Ducking for Cover

I started to reread a book the other day that I had started to read several years ago but only made it about a quarter of the way into it. Probably while reading this book I started to read another and just never continued with this one (I do that a lot, it seems). The book is entitled "Mid-Course Correction" by Gorden McDonald. As the sub-title puts it, the book is about "re-ordering your private world for the next part of your journey." For some reason, now that I am 50, this book seems pretty relevant to me.

In the introduction McDonald is talking about "vital optimism", what he calls hope: "the confident expectation that history is going somewhere and that God , our Creator and Redeemer, is powerfully directing it." He writes about how vital optimism is usually pretty much a given in childhood through young adulthood. But somewhere into our late 30's life begins to get pretty banged up and the struggle to hold on to any kind of vital optimism becomes pretty intense.

He quotes a friend that expresses this intense transition in a way that I totally can concur with. His friend said,

"I started life thinking I'd hit a home run every time I came to bat. Now I just want to get through the game without getting beaned on the head by the ball."

I love that line! And it's so true, so true.