Long ago, in the land of Columbiana, way before the invention of T-ball, there lived a young boy who discovered his love for sports. Although he had no foreknowledge of what could happen to someone who fell in love with sports, his parents signed him up to play baseball in “bantum league.” The name of the league should have been a tip-off to all parents that their kids were too young to really play sports, but they ignored the signs because the earlier the better when it comes to introducing kids to sports, right?
Just as most people don’t associate concrete floors, sewers, and fish ponds with trauma, we also don’t think having our kids play sports can be traumatic. Bantum baseball started with great hope and promise until practice started. The coach, Mr. Koehler, only had one arm, and he loved kids. So he drafted a young twenty-something to pitch us baseballs during practice so the young french fries could learn to hit. The problem was that the young buck who was supposed to “toss” the baseball to the young chaps so they could learn to hit had a huge ego problem. He fired the ball as hard a he could at the little 5-year-olds sending the fear of death throughout our scrawny bodies. “Scared to death” and “terrified” are the lasting stored body memories from that experience.
I wonder if the fear of being hit by the fastball and curveballs in practice had anything to do with the fact that this young boy didn’t get a hit the entire season. When opponents chanted, “Can’t hit, can’t hit, can’t hit” when I was batting, they were right. I couldn’t hit anything! My lasting memories from this early childhood experience was being afraid and peeing my pants in left field because they also had not yet invented port-a-pots. I also wondered, “Where is God when bad and scary things happen to kids?” because I felt so vulnerable, unsafe, and unprotected.
The answer to the question was Mr. Koehler. He got the last and defining word for me. After our last game of the season was over, Mr. Koehler walked over to my family and said to my parents, “Your son has potential.” That’s how you be Jesus to kids feeling full of fear, shame, and failure. When I wanted to hide and wrap up my “loser” sports career, he called me out of hiding, and spoke words of hope into my scared little existence. And those are the words my father has shared with me over and over again when he reflects back to my initial experience of playing ball. Even before I knew it, God was working out all things for the good.