Reflection
I reached a point early in my college basketball career where I decided to quit the team and transfer to another school that “wanted me.”
I was fed up with my lack of playing time, and I believe the coaches were fed up with me as I had a not-so-good attitude.
My thought of quitting occurred during my sophomore year’s Christmas break.
As I left home to head north to inform the coaches I was done, my brother stopped by the house.
He asked me how I was doing, and I told him I wasn’t doing good and had decided to quit the team.
He told me to think it through and make sure I understood what quitting meant.
On my drive back to Ohio Northern, my brother’s words kept going through my mind; “Did I understand what quitting meant?”
I didn’t.
I wasn’t a quitter.
I had never quit before.
Somewhere on the drive back to ONU, I decided to stick it out, and by the end of the year, I was in the starting lineup.
I changed my attitude and decided to keep on trying. The rest, as they say, is history as we won a couple of conference championships and upset three Division I schools in twelve months (we were Division III). We also received a number one national ranking midway through my final season—a first for ONU. In addition to all of this, I garnered some pretty cool individual honors.
But, most importantly, if I had quit, I would never have met my fantastic wife and children. I also would not have received a pharmacy degree. A degree that created so many blessings.
Fact
I learned so much from battling through that time in my life.
I am grateful for my brother’s prophetic words, “Do you know what quitting means?”
Question
“Do you know what quitting means?”
Romans 5:3-5, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (ESV)
P.E.A.C.E.
Jay@EagleLaunch.com
