Hands clasped, head down, the kind of prayer that happens off the scoreboard.
When I was a freshman in high school, I tried out for the tennis team. Competition with other schools hadn’t begun, and team members played matches with each other during practice.
I knew I was a mediocre player, but I didn’t know just how mediocre. I guess I was pretty bad.
After one practice, feeling down in the dumps about losing a match to one of the star athletes of our high school (I didn’t have a chance!), I remember being in the locker room. I was alone in a row of lockers, and I heard a conversation between two boys in the row next to mine. They didn’t know that I was only a few feet away.
One fellow said to another, “Who did you play today?” The other, the star athlete that I truly looked up to, said, “Chet Weld.” Then they each had a good laugh about how easily the superior player had beaten me. Now I felt even worse.
That night as I was lying in bed, I said a prayer: “Lord, help me to be captain of the team by the time I’m a senior.”
Well, I practiced all winter at an indoor backboard downtown in Columbus, Ohio. Also, I shoveled snow at a nearby girl’s school in order to hit against the tennis backboard. I hit and hit and hit. When I could find competition in warmer weather, I played and played and played. I did that throughout the rest of my high school years. Shoveling snow and playing as much as I could.
In my junior year, I beat the regular third man in an intramural match, edging ahead of the other boys my age and earning a varsity position. Also, that year, the team voted on who would be captain of the team for my senior year. I was elected.
In my senior year, I was also “first man” and our record against other teams in the city was 16-0. We were the only undefeated team in the state that year.
I think that faith in God and hard work pay off. I think that God has made ALL of us to be overcomers and that our destiny is to be exceptional in many ways.