You have probably realized this by now, but I draw inspiration from a pretty wide variety of sources (nature, music, movies). Today’s little nugget comes from the movie “A League of Their Own”. If you have not seen it, let me set the stage for the quote below.

Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) is the coach of an all-girl baseball team. His best player, Dottie Hinson (played by Genna Davis) has decided to quit the team (missing the World Series) in order to return home with her husband. Her husband surprised her by coming home from the war with an injury. Below is part of the dialog which took place when Jimmy confronted Dottie.

Jimmy Dugan: But sneaking out like this, quitting, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Baseball is what gets inside you. It’s what lights you up, you can’t deny that.
Dottie Hinson: It just got too hard.
Jimmy Dugan: It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.

I was pondering this quote and thought about how we can plug a number of different things in as a substitution for the word baseball above. Some examples would be “parenting”, “faith” or even “ministry”. It makes for some interesting thoughts when you try it. The key is remembering that…

The hard is what makes it great!

“work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away.” (2 Peter 10 NLT)