2008/04/28

Sometimes we learn the hard way

At some point in our life we have all seen that child.  You know, the one who is a "bad" kid.  The one with an attitude problem.  The child that you would love to give a spanking to if given the chance.  He's the one that God uses to teach us that we are to love the sinner and hate his sin.  Well that kid hit a home run off our son tonight.  Heartbreaking.  Not only a homerun, but a homerun off what was supposed to be an intentional walk.  Poor Colby just didn't know what that was and pitched to him.  Over the fence it goes driving in another runner and himself.  The kid runs the bases pumping his fists, hooting, and hollering, exclaiming, "and that was a homerun off an intentional walk!!!"  Poor  Colby, he knows what an intentional walk is now, and so does every kid on the team.  They lost the game 4 to 6.  Let me say that Colby didn't melt down and hide in the dugout, he persevered, came out and pitched 2 perfect innings following that.  Character building is around every corner, so is the chance to love those our flesh is tempted to not like.

5 comments:

john.reynolds1@mac.com said...

Well Said! I remember my brother Eugene (Jakes uncle) having a character building day also in little league. My brother slid into second base and his pants came off half way to his knees exposing his bottom. I believe it was the summer of 1959. Boy did the boys and fans giggle, my brother cried as expected as he was only 9 years old. That was his last game, he quit, which was a shame as he could really hit, as he was a more natural hitter than me. I remember as his big brother that I also giggled and went along with the crowd which was wrong! Peer pressure has its consequences.

CLR said...

Poor Uncle Eugene!

Jesse said...

As a former ball player, I would encourage you not to be hard on yourself, Colby. There are two reasons for this:
(1) You're one good pitcher.
(2) When I was your age (or maybe a little younger, I hope), nobody explained to me that in order to tag a runner out you were required to have the ball in your glove. Therefore, I tagged the batter "out" at first base and then spent the next 15 minutes learning that he was safe since the ball was in the outfield at the time. Talk about embarrassing!

You know the game and are a far better player than I ever was. Plus you have your Dad to help teach you to improve your pitching. How else could you have come back and pitched two perfect innings?!? Keep up the outstanding work!

Karen said...

Colby is terrific ... I am so proud of the man he is becoming. Unconditional and forgiving ... It would be so awesome to teach our peers lessons .. but then .. who gets to teach us. Colby is the Man! He has learned a valuable lesson.

pops said...

Colby:

Poppy is proud that you hung in there!

The people you deal with in life that brag and are proud of their exploits and demean others to their own benefit are the ones you will meet on your way to the top, while they are headed down!