Take the walk

The following passage comes from a devotional I received from Zondervan this week. It is along the lines of the "Broken" post from last week.

"It's everything!" I exclaimed. "It's people at the kids' school, it's my job... Life is throwing me nothing but curveballs." I took a breath and tried to calm myself as I explained further.

"I don't need to hit a home run. I could use just a basic single to right. But I can't get any decent pitches. There's nothing normal coming my way ... Life's throwin' me nothing but junk in the dirt!" I was ranting, but I let her in for just a second.

"Then take the walk." Gina's voice was clear and firm. And startling. "What?" It didn't register. "Take the walk. Stop swinging wildly at the junk... Just take the walk. Get to first base and see what happens next." ...

I sat in my chair thinking for a long time. As I thought, I realized Gina was right. I needed to adjust my perspective. Life had been throwing me garbage. Curveballs. Pitches in the dirt. Instead of flailing away trying to make contact, instead of arguing with the umpire or trying to force something unnatural — something perhaps from my former life — I quite simply needed to relax a bit and let some pitches go by. I started looking at the annoyances in my life and tried to see them differently...