Thorn in my side

​We have all at one time or another said this is a “Thorn in my side” and if you didn’t know it you were quoting scripture out of 2 Corinthians 12.  I was sitting in a waiting room the other day waiting to see one of my clients and over heard this guy say the element he was dealing with was a thorn in his side. It got me thinking about this kid I met years ago who was dealing with this element that kept him from playing the game he loved and that was baseball.  I was in college when I met him, and he was such a great kid.  When I met him, he was about 15 and I was 19.  He came to every practice and game when we’re playing at home. 
 
I remember thinking why does he come to the field and torment himself knowing he could never play this game he loved. I remember telling my roommate there is no way I could do that, knowing I could never play. I even said to him that would be a “THORN IN MYSIDE”. But let me tell you this kid was so positive in life and always brought smile to everyone’s face when he was at practice or a game. One time after one of the players had struck out he yelled, “Hey Number 12 keep your head up you’ll get him next time, remember your playing a game I would love to play.” We all smiled in the dugout, even number 12. I recall sitting down with him and asking man how and where do you find all this positivity? He looked at me and said to you have time for a story? I had nowhere else to be and I sure didn’t want to go home to study. He said, “For years I prayed that God would take this away from me, so I could play the game you get to play every day. And for years God didn’t answer me and didn’t take this away from me. I was so mad at God and asked him why he allow this to happen to me and take this game away from me? I asked why he was answering everyone else’s pray but mine? Am I not just as important as the other people who are getting answered prayers?” I remember thinking yea why hasn’t God answered you, I even asked him that question. He looked at me a smiled and said I’m glad you asked. He asked if I had heard of Paul in the Bible? I remember talking about him in Sunday school and that he wrote half of the New Testament. Trying to let this 16-year-old kid know that I knew my Bible. He grabbed his backpack and opened his Bible and went to 2 Corinthians 12:7-12 and read it “7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
 
He shared with me that if God told Paul, who wrote the half of the new testament, “no” then I think I’m good. He said I look at it this way, God is allowing me to share the Gospel with you through my weakness. He then asked me this, would you have sat and talked with a 16-year-old or even let him share the gospel with you? I said probably not, that when he said, “through my weakness, His strength shows.”  
 
As I left the field that night I wondered and thought about the conversation for many years.