This is the time of the year when the grass is growing greener and longer, when the back yard is full of thousands of birds making nests and laying eggs. Spring has sprung and the big focal point that has held my concentration is the smell of pine tar, white lime being lined from dug out to dug out, cleats and baseball bats abounding in every direction.

My keen sense of the all time past time leaves me hungry for more every time I visit the diamond. My playing years are behind me but my son Rian has taken my place in the line up and lives with the true spirit of excitement for the game in his eight year old heart.

Barely four feet tall this gangly shaped youth with blonde hair and a smile that reveals some of his adult teeth just starting to grow in, is hungry for the chance and opportunity to play baseball. In his mind Rian tends to be way ahead of himself and is learning to focus more and more on the fundamentals of the game. His lack of patience sometimes, earmarked by his age, causes him to stumble from time to time on the diamond.

Fortunately he’s quick to recover surrendering back to the basics and an over preached notion that he will grow into his ability and the talent that God has graced him with. In coaching young girls and boys I have come to rely on an unstoppable formula that will bear good fruit in the end result, when it comes to competitive sports. I have taught Rian that all blessings down to the smallest blade of grass in the outfield is derived from God the Almighty.


In understanding this, Rian has learned that all the glory that baseball offers, whether it comes from a well hit ball or catching a pop fly to end an inning, must go to God the creator. We come into this world with nothing and we leave it with nothing. Everything we earn or granted between the cradle and the grave comes from God. How we choose to paint the journey we call life is our choice but rest assured God has a plan for every life and his glory is the end.

Rian and I give thanks before and after every game for our opportunity with baseball and give all the glory to God who has saved us through his son Jesus Christ. This strong spiritual perspective coupled with a tenacious attitude and patience has proven to me to bear good fruit in girls and boys playing competitive sports.

I can see the hunger for the game in Rian’s eyes and encourage that hunger to grow with each step he takes to further identify who he is for the world to see. Who he is now and who he will be tomorrow is not some complex labyrinth of a pre conceived worldly perspective that one might find on “Oprah” or “Dr. Phil.”

It’s as simple as saying Rian is a follower of Jesus Christ. That’s who I want Rian to be today and tomorrow and every day of his life. Proverbs-20: 7 states,”Blessed are their children after them.” We live in a world that needs a savior and Jesus Christ is that savior. We need to raise our children with this commission in mind.

Your ministry could be close at hand as close as your son or daughter. One child at a time can change the world. The little league organization subscribes to some of the principals this country was founded upon. The little league pledge is evident of these principals.
                     
         The Little League Pledge

                                I trust in God
                          I love my country
                   And will respect it’s laws
                          I will play fair
                        And strive to win
                        But win or lose
                         I will always
                          Do my best  

I was so proud of Rian when he arrived early for his first game donning his team colors of orange and black with a very important part of his uniform affixed to the shoulder of his game jersey, the little white patch that has the National Little League logo on it. As my son Rian walked out onto the field in his red Wilson cleats wearing his new glove, I took a step back to remember when............

    The scene was a little different I was wearing a grey pinstriped uniform with canary yellow lettering and me and all my team mates smelled strongly of moth balls. The uniforms came out of the box and we changed in the dug out for our first game.

The team mother and coach, Mrs. Nickleberry fetched an old blanket from the trunk of her car and held it up for each player to create a changing room. Mrs. Nickleberry was about five foot six with a dark African American complexion and had recruited every boy on the team.

 All my team mates were friends of mine because we all came from the same neighborhood. Me and my team mates made our home in a suburb of Washington D.C. in Prince Georges County  Maryland. We were about twenty minutes by car from the District of Columbia. Our team was the most culturally diverse team in our little league.

Two thirds of the team was African American which tended to draw a lot of looks from the other teams and their parents who were mostly white. This was the era of bussing in the mid seventies and getting along was mandatory according to my parents.

My best friends were African American and I spent time integrating myself into the culture which bears me privilege to this day. The smell of sweet potato pie on Sunday after church and the sound of a black choir singing gospel brings a peace to my heart and mind with the understanding that this is home.

The white kids in the neighborhood that set themselves apart from the black community ridiculed me and my brothers for our chosen affiliation and refused to even talk to us. They were always the first ones to move out of the neighborhood. The black community was very sports minded and seemed to be driven deep down in their soul for competitive competition on the field and court and any other venue that could be acclimated for the soul purpose of play.

This is how I wanted to be, pushing myself to every extreme and being accepted as having “Good Game.” Black blues and gospel to this day is my favorite music next to jazz. For a white man I am just as black and tend to grow tired of racial attitudes and prejudices that dwell on both sides of the fence, that conjure up fear and hate in a world that already bears a significant amount. If we cannot learn to look beyond the color of a persons skin than how can we define the glory of God in our own lives?

Me and my older brother Chris had spent the previous couple of years honing our talent on the side of the house. My brother Chris was two years older than me and bore a soft spoken demeanor. Unlike me Chris had dark curly hair and preferred being the Catcher. I tended to respect my brother Chris out of fear in those days as he kept the pecking order in check  time  when anger forced him to step out of the box and sell out to revenge and retaliation from time to time.

Chris liked catching but little league did not interest him in the least. Chris was more the artistic type and would rather spend his time sketching his homemade comic books about World War two, or listening to tapes of old time radio plays like “The Shadow” or “Fibber McGee and Molly.”  

 I was pitcher and Chris was catcher. I could strike out any kid in the neighborhood, even my dear ol dad when he fancied the notion to try and put one over the fence. Now was the opportunity to put my efforts into action for the world to see. I sat on the bench patiently waiting for my team to expire in outs so I could stroll out to the mound and unleash my God given hardware on any opposing kid who stood in the batters box.

Finally it was time to take the field and I was firmly met by the team mother and coach Mrs. Nickleberry, who stopped me and explained that she had decided to let an older kid pitch, Michael Henry.  Michael Henry was the oldest kid in our squad as well as the tallest at some five foot eight at the time. Michael was African America with a fair complexion.

 Among blacks he would be referred to as “Redbone” because of his lighter complexion. Mrs. Nickleberry had never seen me pitch and Michael Henry was a good friend of her three sons, Ronald, Bruce and Kevin which were also my team mates.

Ronald was the oldest of Mrs. Nickelberry’s son and the most athletically gifted. Then came Bruce who was second oldest and always spoke in questions in an effort to constantly redefine his self confidence. Last but not least there was Kevin who refused to be bested by his two older brothers. Kevin would emulate his brothers in every way to gain an advantage over them and an opportunity to show them up. My first game and I didn’t play a lick. I was a bench warmer.
    
When I went home that night I closed myself in my bedroom and cried my eyes out. My father heard me sobbing through my bedroom door and came in and consoled me. He said I would get my chance if I was patient.

 My father was a man that very rarely showed emotion and he raised his children with the belief that emotions were something that one never put on public display. It’s almost like my father believed that pain was fear leaking from the body. When dad consoled me in my room this was one of the few times in my life that my father ever showed sympathy for an emotion.

I practiced with my older brother harder each day and rode the bench until the third game when Michael Henry finally was pitched out and told Mrs. Nickelberry before the game he could not pitch. I was called to the mound and was given just six warm up pitches. The frustration of being benched was now bubbling to the surface and God made me good at throwing baseballs.

Every kid that stood in the batters box would have to pay and I was wound as tight as wallpaper. I didn’t even feel the first pitch and the catcher could not react fast enough to catch the ball. It went flying past him and the umpire and rattled the backstop fence when it finally came to rest. I relaxed a little and sent the second pitch on the way.

The catcher immediately dropped the ball and threw off his mask and glove and clinched his hand in pain. He started crying and the umpire looked at the catcher’s hand which was red as a freshly picked radish. The mother of the catcher pulled him from the game and sat him on the sideline with a bag of ice cubes on his hand and her arm around the crying catcher.

Who was gonna catch now? At that time I started wishing real hard for my older brother Chris who never missed a ball even when I lost control. I was surprised to see Michael Henry step in behind the batters box wearing shin guards, a catchers vest and a catchers mask and a catcher’s mit. The catcher’s outfit was almost too small for Michael Henry’s big frame. Michael Henry was not only the oldest kid on the team but he  had a lot of talent.

Every kid on the team looked up to Michael, though we did not have a team captain, Michael Henry was just that in a very unspoken sense. He could play any position and was good at it. I watched as Michael Henry stuffed a piece of thick leather raw hide between his hand and the catchers mit and slowly work his fingers back into the glove.
    
I got even more angry when I saw Michael Henry as the catcher. I remember telling myself “I don’t care how much older he is then me, I am gonna show him that I’m the best pitcher on this team.” I let the rest of my warm up pitches fly hard to give Michael a taste of what he was in for and also to try and hurt his hand. I wanted to see that sucker crying with his mama on the sidelines in pain the same way I did in my room after being benched in the first game. Michael took it in stride like my brother Chris,  it never phased him. Much to my dismay he turned out to be a pretty good catcher.

The first batter came up and I threw them balls down the lane like he wasn’t even standing there. Three pitches and three strikes and the kid left the plate with fear all over his face. The second batter went down just as quickly and I wasn’t even warmed up. I looked up to see a mother from the opposing team watching my pitches, when she made eye contact with me she flashed a look of total disgust at me and walked back to her side of the bleachers. I became distracted when I saw that mother talking to the other parents.

  During my delay of reassessment, Michael came out to the mound and asked me if I was all right. I nodded as Michael told me to keep the heat a coming. The third batter swung at all three pitches but it was like he swung in slow motion and when the umpire yelled out strike three, the batter was still in the motion of his swing. The boy threw his bat on the ground and called me an A-Hole.

As the team was changing sides a bunch of parents from the opposing team came to the umpire complaining about me. I heard a parent say I was too old to be pitching in Little league. I heard another say I was pitching too fast and someone was going to get hurt. The illegitimate complaints were mounting and I got worried.

I scanned the bleachers on our side of the field looking for my dad. I knew he couldn’t be here today he was still at work. The bleachers on both sides of the field were filled mostly with stay at home moms, very few dads. I started to relax when the crowd around the umpire broke up and went back to their side of the bleachers.
    
The umpire came over to me sitting on the bench and asked me how old I was. This question surprised me because me and Kevin Nickleberry were the same age and the youngest players on the team. Mrs. Nickleberry showed the umpire some paper work after he talked to me and the game resumed.

The crowd in the other teams bleachers got even more enraged when I hit a ball over the first baseman’s head for a stand up double which later scored. I came back out on the mound with a vengeance. The way I saw it was clear, I knew the difference between wrong and right and my pitching was not wrong but all those complaints against me were and someone had to pay.

The procession of batters continued striking out and we continued scoring runs. In the sixth inning I faced a short batter which I was sure was at least two years younger than me. I showed no mercy and the first two pitches came in without the short batter taking the bat off his shoulders. He just stood there mesmerized by the speed of the pitches. 0 and 2 in the count, I stepped off the mound to clear some dirt out of one of my cleats. I could hear the idle chatter around me and heard one of the opposing mothers say, “that ball is coming in so fast you can hear a whistling sound when he throws it.” I was in the drivers seat and the view was getting sweeter and sweeter like riding through a field of honeysuckle in the month of July.

I wound up for the next pitch and let it go. The ball steamed towards home plate and the short batter brought the bat head out and around. I didn’t hear anything, but was totally surprised when that bat lifted that ball towards the sky. This was a humbling moment for me and a grand lesson in Physics.

I learned on that day that a high speed pitch will increase the distance that the ball will travel when hit by a bat. Without a doubt in my mind that short stout batter just kissed the sweet spot and was grinning from ear to ear as we both watched the ball sail over the centerfield fence. I found the culprit, a dad that took the day off to watch his boy play, standing behind the fence of the backstop telling his boy when to swing the bat. The opposing bleachers erupted in jubilation which exploded all around me.

 Now the parents on the opposing team began to taunt me. Michael Henry called time out and came to the mound to talk to me. “Just calm down man and relax, that kid just got lucky, ignore all these idiots and throw me some heat.” I tipped my hat to the short batter as he walked off the field and fanned the next two batters in eight pitches.

The batters were getting better with their timing by listening to “Mr. Day off” telling them when to swing. Michael Henry was angered by the self appointed batting coach standing behind the backstop and started countering his advice by talking over him. I managed to retire the side and leave the last batter standing without taking a swing at the ball. In the next inning the batting coach paid off for the opposing team and they managed to score five more runs on some deeply hit balls.

Michael came to me when we were on the bench and said, “man your gonna have to change something, try throwing them on the inside corner maybe you can get them to ground out.” “O.K.” I responded. I came to the mound and struck out the first batter without changing anything. When the next batter came up to the plate Michael Henry pointed his right index finger to the inside of the plate. I nodded and let it go. “Strike one!” yelled the umpire.

I decided to put the second ball in the exact same spot. I threw the ball and watched in horror as the ball beamed off the wrist of the batter and the batter fell to the ground in pain. When the batter fell to the ground the batting helmet came off of the batter and a stream of long blonde hair unfurled at home plate. I just hit a girl! After the batter caught her breath a blood curdling scream could be heard throughout the field and probably the next one over.
    
I stepped off the mound and dropped my glove. I heard a mother yell out “He hit Lindsey!” Adults poured into the batter’s box to aid the the injured batter. Michael Henry and the umpire came running out to the mound. I was surprised at the gesture which puzzled me until I looked to my right and saw a mob of angry parents storming the pitchers mound. Michael Henry and the umpire stood between me and the mob of angry parents and posed themselves as human shield’s in my defense. I took a step back as the mob pushed Michael Henry and the umpire.

There was so many people yelling at once I couldn’t understand any one of them. The umpire lost his cool and told the parents to clear the field or he would call the game on the count that their team forfeited. The mob went silent and left the field mumbling threats.
    
The injured batter, Lindsey that was hit with the ball sat on the back of an old grey Dodge with her wrist wrapped and iced sobbing. I felt so bad, it made me feel sick to my stomach. I ran over to Lindsey sitting on the back of the park car and pleaded my case. Her eyes were all red from crying and her long blonde hair was wet from the tears. Lindsey was very pretty and without the batting helmet it was hard to believe she was playing baseball with all these boys.

 “I am so sorry, I didn’t try to hit you with the ball, I hope your all right.” She nodded and smiled at me, “It was my fault I stepped into the pitch, my dad always tells me not to crowd the plate and to step back.” “I meant to step back but I stepped forward by accident.” She cleared her eyes and said “Shouldn’t you be on the pitchers mound.” I smiled back at her and said thank you then raced back to the mound.

I decided right then and there that I would not bring anymore anger and frustration to the mound with me. I loved the game too much to see anyone hurt by it through my anger. God made me good at throwing baseballs I didn’t need all that other nonsense. With the help of Michael Henry we managed to strike out or ground out every opposing batter as we defeated the Lions Club 22-6.        

After the game I was surrounded by parents and team mates slapping me on the back congratulating me on my pitching. All the accolades seemed to drown out when a unfamiliar face of a man reached in to shake my hand and said to me, “I have never seen a ball thrown that fast in this league.”

 “You did a fantastic job out there today young man.” “I’ll look for your name on the roster, I expect to see good things from you.” I smiled back at the stranger and stammered out in a squeaky voice, “Thank you Mr.” It all made perfect sense to me when I watched the man walk towards the parking lot and put his arm around his daughter as he opened the car door to an old grey Dodge for her to climb in.

It was Lindsey’s dad. In spite of myself that little girl taught me more about sportsmanship than I would ever learn. I am a gentleman that simply loves the game of baseball.

I have one simple rule for my son Rian to follow when playing baseball. Rule #1 HAVE FUN. Rian is my third child I have coached in little league. Sean my oldest son firmly rejected the sport in the beginning but did manage to have some fun with it and benefitted with the comradery of friendship that lasted throughout the years with some of his team mates. My daughter Dana also survived little league baseball for a year and later moved onto five years of ballet where she found her ballerina niche.

My son Rian absolutely loves the game of baseball and has hounded me for the last two years to let him play. Rian is athletic and quick and cant wait for every opportunity to don his Wilson cleats and step onto that beautiful diamond.    

My love for the sport goes back to my childhood but my admiration to see my children learn the importance of respect and honor coupled with sportsmanship has a shorter life span. Although my father pointed me towards baseball we didn’t have a close relationship until the last year of his life unfortunately.

When I was a newlywed, I found a role model that I learned to respect and look up to. His name is Jim Henderson and without a doubt has been one of the greatest impacts on me concerning my fatherhood. Jim survived a bitter divorce and was steadfast and strong at maintaining his fatherhood to his three daughters.

His daughters lived with their mother and her new husband. Jim, through his actions and conduct showed his daughters that regardless of circumstances he would always be their father and made his presence known in their lives on a daily basis. Jim took them to their activities and stood on the sidelines of every one of their events that his job would allow.

Jim is about five-five with constant energy. Jim has big wire framed glasses which because of there size cover a lot of his face. His hair was barely grey on the edges which was the only hint of his age. A man in his early fifties, father time had been kind to him as he could have been easily mistaken for someone much younger. Early to rise late to bed. He has painted his life with  faces around him that seem to cling to his charismatic nature.

Jim has a strong faith with a love for the Lord. Old school to say the least, I have never heard this man speak bad of another person. Years after his retirement from the U.S. Air Force he stills keeps his haircuts at the military standard. He got so use to wearing ball caps during his tenure in the military so much that he never leaves the house without one on his head.

The ball cap to Jim is like someone else putting on prescription glasses first thing in the morning because they simply cant see without them. Jim was raised in the deep south from a dirt poor family that felt the best way to come by money was to earn it honestly. Jim learned early in his youth that being poor only meant that you could take advantage of all those God given principles that made perfect sense, you know the ones that money cant buy.

Jim’s dad use to be a route delivery driver with Coca -Cola, and his father would send  young Jim ahead of him to the stores he was going to make a delivery at. Jim would sort the returnable bottles for his dad and separate the Coca-Cola bottles from the Pepsi Cola and Royal Crown bottles. Jim would have all the Coca-Cola bottles neatly stacked by the time his father got to the store. Helping his dad by sorting the pop bottles helped keep meat and sweet tea on the dinner table.

The young Jim appreciated the returns from his job with his father every time he sat down to enjoy a meal with his family. This was a time and a place where Grace was as mandatory as grits with breakfast. Jim is a soft spoken giant and is easy to forgive. I know I have gone to that well a few times. This act alone helped to instill the importance of honor in my life.

 Jim is my exwife’s stepfather and for a number of years was a constant figure in my life. Jim’s lingo was always an antidote that brought a smile to my face when he used it. He use to call me “Rookie” all the time. I came to understand the definition which meant, young person that needs lots of guidance, in training. A “Rookie” could be between the ages of three and ninety nine.

Then there was the name he used not quite as often, “Nimrod” which was a “Rookie” that stumbled and had fallen and needed a firmer hand of guidance to help get them back on their feet again. “Nimrod’s” tended to have a lot of foolish pride and in most cases “Nimrod’s” were their own worst enemy.
    
A classic example of the definition was duly noted one very snowy winter day. I had just worked eighteen hours straight and found the shelter of my mother in laws home to be much closer than my apartment. The snow was about three feet deep. I pulled my four wheel drive S.U.V. into a space that someone shoveled in front of my mother in laws home. I went in to her home and went right to bed in the spare bedroom and fell fast asleep.

Jim bolted into the bedroom and woke me with a raised tone of agitation in his voice. “Hey Nimrod do you use your head for anything other than a hat rack?” I sat up in bed and cleared my eyes while Jim read me the riot act for filling his freshly shoveled parking space with my vehicle. This is a perfect example of how a “Rookie” can be moved to “Nimrod” status. I responded like any “Rookie” not wanting to remain on the “Nimrod” roster and apologized and immediately moved my vehicle and then parked my mother in law’s car in the vacant shoveled spot. Jim met me with a smile when I walked back in the house and said, “See “Rookie” there’s still hope for you, it’s not what a man does sometimes, it’s how he fixes it.”
   
Jim’s gestures and words were always the same for me, it was like he was saying walk like me and see where you go. I had learned to trust his honesty and diligence without question. If I had a question I knew in time I would have an answer when my mind was seasoned with better insight and wisdom. So did Jim. There was no easy way with Jim, if things needed to get done there was only the hard way.

The easy way was only put aside for “Rookies” that had first experienced the hard way. This way you had a better appreciation for the easy way but did not have to rely on it. Jim would sometimes come up on me in the middle of a task I had engulfed myself into and say, “Hey “Rookie” are you sure your doin that right?”

 I would always shrug my shoulders or respond with a maybe. Jim would then unleash his expertise as a certified “Rookie” trainer and make me reevaluate my situation for the better of the cause. Jim was usually right as I learned to yield to his fathomless expertise that was derived from his experience’s.

Considering some of the things Jim has endured in his life, so many obstacles he had overcome, so many flags he had placed at the top of many metaphoric summit’s. Jim had a “never say die” attitude that shined brighter than a shiny copper penny fresh off the press at the U.S. mint.
    
Jim was in a plane crash during the Vietnam war and was the only survivor among the crew and pilots. Jim also survived another tragedy years later after he retired from the Air Force when a fire extinguisher him and a coworker were changing exploded like a bomb in the cabin of the plane.

The shrapnel from the exploding fire extinguisher left Jim and his coworker with debilitating injuries that were crippling. Thank God the plane was parked on the ground at the time. Jim never walked the same after that incident. I have never heard Jim complain about what happened to him or even the pain he endured.

While he was recovering from the incident I came to his aid. When I knew he was in pain by the expressions on his face he would bear the burden inwardly as not to expose his suffering. This man spent his life constantly redefining himself as circumstances would change around him. Jim was an expert in the art of “movin on” and would not succumb to a “pity me” attitude or anything that resembled defeat in the face of adversity. With Jim it was never about the destination as much as it was about the journey.
    
I have a great admiration for this man that chooses to live a humble lifestyle. Jim’s old school ways seem to define an era and a time that stands still and refuses to be bought by a worldly view corrupted with disrespect and angry pride. Jim and men like him are defined in old fashioned home town hardware stores, old pick up trucks, barber shops full of old “rookies” with the sound of George Jones keeping the tempo in the back round, front porch rocking chairs, old International Harvester tractors, flat tops at the start of summer, the stars and stripes whipping in the wind, whittle knives, camping trips, fishing with a cane pole, wood mills that smell of hickory and pine, little league baseball, yes sir, yes mam, thank you, your welcome, good morning, good afternoon, ya’ll have a good night and God bless America.

If you close your eyes on Sunday morning you can hear them old “rookies” in the sound of Amazing Grace, or standing on your hometown back porch they will surround you in the chiming of church bells that ring out mercy giving hymns from the church six blocks away. In their eyes a dollar is still a dollar, a hard days work is still worth more than it’s weight in gold, people matter over money and funerals mean someone found their way home.

The truth is always absolute to a “Rookie,” and the word of God is the truth, people should be responsible for their own actions, this is how a “Nimrod” discovers the grace and mercy of the living savior. Old Rookies are not perfect but are forgiven. They are the first to arrive to give someone a helping hand and will stay until the job is done. Many a Rookie threw themselves in the aid and comfort after the hurricane Katrina disaster.
    
I fell one day to foolish pride and abandoned the “Rookie” principals that made up my life. My wife and I had grown apart and became enemies in the same house forgetting the vows we had taken and the covenant that bound us together with God.

In the fall out lay my marriage, a daughter and a son and all the ties that keep a mans feet firmly planted on the ground. I became selfish and could not think beyond myself. I refused to be humbled and thought advice was for somebody else to listen too.

As a glass jar my life was fragile and sleek until I dropped it on the concrete and shattered it into a million pieces. I had run from the mercy and grace of an ever forgiving God and in my turmoil the Lord lifted his hand of blessing from my head and the world moved in. I could not keep a job, every car I bought broke down and died soon after purchasing it. I could not make ends meet and an old injury flared up and left me paralyzed in my left arm and unable to work for close to a year.

The house was about to cave in and to add insult to injury after my divorce my wife moved my kids to the south hundreds of miles out of my reach. This emptiness came to live in me as I hid from the world with the hollowed out sounds of fear and doubt surrounding me. Echoing voices bounced off the walls as the enemy closed the gaps and dug in.

Deep inside of me was the squeaky voice of a “Rookie” yearning to get back to the surface with the one true answer to all my problems. The misery was more than I could longer endure. I needed to be free again, I needed to be blessed with the simple things, I needed to be forgiven for the murder on my hands.
    

My girlfriend and I went to prayer and asked for forgiveness and blessing. Through his son Jesus Christ, the Lord granted me forgiveness with grace and mercy. Things started turning around as I turned my life back over to the Lord and let him be my guidepost in all ways. I married my girlfriend and God reached down and picked up all the broken pieces of my life and started putting them back together.

Prayer and time mended some fences with my first wife as we chose to get along as the Lord so demanded. This was a big issue. My exwife and two kids in the south had come to hate me because of my actions and no matter how I tried to stay in their life it was met with anger and retaliation. I got upset and angry and every time I called my kids they would hang up on me. I didn’t have a clue on how to handle this problem. I went to prayer with Vickie and my step kids every night. I claimed the word of God as my own, “Whenever two or more are gathered in my name I will be in the midst.”

We gathered our family every night and prayed for reconciliation with my exwife Lori, my son Sean and my daughter Dana. I heard a great sermon by Charles Stanley about forgiveness. I listened intently to every word and started applying the principles in my own life. Charles Stanley has a fantastic series of sermons on this subject of forgiveness and could be accessed through his web sight.
    
Much could be said about my first wife Lori. As I endured the trials and tribulations of my life in Maryland so did Lori in South Carolina. She found herself with the daunting task of raising two kids by herself. Although I paid child support I will be the first person to agree that child support does not fill the gaps financially or emotionally for two young children and a single mom.

Lori fought her way through it and made her two children the most important part of her life. Sean and Dana always had a  roof over their head, decent food on the table and a decent school to attend because of their mother Lori. Her actions were courageous and dignified with the end result bearing good fruit and a strong promise for the future. This woman is strong and like my current wife Vickie, has a true heart that follows after the Lord.

I don’t believe that it was by accident that both these women play a huge role in my life with the ends justifying the means through the Lord Jesus Christ. May God continue to bless Lori for the fantastic job she did in raising our children. I am so blessed that she is the mother of Sean and Dana.
    
I was blessed with three more children that we are raising in the church. Me and my wife Vickie spent about five years teaching a Sunday school class to help young “Rookies” keep their feet pointed in God’s direction. Hey! I am a blessed man! We have literally prayed our way through many obstacles to bear witness to a shower of blessings.
    
My oldest son Sean will graduate from the University of South Carolina this summer and every time I think about  him walking across that stage to receive his bachelors degree in political science I well up with tears. Me and his mother and his stepmother are so proud of Sean.

Once again God has taken some bad and turned it around for the good of his purpose. I have learned to live beyond myself and reach for other people lost in a dark world with the overwhelming effort to help expand the Kingdom of God. My first two kids and I still struggle through some issues of the past but time and maturity with the love of God can change every outcome.

As Jesus Christ said, “The kingdom of God is here and now.” I have four step kids and five biological kids which gives me a grand total of nine rookies, a whole team. I only pray that my life will be like a ripple that touches each one of my children in a way that will always keep their hearts and minds pointed home towards Jesus Christ the way that Jim Henderson did for me. It’s awesome to see the face of Jesus Christ in the person standing right next to you. Have you seen him lately?
    
The baseball diamond is perfect today as I watch my son Rian take the field for warm ups before his game. After we stand for the National Anthem   with our hands over our hearts Rian will feel exhilaration and joy when he hears his name announced over the Little League P.A. system when he steps into the batter’s box. I feel that same joy every day knowing that my name is once again on the long roster of “Rookies” with a greater destiny in front of them.