It's Friday night, and I am standing in my nothings staring into a dresser full of blessings (you can call them clothes if you're feeling dull). Big date with the husband? Night out with the girls? Yes and no. I'm sure Justin considers the first softball game of the season a date, and if by "the girls" you mean my hardcore fellow softball chica sluggers, then yes to both. April games are always tricky. You don't want to wear long pants and give everyone the impression that your legs haven't seen the sun or a razor since sometime in September (they have, right?). However, you also don't want to traipse out onto the field in your lil' shawty shawt shorts, and be standing on two perfectly Else icicles five minutes into the game.
Yeah, because I'm totally that girl who empties her wardrobe onto the bed looking for the perfect softball outfit to play in what weather.com claims will be a torrential downpour. And really, bright yellow jerseys built for a size small, who is six feet four inches tall: not helping.
So now I am at the softball game and the little droplets have starting splashing down. I am in knee length white shorts, a long sleeve gray t-shirt, a hoodie, and my jersey. I am wearing socks that only barely sneak over my heel and shiny black cleats. This will all come into play as I come into play.
Five minutes into the start of the game the following things will happen:
1. Friendly little droplets will turn into Hurricane Irene.
2. My gray shirt will ride up to the middle of my ribcage.
3. My batting gloves will be soaked, so there is NO WAY I am reaching up to fix said offending gray garment.
4. A player will slide into me at first spraying my white shorts with nice sandy red mud.
5. Nice sandy red mud will lodge itself between the flesh of my achilles tendon and the heel of my cleats, rubbing my ankles raw and, as an added bonus, bloody.
Do you have the visual picture? Just imagine a kitten in an over sized bright yellow smock, drowned wet, frozen cold, and starting to hiss at inanimate objects.
Now, it is Saturday morning. Formerly drenched kitten has her long hair curled/waved and pulled up Princess Buttercup style. She is in a bright pink dress (say what?!), four inch white heels with bows on the top (get out!), and she is wearing... wait for it... make up (shut the front door!!!).
In January our women's ministry team decided to hold a generations women's conference on April 26th. I must have, in a moment of temporary dissociative disorder volunteered to speak at this conference. Or they may have kidnapped me and forced me to speak at gunpoint. Someone should pat down our team for weaponry before I claim any responsibility for my actions. Either way, today I stood there in pink and heels with big hair and war paint, speaking.
It was all very surreal. In my mind I am the drowned kitten. People will say things like, "Oh you look lovely," and I have to try very hard to not stare at them like a dog listening to a high-pitched whistle. In my mind I am still the tomboy sliding through mud, and making fun of girls who do insane things like wear four inch heels they will have to stand in for forty-five minutes in front of fifty women. I suppose there are hints of our every reality marking us as we drift from form to form. Under the strappy stilettos are the scrap marks of red mud. The graceful, slender hand holding a microphone as I share a distinctly feminine story is starting to turn blue with the bruise of a misplayed out at second. And the sweeping locks falling in waves about my shoulders are only really that curly because I left them out in the driving rain far too long.
A mentor of mine once told me, "First God made you a woman, then He made you an athlete." Actually, first I think He made me His, and everything else (make up or mud) is just window dressing.
Oh... and we worshipped. Lots. Which is nice.
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