3 balls 2 strikes

I don't remember whether I heard it from someone or read it somewhere or maybe both but I was reminded this morning of the following :

Many of the people in mental hospitals are there because they are living in the past or in the future. Think about your own life's circumstances and see if this doesn't hold water. You might not know of anyone in a mental hospital, but I'm pretty sure you know some that maybe belong there. I'm not making light of mental hospitals for they serve a beneficial service to society.

What happens if you continuously go about your daily affairs thinking about yesterday's mistakes or hurts or spats or disagreements?

What if you constantly think and fret about tomorrow? Constantly worrying about what to come.

I would venture to say that you are not living today. You are probably missing out on many opportunities because of yesterday's and tomorrow's blinders that are around your eyes. You can stuff yourself with either anti-depressants or anxiety pills but until you learn to reconcile the past and forget about tomorrow you're not going to feel good about your life. You will probably end up with some form of illness. There's a religious group or organization that has a wonderful saying, "Let go, and Let God."

Short but sweet but it packs tremendous meaning and a great philosophy on life. Let go of all your troubles and let God worry about them. Have faith in Him for He is the only one that knows about your past, present and future. Stop being a backseat driver and let Him take control. Just trust Him.

I often relate my life to baseball. I'm up at bat and have three balls and two strikes on me. The next pitch is my today. I have to think about what I'm doing right now. I can't worry about the other five pitches that were thrown to me. I did make three good decisions and didn't swing at those three balls, but I also swung and missed twice for strikes. This next pitch could have a lot riding on it. The bases might be loaded and your team is behind and there are two outs. There's a lot of pressure on you to do your best. Like life, you don't know what type of pitch is coming next. It could be a fast ball, a curve, a slider, a change up or maybe a knuckle ball. How can you worry about all that.

A professional calls time for a few seconds, regains his composure, forgets what's been done and does not worry about what's to come. He takes a deep breath, relaxes himself and focuses on the moment and lives it to the fullest. He steps back into the batter's box ready to take on whatever is to come. The result could be, hitting a home run or a single or walking or maybe even striking out. Whatever it is, it's ok. Learn to accept it whatever it maybe and go on to the next second of your life, because that's all you have. Just do your best. Once that's past, it's gone. You can't reach back into that box and bring it out again to relive it. Sorry, that's not how it goes.

The analogy I presented can't compare to life. I just use it as an example. One is a game the other is your life and probably many other lives that are intertwined with yours. It is very hard to understand and comprehend the fragility of life. Here today, gone tomorrow? No, here this second gone the next second. I can go on and on you see because I'm still working on letting go, so I'll leave you with this:

As children bring their broken toys, with tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams to God because He is my friend.
But then instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help, with ways that were my own.
At last, I snatched them back again and cried, "How can you be so slow?"
"My child," He said, "what could I do? You never did let them go."