Each year as this time rolls around you know what this girl is thinking? Softball. I love the feel of the glove in my hand, the ball coming quickly and chasing after it. I love the dust and the dirt in my shoes. I love laughing and sharing with others as we round the bases counting up runs coming in.I have played ball every since I can remember and for this girl, I still want to play. Some may say, "How can you play if you are in such pain?" Well, let me try to explain just how I feel on that field. Is my pain gone? No. In fact its very real, and intense, not so much when I'm on the field, but after, when I am walking to the truck, once I get in or crawl in, the tears begin to flow. Once home after that hot shower, and meds, I try to fall asleep, but it doesn't come quickly.
When I put on my shorts, grab my glove, warm up playing catch with my husband, and tie those shoe strings tight I feel at peace. Once I walk up to bat I feel a freedom. When I am at second base or catching I feel like I can conquer anything. I feel for one hour and forty-five minutes like a energized girl again with my back against the pain, and all that is in my mind is the sweet breeze blowing as the night lights flicker on.
For those few months of playing ball it brings with it such a sweet time. A time for me to enjoy in the warmth of the sun with others who have the same passion to feel young again. I am not the only struggling out there on that field. I think many of the men I play with do also. They come after a hard days work, and for them too it is a release, a freedom like being young and climbing trees. Climbing to the top, not afraid to fall.
We all have those sweet spots that bring us such joy and even through the pain we don't want to give that feeling up. So, for me, this girl runs through the pain to find a few moments of joy that fill this girls heart just as I was nine and playing again with my dad watching, cheering me on. Only this time, I have my husband cheering me on and the Lord is there too. He is the Light of this girl's life and without Him I would not be able to move through each day as I do. He fills me with such a sweet Spirit, and sets my dreams before me, those dreams of young that still come alive.
There have been years I have not been able to play, and I am praying this is not one of them, which it very well could be. If so, if its time to hang up my glove, I will still feel the breeze blow by and the ball in my glove, and the dirt in my shoes while I slide into base in the dreams of the night when all the pain is gone, when the Lord has set me free in the midst of the night when all seems right.
