Beginning Again

I had missed my tenth shot in a row and I was deeply frustrated.  I simply couldn’t do it.  As much as I tried, I couldn’t put the ball in the basket with my left hand.  After all, I’m right-handed, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why my father was putting me through this torture of learning how to shoot the basketball with my left hand.  I was just a little kid, probably ten or eleven years old.  I was frustrated with myself and with him.

“I can’t do it,” I said with frustration.

“Yes you can,” he replied passionately.

“No, I can’t.”

“Keep trying.  You can do it.”

I tried again.  I missed.  I got frustrated.

Again.  Missed.  Frustrated.

But then it happened.  A surge of confidence welled up in me as I surprisingly saw my first left-handed shot go in the hoop.

“That-a-boy.  Good job!  Do it again.”

I did it again, and again, and again.  Each time growing in more and more confidence.

Good basketball players must be versatile.  Yes, one hand will be stronger; but the weak hand must be strengthened so that he will be a threat to the defense on both sides of the basket.

After a few years I was not simply shooting layups with my left hand, but I was actually making shots from a distance.  What began as discouragement and frustration was transformed into confidence and skill.

After several more years of reflection, I’ve come to see that the lesson my father was teaching me in the driveway was much deeper than simply learning to shoot with my left hand. It was the lesson of perseverance, of beginning again, of refusing to quit, and these lessons are crucial in the spiritual life.

How often do we feel like giving up?  How often do we get frustrated and say to the Lord, “I can’t do it.”  And what does Our Father say to us?  “Yes, you can.  Keep going.  I’m with you.  I’ll help you.”

But why does Our Father allow us to be challenged?  Why does it have to be so darn difficult at times?

I can only go back to that moment in the driveway when I was learning how to shoot with my left hand.  It was difficult.  It was frustrating.  But my father was with me and he was encouraging me.  And because of that I was strengthened.  I became more confident in my ability to deal with adversity on the court.  I was developing new skills that would benefit my teammates and me.

Isn’t the same true for our spiritual lives?  We encounter difficulties only to be strengthened so that we can deal with adversity in life and help others to do the same.  The key is to persevere.  We all know the feeling of discouragement, but Our Father wants us to know the exhilaration of deep confidence in His love, strength, and the help He always offers us.

Beginning again is one of the most important habits in the spiritual life.  We will fail.  We will sin.  We will experience discouragement and setbacks.  But none of these things matter if we begin again and again and again.  We are not the sum total of our mistakes.  We are children of God, and what matters most is not whether we fall, it’s whether we stay down or we begin again.

Advent is a great time to make a decision to begin again.  One of the ways we do this is by receiving the sacrament of reconciliation.  In this sacrament, we receive the Lord’s forgiveness as well as the graces we need to live in holiness.

Perseverance, in the Christian sense, is not about going it alone.  In fact, we are able to persevere, to begin again, because of our union with Jesus.  Christ carried his cross and fell underneath its weight.  He kept going because He loves us.  He gained for us the grace to persevere.  By staying united to Him we can have deep confidence that He will always give us the grace to begin again and again and again.