Baseball Games and Teen Purpose

I can’t believe I did this. Really, I don’t know what I was thinking…. I was at my son’s varsity baseball game. Bottom of the ninth. We were winning by one run, but the other team had loaded the bases and guess who was pitching?? Yup. My son.

Do you know that feeling? The feeling that you would do anything in the world to help your child? I swear if I could have marched out to the mound and thrown a change up to end the inning and save the game, I would have. In a heartbeat, I would have. But that sort of parental participation is generally frowned upon at school sporting events, so instead I did something even worse.

So what did I do?? I looked skyward and asked God to help my son get out of this mess. At a baseball game!!! I asked God to help sway the outcome of a High School baseball game! I immediately realized how wrong that was, especially since earlier that day I had read about a soldier who had been desperately trying to readjust to society after returning home with a traumatic brain injury. And the news that morning talked about a special report on a new designer drug that was killing teens by the dozen….

And then there was the Facebook post about a nearby school that just had their 4th teen suicide in one year. And there was a “texting while driving” accident that took the lives of FIVE teenagers. FIVE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS. GONE. And I was asking for help with a BASEBALL GAME???

Shame on me. No offense to my son and his team (they did win, by the way), but the outcome of a baseball game is pretty low on the list of priorities in today’s world. And I should know better. I had just been on a year long journey to Hell and back with my precious teenage daughter.

Listen to this… A group of teens who attempted suicide were asked why they wanted to end their lives. Their answer? “Life had no meaning”. “No purpose”. At 17 and 18 years old!!! Maybe they saw the apathy of their generation. Maybe they were overwhelmed by the pressures they face in their daily lives. Maybe they saw the daily tragedies occurring all over the world and wondered about the futility of caring.

And they would be right about all that. The world has changed drastically since we were kids. Just look around.   Turn on the news or read the paper.  Humanity is in a massive nosedive and if you’re not afraid for your kids, you should be.

Let’s stop worrying about baseball games and start thinking about more important things. Like how to help our kids create a future that they can get excited about…And how to help them learn to help themselves. By giving them something to believe in that is bigger than themselves, they will thrive in their teen years and beyond!