Thursday, March 31, 2011

Opening Day


In my family, today’s a holiday.  It’s Opening Day!  Spring training has come to a close and baseball season is officially underway.  With it, we welcome long, sunny nine inning days, home run screams, and seventh inning stretches.  Opening Day’s rainbow is a promise that summer is quickly approaching and the long dark days of winter are almost just a memory. 

For your team, it’s a new beginning, a chance to start fresh and charge the field with fervor.  Players approach the game with their bats held high and the missed opportunities of last year’s season behind them.  Before the first ball is pitched, each athlete is filled with a confidence of big dreams.  Mistakes have yet to be made.  The diamond sparkles and for a moment failed seasons of the past are obsolete. 

However, after the first pitch is underway it’s only a matter of time before failed at bats, wild pitches, and fielding errors.  An imperfect season is inevitable and at times agonizing for a team and its fans.  For me, it feels a lot like life.  We arrive with the best of intentions and championship dreams and simultaneously begin dodging the curveballs life throws in our path.

Last night I felt like I was standing in the middle of a losing season.  I lay on the couch and desperately tried to wish it all away.   I felt covered in grass stains.  It’s been strikeout after strikeout of health grievances and financial overloads.  We feel like we’re on the road, far from a home game, and each loss tears at our spirits. 

Flat on our backs we called to God.  “Hello?  We know you’re there- but look at us, Lord.  We’re barely hanging on.”  And in the dark hours of the night, we lay exhausted from a day that resembled being hit by pitch after pitch.

Today, when I opened my heavy eyes, I was reminded of His promise.  “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.”
Lamentations 3:22-23

We are not consumed, in His love and compassion we will not fail.  Each morning, God’s mercies are new.  No matter how dark the night can be, His light comes in the morning.  I don’t have to wait through a long season to bounce into life again.  With Him, each time I awake it is an Opening Day.  He is faithful and by His love I am restored every morning.

I need to be reminded that each day, He is there.  My pain and my financial worries do not consume me.  Every day, He opens my eyes with His love and fills my mind with His mercies so I can begin again.  His great faithfulness helps me back to my feet so that I can approach the day with confidence.  I can hold my bat high and hold onto a hope of homerun dreams.  I am not withheld from His love.  By His compassion, when I awake, it is always Opening Day.

Play Ball!

1 comment:

  1. The way you can take a theme and work it throughout is one of my favorite things about the way you write. It never seems forced or trite, just fluid and perfect!

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