I’m reading Bob Goff’s book, Love Does. It’s a good book, I recommend it. I just finished a chapter in which Goff relates how awful he was as a Little League baseball player.
He was so bad that everybody groaned when he went up to bat. Their only hope was that he would get hit by the ball, so he could walk to first. He was just really bad.
Except for one shining moment.
Whether by grace or dumb luck, one day against all odds young Goff hits the ball out of the park. The next day he receives a note from his coach: “Wow, what a hit! You’re a real ballplayer.”
Those simple words had an enormous influence on Goff.
He writes about how sometimes what we need is for people to call us out. We need people, he says, who see who we really are, and will call that person out of us. Goff’s coach called him a real ballplayer, and that’s how he began to think of himself.
Who Are They?
Who are the people around you? Your colleagues. Your family. Your friends. The person across the room from you right now. Who are they?
Because if you can get a sense of who they really are, you can start calling them out. Sometimes a little love can make all the difference.
A lot of us can look back to a person or two who really got us. Who believed in us.
They saw the diamond in the rough. And they said things that made us feel, well, more diamond than rough. They helped us believe in ourselves, and we are who we are in no small part because of them.
So who will you encounter today or tomorrow or this week? How can you call them out? How can you let them know that you believe in them?
Who Are You?
That’s a big question, isn’t it? Who are you? Or maybe, who are you when you’re at your best?
Who are you in your dreams?
Because if you can get a sense of who that is, you can begin to call that person out.
You’re amazing, you know? No, really, I may not know you, but I know you’re amazing because every last one of us is, and that includes you.
So when you look in the mirror today or tomorrow or this week, who will you encounter? How can you call your best self out?
Sometimes a little love makes all the difference.
What’s your dream? What would you love to accomplish this year or over the next five years?
Great post Chad!
The people that `call out ´make such a difference to people’s lives. They do not realise the power in doing this, how their effort to identify greatness and ingenuity in a person contributes to that persons future.
Often it takes being curious (in a good way) about someone and asking the right questions to really get to know them.
Thanks! I like that emphasis on curiosity…
Remembered what I was going to type. I was a Special Education Teacher for 24 years. It was my passion and my calling at the time. I saw how life had beat down these poor kids even before they had a chance. So I studied them hard for traits that were positive, and began calling them by those traits. Like the student who loved Science Fiction, I named our writer. The student who couldn’t stop arguing I named our Lawyer, etc. It seemed silly at the time, but those students seemed to grow into those names, and have contacted me from time to time to tell me how they are doing.
The system really works and can change someones life. Great story Chad.
Thanks, MK, for sharing your story and for the kind words.
Guess we will never get away from God’s plan
Hi Susan,
Never expected you to be here. Hard to believe you are!
Left and long and erudite comment and lost is when trying to fill out stuff below. Oh well. Writer’s rag! Will write to you more after working on my book, but the truth of knowing oneself is invaluable, but painful.
MK
I can think of several people at differing times. My childhood pastor guiding me to make a full faith commitment to God: young mom at my first job who was open to discuss things of God but didn’t believe in religion. She mentored me in office etiquette, I mentored her in coming to know Christ as savior; several true friends, accountability partners & prayer partners over the last 35 yrs – each 1 of which I could drop a dime or visit or call for prayer any day and time – knowing it will be like we just spoke when we last night.
Chad you are so right when you encourage us to step outside our comfort zone & do to others in love what they have invested in us! Thank you. Great post. Great reminder for me just now in the journey. We need to invest in our future generations as others have who believed in us in days long past.
Amen, Susan!
Chad, your words are so encouraging! You are such a blessing!
Someone who encouraged me? A second grade teacher who said, “Cindy, I have faith in you.” Powerful words for a shy seven-year-old.
LOVE that, Cynthia. Teachers are so important!
Sometimes a little love makes all the difference~ can’t think of a truer statement. When I was nineteen, a huge man of faith took a chance on an extremely shy, awkward college student and made her a camp counselor. He told me that God would use that in me to reach out to kids on the fringes. He needed me for those kids. He taught me to love the weakness in myself and turn it into strength. He was so right and he changed my life.
My dream is speaking that love into others lives through my writing. I want to speak that into my kids lives in the strongest possible way too.
Wow, what a thing to do, Lisa! Good on you. And thanks so much for sharing this. I had a professor, Bud Narveson, who really believed in me. He always let me bother him and come into his office, plop down, and talk about life. It meant the world to me.