I live and work with a lot of folks who believe that God has given up on
them. They are convinced that their failures are so great that there is
no way that God can use them to bring hope or healing to others. Many
have lives that are controlled by the memory of some past failure. Many
of them throw in the towel and decide that the way life has been is the
way it always will be.
Fred Snodgrass made one mistake and the world never let him forget it. Snodgrass was playing center field for the New York Giants in the 1912 World Series against the Red Sox. The teams were tied in the tenth inning when a fly ball fell into Snodgrass’s mitt—and he dropped it. The Red Sox won the series, and the error stuck with Snodgrass the rest of his life.
My mother’s generation of women was raised to expect that families would depend financially on the husband’s income. My mother is lively and creative, and as a child she wanted to be a doctor—but women just didn’t do that. When her husband left her, her creativity and energy were channeled into supporting three children on the small income from a job initially intended to supplement the family’s welfare and provide a personal challenge.
