THERE IS THE PLACE OF ADVERSITY IN OUR CHILDREN’S LIVES. None of us wants to see our child get hurt. We want to protect our children. We don’t like to see them fall down and bruise their knees. We don’t like for them to have to receive hurtful remarks from other children. We would do almost anything to keep them from experiencing pain. We’re like the father of professional football great, Sid Luckman.
Luckman was the star quarterback for the greatest football team of the 1930s and ‘40s, the Chicago Bears. His father was an immigrant tailor in Brooklyn and rarely got to see his son play football. But one Sunday the Bears were in New York to play the Giants at the Polo Grounds, and Luckman arranged for his parents to have seats on the 50-yard line. For most of the first quarter, things went smoothly. Luckman was passing crisply and the running game was working well. But then on one play, the Bears’ pass protection broke down. Giant defenders rushed in, and Luckman had to scramble, to dodge the tacklers before they could get to him. As he was running back and forth, trying to avoid these huge linemen, you suddenly heard a voice call out from the sidelines, “Sidney, let them have the ball. I’ll buy you another one.”
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Pulpit Resource