The Gift of Pain

I was trying to leg out an infield hit. I stretched to the bag and felt a little pop and realized I had popped my quad muscle. I limped back to the dugout and realized I was done. Two days later, feeling I was recovered enough from my quad, I tried to hit. As a power hitter, when I swing it is all parts of the body working in forward motion. On a 3-1 count, I let her rip and went down. Done for the evening again. Two days later, I am back at it again trying to catch and while stretching right to catch a ball out of the strike zone I did it again.

After three re-occurrences of the same image, it finally sunk into my thick skull that maybe I ought to lay low for a while and let my injury actually heal. So I did or so I thought. I was putting spaghetti away and I dropped a container of spaghetti on the floor. As I was going to pick it up, I felt the most intense pain in the leg to date and I dropped to the floor in agony. This pain caught me by surprise.

Author Philip Yancey has written extensively about the subject of pain. He co-wrote a book called The Gift of Pain and has referred to it in multiple of his books. Leprosy patients are at great risk of doing harm to themselves because they can feel no pain. Someone with leprosy can stick their hand in a fire and not know it. The book makes the fascinating conclusion that pain is actually good for us. Pain is much broader than physical. It reaches to the very core of our being. Some of the worst pain is emotional and spiritual.

Intentional Pain Stops Us from Unintended Consequences
If there were no consequences to our behavior, we would do all sorts of bad things. But the bad things we do leave a mark. My continued insistence on playing through pain only made my situation worse. We can see this with our dabbling with sin. There are always consequences and the mark of pain helps us to recognize it.

Unintentional Pain Reveals Our Need for God
Some of the worst pain comes from outside. It is the consequences of living in a fallen world. My worst pain on my example came from the accidental spill of the spaghetti. Likewise, the unforeseen such as an accident or a trial occurs. This type of trial leads us to recognize our frailty and our need for a personal God.

When God Interrupts Our Routine

Tomorrow millions of people will witness the rare phenomena of the moon blocking the light's rays. In some places, there will be a total eclipse. Here in Northeast Ohio, 80.5% of the sun will be blocked. During the solar eclipse, the lunar shadow will darken the sky and temperatures will drop will bright stars and planets will appear at a time that is normally broad daylight.

Retired NASA astrophysicist and photographer Fred Espenak said the experience lasts for just a couple minutes, but it's truly out of this world. "It is unlike any other experience you've ever had, "Espenak, known as Mr. Eclipse, told ABC news. "It's a visceral experience. The hair on your arms, on the back of your neck, stand up. You get goosebumps."

There are two ways to react to this event. One is to be awed by the event itself and the second is to be awed by the creator of the heavens and the earth. I love it when God gives us glimpses of His handiwork in a way that interrupts our mundane. It is easy to get wrapped up in the day to day routine. We are hurtling through space every day. Our body intakes oxygen. Gravity keeps our feet on the ground. We don't thank God enough for His handiwork. How good it is for us to take a step back and just reflect on the wonder of it all.

David writes "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you take thought of him, the son of man that you care for him." It is awesome that the creator of the heavens and the earth desires a personal relationship with me and you. Reflect on that tomorrow as you see His handiwork.

Nostalgia and the Art of Remembering

My baseball team played a game Saturday at League Park in Cleveland. For those who don't know League Park, it is a restored baseball park on the near east side. I have been told that it is the only original structure from its era other than Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. All other stadiums of that era were razed to the ground and stuff built on top of it. League Park was the host to professional baseball from the turn of the century all the way until 1946.

The field itself was remade (see picture below by my creative photo savvy spouse) to exactly the dimensions of the original ballpark including the short 295 foot fence in right field, which has a high 40 foot fence (even higher than the famed 37 foot Green Monster fence of Fenway). The other parts of the field were 380 feet to the outfield. Quick side note - I hit a blast to the fence on Saturday but because I popped a quad muscle during the week I only ended up with a single. My manager called it the longest single in League Park history. We envisioned that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played on this field. Bob Feller pitched here and all the greats of one of the most famous eras of baseball.

The word remember or recall occur 167 times in the Bible. As I look through the list, these are some of the themes:

• Remember events such as Passover
• Remember people who preceded you
• Remember the goodness of God
• Remember the sacrifice of God
• Remember the commandments of God
• Remember what you were like before
• Remember the days of your life or the days of old 
• Remember God's holy word
• Remember the brevity of life
• Remember if your brother has something against you 

Apparently God wants us to remember stuff. It seems like our culture today is stuck in the now. Remembering is healthy in context.