Ohps, I missed!

There are some ways I am thankful I am not like my 3 year old… I don’t like riding in the back seat of the car, I don’t need to yell for someone to come button my pants every time I use the restroom, I like the independence that comes with being over 3 feet tall, and I like picking out my own clothes every morning.  However, there are many things that come with being 3 that I admire, and wish I could recapture in my own life.  I would love to have the metabolism to eat whatever I wanted and still stay thin as a rail.  I wish I had his energy.  It would be awesome to have someone do my laundry, fix my meals, and drive me around while I napped (ok, (A) will tell you I am still a pretty great car-napper).  And oh that confidence and tenacity…. There’s 10 gallons of confidence in that little pint size package.

This spring (a) has been given a couple of fun little baseball sets by people who know how much he loves the outdoors.  Neither (A) nor I are baseball enthusiasts, nor do we have any history of playing baseball/softball competitively, so our little outdoor baseball adventures are kind of lame.  It mostly consists of one of us throwing him a terrible pitch, him missing it, someone chasing the ball down, and that process repeating.   Last night as we “played” baseball in the yard something about this process really hit me.  No matter how many times he missed the ball, it didn’t phase him in the least.  I’ll admit, many of the misses were due to my completely pathetic pitching- but there were also many that happened due to his lack of skill.  Either way his response was ALWAYS “Ohps!! I missed!!” with a HUGE smile on his face, a little laugh, and then we would try again.  Never once did he threaten to give up, get frustrated, try to blame me for the problem, or make an excuse for his performance.  Just “Ohps!! I missed!!” and then he would try again.  We probably repeated this process 30 times with only 1 or 2 successful hits, but it never phased him.  The only reason we stopped was that he got distracted by another toy, not that he became discouraged or gave up. 

As I watched this (and of course giggled to myself) I couldn’t help but marvel at his confidence and tenacity.  How many times in my life am I willing to try things before I give up?  I quickly become frustrated with myself and the situation, I want to look for someone to blame, or I become completely discouraged and embarrassed to the point that I just quit.  How much different would things be if I looked at every struggle, every set back, every failure or disappointment as just “Ohps! I missed!” and then be willing to jump back up and give it another try.  I waste so much time beating myself up, questioning my worth, comparing my effectiveness, and debating another try- when what I need to do is simply regroup, learn from it, and try again. 

Afterall, when it comes to the things that matter most, God has already promised me that He is not going to let me down.  One of my all-time favorite verses is Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  The things that God has started in me, the things that are going to be used for His glory… He is going to see them through.  I should not give up in doing His work just because one small piece of the puzzle flops, one event isn’t well attended, because one person is critical, or because one writing doesn’t come together the way I wanted it to.  I could waste a lot of time questioning myself, crying over what didn’t work, or feeling like a failure, OR I could cling to the promise that what God has started, He is going to finish.  And I need to trust Him enough to get back up, regroup, and get back to what he has called me to do. 

And for the sake of my kiddo, I could probably also use some more pitching practice.