Total Forgiveness

Summertime trips to visit friends in Dallas will usually find our family making a trip to see the Texas Rangers play baseball. I was disappointed to spend the 4th of July weekend in the metroplex, while my Rangers spent the holiday weekend in Baltimore!

As I sat doing homework earlier tonight, Mike came into the bedroom and said..."You need to see the homerun derby." I flipped the television station over to the coverage of Major League Baseball's All-Star celebration, just in time to see Texas Ranger outfielder Josh Hamilton hit his 23rd homerun. He was being pitched to by his High School American Legion coach. Hamilton had promised the man while playing for him in Raleigh, North Carolina that if he ever made the major leagues and was invited to hit in the homerun derby that he would ask Clay Council to pitch for him. And tonight, the 71 year old Coach took the mound in front of a packed out Yankees Stadium. Rubbing elbows with men who will one day take their place in the Hall of Fame.

"Do you know Hamilton's story?" Mike asked. He tell me just a bit about the clean cut blonde young man, and then walks out of the bedroom. Curiousity got the best of me and I started researching the heavy hitter.

The 27 year old has been down roads that parents would never wish for their children. He was released from Major League Baseball in 2005 for repeated drug addiction and failed attempts at rehab. He had hit rock bottom, losing his career, and was in jeapordy of losing his family and his life. An ESPN article that Hamilton wrote about himself has me in tears as he talks about going to sleep in strange places and praying that he would never wake up. His body is covered in 26 tattoo's that Hamlton now says he's ashamed of, but shows where he came from. What turned his life around when so many athletes are still encompassed in drugs and alcohol?

It can all be summed up in one word: Faith. Hamilton finds it hard to tell his story without mentioning his Christianity and prefers that you not even try. When the microphones at the Homerun Derby point towards him after he hits his 31st home run, he doesn't talk about the "Big Man Upstairs" he instead speaks of "His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ giving him another chance at life...and giving HIM all the praise." He has been quoted as saying "I'm proof that Hope is never lost".

I know that perhaps tonight, I'm writing to myself. But many of us can think of someone right now that is going down the wrong road, and making the wrong choices. We want so desperately to pull them back and shake them until they gain some sense. Instead, we have to watch, heartbroken, like Hamilton's family did...as that prodigal son or daughter disappear over the hill and around the corner. We have to put them into God's hands and trust that HE will bring them back...even if it means that we know how hard they're going to fall.

Can you relate to the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son? I certainly can. I can almost see him walking to the edge of the driveway every day...looking for his son to come back around the bend in the road. I can relate to how his heart was broken as he prayed "Father, I give him to you...even if it means that you have to take him down so far that he has to eat pig slop....or sleep in the streets...or a homeless shelter....in order to bring him back to You."

I can only imagine the joy he must have felt when he saw that familiar face once again. The bible says "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."

There were no "I told you so's", no "What were you thinking?", not a single mention of "You were raised better than that." Just total forgiveness. Kind of like God does with us when we mess up...yet again.