Sometimes The World Throws You A Curve Ball That Doesn’t!
I love baseball! I love playing and watching baseball almost more than anything in the world! I especially love to watch pitchers. Some of the things those guys make a baseball do are simply amazing! A long time ago, I pitched a little myself. Learning how to throw a good curve ball was a real challenge. To be fair, most of my curve balls barely broke . . . Ah well! But a good curve ball? That’s a thing of beauty!
Life throws us curve balls as well. When we expect something fast, straight and down the middle . . . a curve ball! When we anticipate a much slower change up . . . a curve ball! When we looking for a slider or knuckle ball . . . a curve ball. After a while, we begin to believe that all life pitches us are curve balls and we dig in, ready to smack the next pitch over the fence and then . . . Sometimes The World Throws Us a Curve Ball That Doesn’t!
Yep! Instead of looping away from us and dropping across the plate, the ball flies toward our body as if it were a heat-seeking missile! If we are fortunate, we fall backward or down, missing the impact of the speeding projectile. If we are less fortunate, the curve ball that doesn’t, becomes a “Bean Ball!” Ouch! The pitch bounces off our head or thuds into our ribs or glances off our hip! Yep, the wild pitch – the pitch that does what we least expect – causes us great pain!
Some times life is like that. When be begin to believe that there is a “tell” from life that allows us to accurately predict what comes next, we are fooled. The curve ball doesn’t and we pay the price! What are we to do when this happens? We might consider:
- Recognizing that we are incapable of predicting anything life brings.
- Picking ourselves up off the ground, paying attention to the place we were “beaned” and giving it a little rub.
- Accepting a little help from the Umpire.
- Embracing the encouraging words that will come from our teammates.
- Placing our helmet back on our head (it’s always important to play safely).
- Dusting ourselves off.
- Gripping the bat with determination.
- Standing firm in the batter’s box.
- Getting ready for the next pitch.
- Realizing that one pitch does not a life make!
Sometimes Life Throws You A Curve Ball That Doesn’t and when that happens . . . well, you know what to do!
Peace!
Mark E. Hundley
