Christian Living

Tough Words

by Terry Barlow
04/06/20
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 My memory is taking me back to Little League  days and an incident whose impact and significance  is suddenly becoming clearer. My friend and I were riding with the assistant coach to a game. I was to pitch that night.  My friend was the catcher,  but on nights I pitched he replaced me in the outfield  and another smaller boy had an opportunity to catch. I would have preferred my friend who besides being my best friend  was also a bigger target but the alternate catcher was also effective.  As a hitter I had shown a disturbing pattern that did not go unnoticed by our assistant coach.  I would blast the ball all over the outfield in practice but tended to freeze up in games and become only an average hitter.  
This phenomenon was not limited to baseball.  I established the same habit in basketball. "We're moving you down in the batting order tonight, " Clem the coach said matter of factly, breaking the silence as we drove.  Oh?" I responded. "Well yeah,  ya can't hit,  can ya?"  I'm not sure how I answered that but I don't think it was with much conviction. Notice that Clem didn't just bluntly say that I couldn't hit period.  He left an opening.  He asked me to respond either confirming or denying what he had stated by concluding his words with "can ya?"  I believe he was secretly hoping I would  protest and disagree, and then go out of the dugout that night and prove him wrong.  My friend later said that it wasnt right and that Clem shouldn't have spoken to me that way.   But something happened that night against one of the best and one of the fasted pitchers in the league. I not only pitched a complete game victory,  but I hit a home run to the delight of my mom and grandmother who were in attendance that night.  It was the only game that they attended.  They honked the horn of the car I recall as I rounded the bases. We won the game by one run.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Clem was delighting in that home run too.  Not just because we won but because his seemingly cruel or harsh words seem to have prompted a dfferent and improved  performance from me. Those hard words of his were calculated to unlock the good hitter that had been trapped inside me.  It was also a two for one deal,  because when we played that team the next time at the same field against the same pitcher as I recall we came away with the same result,  including a pitching victory for me and another home run! Thank you, Clem for caring enough to confront me and challenge me.   My best friend  had tried to protect me from that hard word by attempting to soften the blow afterwards,  but Clem seemed to know what it would take to jar me out of my timid complacency.  Thank God for coaches,  teachers,  pastors,  or parents  and other authority figures in our lives who display or have displayed that same insightful combination of boldness and wisdom to light a fire beneath us when we most needed it.  Sometimes, their good intentions notwithstanding,  our best friends are the last to know what we really need. Or we ourselves are the last to know when the shoe is on the other foot and we are the ones giving our friendly two cents worth.