Ephesians 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Yesterday I read a story in my daughter’s common Common Core textbook Journeys published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt company. It was a short story authored by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Raul Colon.
The story is about Roberto Clemente , Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a black latino from Puerto Rico. The story moved me to tears. Roberto made his life count, his passion as a kid was baseball, he pursued that passion and it led to him playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates who were in last place when he joined them.
I love how the writer writes that Roberto played his best regardless of where he was .He played hard, gave it his all, the author writes that Roberto said “If you don’t try as hard as you can, you are wasting your life.”
That stopped me on my tracks, I had to get a pen and write that down!
So, today I ask you as I also need to ask myself, Am I trying as hard as I can? Roberto as the writer pointed out did not have things easy. He experienced being overlooked, racism, prejudice, ridicule, but he moved on forward in life. He did end up leading his team to victory and became the first Latino and Caribbean Baseball player to be enshrined. Unfortunately his life ended by a tragic event. He was flying to Central America to give aid to earthquake survivors and the engine failed and plane fell into the Ocean.
Roberto was dead just like that, however the beauty of the impact he made of his life still lives . Even I find myself here writing about someone I just heard of, in a short story from a textbook. The story is not just about someone having success in their field, passion, career, but what they did from that . He choose to give back, to help others and be a great example.
Whatever you do, whatever you and I are called to do, let’s find purpose. We are blessed to a blessing, don’t give up, no matter if you start from nothing, placed around people that are losing, choosing to not do more. Don’t let your circumstances, atmosphere , yes the very place you are determine where you are heading.
Keep moving ahead. You can go from the pit to the palace like Joseph my favorite man in the bible apart from Jesus. If it looked bad yesterday, still looks bad today, it does not mean that tomorrow will be the same. Tomorrow will come! hold on. This too shall pass If you have breath, you have hope , and I pray you consider Jesus.
Hebrews 6 : 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, God is good and you are only alive still because of him, whether you believe it or not and some of us including myself need to be more grateful for the many chances, lives he has given us. Some of us should consider ourselves blessed like cats if the saying is true that they have 9 lives.
We know we have lived over and over again because of God’s mercy , we have come close to death again and again and said ” I don’t know how I made it”. That car crash, sickness, fall, drugs etc. did not take me. Well its not because you and I are a super hero of any sort its because of the only true hero Jesus, we we’re spared.
That’s the reason I’m writing this let’s make it count. I pray we just pause to think about that because one day it will end and I want to count atleast in the life of 1 person. I want to do something for the sake of one life apart from my own. I want to love someone else and make a lasting impact on someone that even when I’m dead I still live. I pray in Jesus name that now and when I’m gone someone gets to love God because of me.