The Word is final

I hit my bottom on Sunday afternoon. I think I may have hit my lowest point in a battle I've been fighting all my life.
And I may have reached a higher place in the process. My softball team opened the Willow Creek Church co-ed playoffs as the No. 1 seed in a double elimination tournament. In the opener, we played a team that's pretty good, but we'd beaten twice before. I felt very confident.

Immediately, I knew we were in trouble when our pitcher, who's generally very reliable, started walking batters like Armado Benitez did against the Yankees. After they scored once and had runners on first and third, they hit a grounder to our shourtstop. He threw the ball like the first baseman had her glove three feet underground. Two more runs score. 4-0. OK, fine. We get 1 in the bottom. I figured the pitcher would get her composure back and we'd be fine. Well, she did do better. One problem. We suddenly had defenders who played like they'd never played softball. Two dropped fly balls lead to 4 unearned runs.

We made five errors and could not get a hit to save our lives. For the love of God, I even struck out looking with bases loaded. With the bases loaded! We lost 14-2 by slaughter rule.

Let me make one thing clear, especially to those of you who know me. This was not at all my worst outburst. I didn't use one foul word. The worst thing I did was scream something to the effect of "Four errors! What are we doing!" Fortunately or unfortunately, there's no sound on this post, so I'm not doing the words justice here. But considering the situation, it was a disaster. At the end of the game, the captain pulled me aside and laid it into me pretty hard. At one point, she said the team would be just fine without me. That was all I needed to hear.

I knew we had another game to play. But if I stayed, I felt I would be a hindrance regardless of whether we won or lost. I didn't want to be a great teammate when we won and a ticked off time bomb when we lost. So I picked up my bat, threw my cleats in my black Reebok duffle bag, and paced quickly down the tenth of a mile road to the parking lot for the long 55 minute drive home.

Yeah, I left and didn't really regret it. Oh, I hated to do it. For me, to leave a game, this was absolutely drastic for me to do. But hey, on this day, I was adding nothing to this team, not with my playing or my demeanor. More importantly, this was damaging my relationships with teammates and damaging some budding friendships. And that was just too costly. It didn't matter how much I loved to play. It didn't even matter how good I was. If I couldn't deal with a loss, then it was not smart for me to be in that environment.

But the story doesn't end there.

Later that night, I talked with Ted, who is the new Associate Pastor at Ecclesia, the 20-somethings group I go to on Sunday night. www.ecclesiawheaton.com He's a few years younger than me and he a sports fanatic like me. HE explained to me that the problem was bigger than me and it was bigger than losing, which I knew. He said the solution had to come over time and I had to go through God. I needed something bigger than me to get past this.

Though I had prayed many times, I felt I hadn't gone to the Bible and really meditated on the words. And I mean really concentrated on those words. So that was a necessary thing for me to do.

So Monday night, I went into the Bible and headed straight to Proverbs and James. I began writing down some verses in a small spiral notebook. A few examples...

James 1:12: Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

James 3:9-11: With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brothers, this should not be! Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and salty water?

Writing down Bible verses just makes me concentrate on each word which I don't do too well when I just read. It may be more time consuming, but it works for me.

And the icing on the cake? I found out that after I left, my team won 2 games, placing us in the championship game in 2 weeks!

Will I play? It's very much up in the air. One, I don't know if they want me back. And two, I don't if they need me now. Three, I don't know if I want to play right now. Is it the smart thing for me to do? On the other hand, I do want a chance at redemption.

So how do I close this? I'll say this. Re-read this post and you could see a lot of ways I express this theme. The Word is final.