Diamondbacks and Hand me Downs

I suppose it is sort of fitting that this memory happens at this point in time. One could almost say it could be considered a Shakespearean tragedy wannabe.

We were away from home. I had packed a change of clothes for the children. We had a limited amount of time to change, so I was helping Matthew get his shorts on. They seemed a little small. Hmmm. What is going on with this? So I check the tag. Yikes! Size 3! Good grief, he's four years old and already trying to fit into size 5 clothes. How in the world could he be wearing these size 3 shorts? Well, they did have an elastic band, but still, how?

But then there is this other funny thing. The shirt doesn't look as small as the shorts. It's a matching set. I check the tag, and sure enough, the shirt is a size 4. Now you are probably asking, where is the tragedy in this and what does it have to do with poisonous snakes, right?

It's a very long story, but I'll give a brief recount here. Michael, our oldest, was always so skinny when he was younger. For whatever reason, he inherited his uncle's (Daddy's side) and his aunt's (mommy's side) early childhood skinny genes. He was tall enough for his clothes, but way too skinny. Everything had to have belts and belt loops. None of this elastic stuff for him, it would just slip right off.

So, while living in Arizona, Michael received this set as a gift. A matching Arizona Diamondbacks shortset. But since you purchased the pieces individually, the thoughtful person knew that Michael would need a size 4 shirt with size 3 shorts. Suddenly I was taken back to the days of trying to keep Michael's pants on because he was so skinny. Thankfully, those days are over.

But I also remembered the pain and the hope in that Diamondbacks outfit. Strange, but true, Karl and I associated with that struggling new ball team that would eventually win the World Series in a most dramatic way. The team was struggling to be taken seriously, even though it had a roster of dynamic players, but many of them were older, and a lot of sports gurus didn't give these old timers much of a chance. But they played on. They played and won their division in the fall of 1999, when most people didn't think they could pull it off. We found them cheering them on, these strugglers, for we knew the struggle all so well.

We had moved to Arizona, to start over. We were wiped out financially and emotionally. Yep, you guessed it, LifeTalk Radio. Same thing that Trailady has been talking about. Karl had gone without salary for 10 months. They were dangling a carrot in front of him and saying "when this happens, we'll start paying you again." We got tired of the carrot game. Since then, it seems that even when their ship came in, they already had the money spent in other ways.

So here we are, emotionally and financially bankrupt(but God had provided many miracles along the way which will be another story), struggling to gain back our dignity and sense of purpose, so we identify with a baseball team that is struggling to prove to the nation that old timers can still pull it off. Years later, I uncover the memories of Michael's skinniness, our favorite baseball team and the pain we were trying to leave behind.

But the most interesting part of all of it as I sit here and think about it this: The hand me downs themselves. They weren't selected for Matthew, who has not inherited the skinniness gene. These were selected to fit Michael and his special needs. Sometimes hand me downs don't always fit exactly, because they were made for or selected for someone else.

It's the same with our life experiences and our relationship with the Lord. If we try to base it on hand me downs alone, we'll soon find that it doesn't fit us right. Jesus has promised us robes of righteousness, and I know they will fit perfectly, no hand me downs that we have to adjust to. And these beautiful robes will help us to leave all the pain and suffering behind.

Sharon Leukert