in two days as well as the utility bills. It is the simple principal of cause and effect that we so often miss.

Our view of events must be panoramic. In other words, we must look at events now, the elements that led up to this point, and its long term significance. After doing these three things, we must be able to accept that, in spite of the circumstances, God is still in control of everything. This process is as hard as any other element of the Christian walk because it is the basic precept of faith. Faith is really the acknowledgement and accepting that something will be completed that we don’t have control over.

Faith requires us to accept experiences as building blocks to God's higher calling, realizing that they could be necessary for the overall good of His master plan. I'll probably never see Kate again as long as I live, but I've never regretted the experiences of that summer for a minute. It all worked to good, in spite of the hardship it caused me while I was growing up and going through it. I also eventually learned that giving girls frogs doesn't work too well, even in these modern times.

-Doug