Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CLUMSY (04/11/19)
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TITLE: Left Field Love | Previous Challenge Entry
By Brenda Kern
04/18/19 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
I am 1% coordinated and 0% athletic. I am always covered with cuts, scrapes, bruises, and assorted booboos, all accidentally self-inflicted.
Once I even managed to hit myself in the face with a full soft drink from a fast food restaurant AFTER I’d placed it on top of my car so I wouldn’t spill it while I got out of the car. Oopsie.
But I had signed up for church softball. This ill-advised move may have had to do with the fact that I was the preacher’s teenage daughter, and if the sign-up sheet was a little sparse, I may have been ‘encouraged’ to participate.
No, this isn’t going to be a story about how I came up to bat (one of my few required times) at a crucial moment and hit a clutch home run and basked in the glory of everyone’s cheers while I slowly (and carefully) trotted around the bases in slow motion, waving to my many fans…
No, that never happened.
My times at bat consisted of my standing there in a stance somebody had tried to improve at practice, while I didn’t move an inch, praying, praying, praying that the ball wouldn’t hit me. Swinging at a pitch might have been helpful, in that it would have created a slight breeze to relieve the Midwestern summer heat, but no contact with the ball would have occurred. My embarrassment and fear only ended when I’d finally gotten three strikes (pitched strikes) and could sit back down again. For me, that was “SAFE!”
For my stints in the outfield, I was consistently placed in left field, the least likely location that a ball was going to reach in ladies’ softball, which was fine by me. All I had to do, usually, was stand there and sweat. And get sunburned. And get bitten by militant mosquitoes in attack formation. And pray some more that the ball wouldn’t hit me.
In preparation for this fine display of athleticism, of course at practice some foolhardy someone would loss a ball toward me—-way up in the air in a giant, slow arch, which was designed to be easily catchable by anyone, including me. Hilarious. As it approached me, I’d go into my standard self-protective a-ball-is-coming-straight-at-me position of head down, hunched back, both hands over my face and head, continuing with my ever constant silent prayer. This position made it challenging to catch (or even see) any ball.
One game, near the end of my hitless season, I was out in left field, sweating and minding my own business, when a ball was hit high and far, and, to my utter horror, it was going to come nearest to me. The short stop and center fielder knew the truth and were hustling toward me as fast as they could, but the ball was dropping faster than they could gallop, and I knew I had a few choices.
I could try to catch it. (Stop snickering!)
I could do my standard fear posture and hope the ball didn’t hit me in the glasses, shattering them and sending deadly near-sightedness shards into my brain.
I could actually run away, or at least run until I inevitably tripped over my own two feet or a clump of crab grass or nothing in particular and went down.
So, covered in prayer, I lifted the glove six inches above my upturned face, closed my eyes, and waited for my fate to be sealed.
There was a “Thwop!” sound, and I felt something in my glove. It seemed that the ball had landed in my glove! How on earth?!?
Yes, I’d ‘caught’ the ball. And got an opponent out.
The short stop, our youth pastor’s wife, was closest when it happened, and actually stopped running to jump up and down with unbridled joy, hollering, “You did it! You caught one! Now throw it to me, right to my glove.”
She picked the ball up off the ground after my lame throw, and the game went on.
In a larger sense, life went on as well.
That was the greatest athletic triumph of my life, and I can still feel the surprise and thrill of that moment. I consider it one of God’s great gifts, just for me.
…How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11, NIV)
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