God’s sovereignty in my life goes back far beyond the following entry.  I, myself, have almost died several times.  Things happen with such… frequency that I started writing goodbye letters to the people closest to me.  They are all saved in a secure place, ready to be opened upon my untimely death.

But a lot of the stuff I am going to talk about would be classified as a ‘curse’ when hearing it for the first time.  When I was a baby, my Mom was in labor for 28 hours and her blood pressure fell to zero twice – I almost killed her.  I witnessed my Dad struggle with work and eventually become an entrepreneur and build a company from the ground up.  I switched schools just often enough in that, for the majority of time, I did not have good friends (and at the same time did not resort to ‘wide’ friendships).  I grew up with three brothers and did not know how to deal with girls.

These are things that have helped shape my life.  I am going to talk about a couple of the major events.

The first one happened during my freshman year of high school.

People tell me I am fast.  That is, I run fast.  I tried cross country in the fall of my freshman year and hated it.  I started track in the winter, but what was really on my mind was completely different.  My passion was baseball.  I loved everything about baseball.  I loved watching it and playing it and keeping track of stats.  I loved watching the great home run race back in 1998 and seeing Ken Griffey Jr. swing the bat.  I loved tension that built up for an entire season get played out in a single game.  I even loved my Cubs, though they rarely made the postseason.  I played baseball since I was old enough to play T-ball.  I slowly improved from the worst player on the team for the first six years to one of the best.  I played outfield and first base and would occasionally pitch.  I was a lefty and I could hit for power or average (but seemingly not both at the same time…).

I loved baseball.

So I used winter track to get into shape for baseball season.  I became a sprinter because they spent more time in the weight room and you never have to run more than a hundred (or so) meters in baseball.  I had the papers for baseball season signed and ready and I was about to get out of track… until next year.  I was, but plans change.

A couple of weeks before the baseball season started, I was running hurdles.  I was tall, I was fast, and the team needed to replace some seniors that had graduated.  So there we were, practicing in the second floor north east hallway of Bartlett High School, doing silly looking drills and striding awkwardly over the hurdles.  After I started to gain confidence, coach asked me to do a full-speed run-through.  Just as I was about to begin, the baseball coach started walking down the hallway and asked my track coach if they could use it later for baseball conditioning.  Now was my chance!  I was going to impress both coaches at once.  I ran top speed to the first hurdle and leaped over it without error.  But I stuttered going into the second hurdle and did not jump far enough – my trailing leg caught the hurdle and I tumbled over it and landed funny.  I got up and completed the remaining three hurdles.

When I say that I landed funny, I mean I landed hard.  On my left wrist.  It was killing me throughout the rest of track practice and I got it X-rayed later that night.  Turns out I cracked the bone right near the growth plate.  Great.

I was in complete denial about the whole situation.  I was wearing a bright green cast that would prevent me from any sort of throwing for six weeks and I knew that I would not be able to swing a bat very well for a couple months.  Life sucked.  I went to the park one day and started throwing right-handed at a chain-link fence.  I threw fastballs that weren’t very fast and curveballs that seemed directionless.  Things didn’t look good, but I kept throwing in hopes of being able to practice somewhat with the baseball team.

Long story short, coach said no.  Maybe next year.  I was stuck with track.

And for the major events of my life, this is where this entry ends and the next will begin. And maybe I will explain some of the sovereignty of my anti-baseball ‘curse.’

So why is dodgeball in my title?

At CFC, my church, small groups will often face off against other small groups in a healthy game of dodgeball.  It is nothing like middle school where we used the rubber balls that left marks on people’s faces, but it is ultra-competitive.  To make the playing field a little more level, when a guy targets a girl he has to throw with his opposite hand.  Let’s just say that I can throw my signature curveball with either hand and I have a respectable right arm for a left (or right)-handed guy.  Sorry, ladies, this foam ball is going to sting a little.