As I tried to comfort her, we made a deal that if she tried to focus, after practice we’d sit down and talk some more about her dad. We did and we cried. Since then I have not been able to get this, and many images like it, out of my head.

Truth is that her father and I are extremely alike. My first marriage ended because, among other reasons, I abused my ex-wife. My little girls were ages one and three and they too saw much in their early years. Things they should have never seen. With the grace of God we are still healing from it all. Slowly for sure, but still healing.

This morning as I parked my car and walked towards our office I saw the same little five-year-old again. Wearing a very nice outfit, she ran to me yelling, “Hi coach! Look at my skirt!” She greeted me with a great big hug and introduced me to her stuffed animal. She mentioned that her new toy also missed her dad, and then she ran back home to her room at Joshua Station.

I’ve been having too many of these experiences lately, where much of the spiritual formation happening for me comes not from the way I see others outside of myself, but as I see others alongside myself. I am starting to see that those I serve are my friends not because I give to them, but because we give to each other.

When you suffer with others out of a shared need, a shared pain, and a shared dysfunction…it promotes a profound sense of love. The kind of love, ironically, flows from things that so many others tell you to eradicate because they hurt so much. But this kind of love hangs on to that pain, for it is this kind of pain that people like us—people from below—need in order for our spirits to be formed into the likeness of Christ. This is the only way to have profound compassion for one another. Otherwise all we have left is contempt because sadly, someone is always the victim, and someone is always the victimizer. Some of us, however, know what it feels like to be both. The challenge is that there is no language for that.

Today I barely hang on and struggle. I do so for I chase the dream in 1 Corinthians 13 where it says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

For now, I’ll keep coaching t-ball and try to hang on to the words from the vice-president of the baseball association sponsoring our team as he said, “Look at it this way Sam, it’s just t-ball!”