Playing Through the Pain: Growing in Darknessமாதிரி

A time long ago, in an ancient country there was a boy named David who was insignificant to say the least. He was not well liked. Most would have described him as a bit awkward, small, ruddy, and handsome in his own way. His father was rich in land and livestock. His brothers were quite a bit older, popular, and treated like royalty compared to how the boy experienced his childhood.  

The boy would not grow up to have memories playing in the yard with his friends.  Instead, his days and nights were filled with work. The climate was dry and the crops only grew in their season. His days and nights were filled with walking and then walking some more, as he followed his father’s flock of sheep while they grazed the sparse ground. The wind would move the brown grass against his body as he walked. The smell of salt water from a nearby sea would fill the air. The bleats of his sheep would call his senses to pay close attention making certain that the flock wasn’t trying to communicate some impending danger. The night sky brought with it an accelerant – like lighter fluid – the darkness brought development. The darkness produced a maturity beyond his years. The darkness developed an elite level of combat that not even the country’s finest soldiers could muster. The darkness was building a man who would someday stand before thousands just as confidently as he stood nightly before sheep.

My night in juvey ended just as quickly as it had begun, but its effects were far from complete.  After, I was kicked out of my school and enrolled in an Alternative School.  The darkness that I tasted on my ‘one-night stand’ in juvey set in motion a development process that I would have never imagined, but one that I could never enjoy the fruits of without the process that came as a result of it. I’ve learned that I must… you must submit yourself to the process.

The process for you can be any length of time and happen anywhere. It might be a season, a year, a month, or even a day. It might be junior high, high school, or college. It could be you just got married or you're raising your kids.  Maybe you are getting divorced or you just lost a loved one.  

For me, football has been a big part of my process. When I was going through recruiting at the University of Oklahoma, all the critics told me I would be a great Sooner before I had actually achieved it.  In the midst of it all, the great Barry Switzer reminded me, “You have to do the work first. You can wish all you want, but work must be the primary focus.” From this I gathered that it was imperative that I submit myself to the process.  

I can still hear my Father’s voice, saying, “Son, you gonna have to DWI (dewee)”, it was his way of saying that I was going to have to “Deal Wit It”.  I had to submit myself to the process.

What process do you need to submit yourself to? What darkness is at work on the inside of you?

There is a unique piece of God that you cannot experience outside of the valley. In Psalm 23, the psalmist writes that “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear NO EVIL…”.  What I hear the writer of this scripture say, is that the experience to be had in the valley, in the darkness, will be used by God in a powerful way in your life and mine.

Notice it. Acknowledge it. Understand that this process that God is working in you is for your good.  

Remember that I was the chubby kid, but in the dark I learned that in order to change I had to see myself differently. What I learned in that dark moment was that I did not need to try to become my friends but to become me. The process was developing who I was always supposed to be.