28. Mai 2021 – 16:19
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Darryl Strawberry
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Darryl Strawberry, 58, identified himself for years through his success as a baseball player. He escaped from a dysfunctional family and his father was a mad alcoholic. He got rich and famous early on – “but I didn’t know who I was …”
Darryl Strawberry played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for 17 years. Before that, his life was an uphill struggle, “because I grew up in a broken, dysfunctional home. My father was a mad alcoholic. Evening after evening he drank at home. It was very loud and woke us up in the middle of the night. “
When Darryl was 14, his older brother Michael said to his father, “Why don’t you just go out and leave us alone?” The father pulled out a shotgun and said that he would kill the whole family. “We wanted to protect mom, one of my brothers, Ronnie, took a butcher knife and I took a frying pan and we actually wanted to kill him. If Mom hadn’t taken us out of the house that night, it would have been a tragedy. ” The next day the mother separated from the father.
“Brokenness is real”
The pain inside was great. “I think a lot of people don’t understand that brokenness is real. Lawlessness leads to brokenness and brings forth broken generation after generation. “
Darryl liked to play baseball, which he found joy in, while his father had rejected him. “I knew I was broken and I knew I had a lot of problems. I wanted to solve this, but I couldn’t do it for a long time. “
At the age of 18 he entered a lower league, the Texas League, where he was crowned the most valuable player in the league. “Now I was Darryl Strawberry, that great baseball player who would one day make it to the big leagues …”
Still broken
At the age of 21 he made the leap into the MLB. “But at the same time I remember that I was still broken inside. I didn’t know who I was. Because everyone said I would be a great baseball player – but it was my pain that led me to it. ”
On his first trip, as a young player, he wanted to be part of the boys. A veteran player introduced him, sent him to the back of the plane and said, “Welcome to the Big Leagues, kids. And there was an introduction to drugs and they took me to the club and showed me all the girls. “
Darryl was named “Rookie of the Year” and immediately signed a contract worth seven million dollars. “I loved to play because I was good at it and I knew exactly what I was doing, but I didn’t know who I was. So I was consumed by all these other things that drew on me, fame, money and lifestyle. “
“Save them!”
His mother believed in Jesus Christ. “She believed that the lifestyle and having everything I had would destroy me. And she was right … I’m grateful that she saw that. “
When Darryl was 25 years old, his mother was dying. “We found a diary under her bed. In it she prayed about us five children: ‘God, save them, save them from drugs, save them from their lifestyle, save them from the sinful lifestyle.’ “
Darryl’s heart broke, “because my mother was a loving woman who raised the five of us alone and looked after us, without a husband and only with God in her life”. His addiction had meanwhile taken him to Florida State Prison.
Inner turn
Eventually Darryl turned to God and saw change. Later he was reconciled with his father. Darryl apologized for keeping him out of his life. The two wept and his father also found Jesus.
«God freed me from all fear, depression and everything else because God made me understand that forgiveness was not for my father. She was for me. God made it clear to me that two injustices make no right. So two injustices in a situation cannot bring justice. You cannot bring a cure. ” But now everything changed, “my life was changed and all the broken pieces were put back together by God.”
“I am sorry”
“I asked forgiveness from my first two wives and told them, ‘I wasn’t a good husband, I wasn’t a good father. I am sorry!’ And I had six children and I had to say to them, ‘Forgive me, I was not a good father!’ Today we have a wonderful relationship because of the healing process we all had to go through. “
He learned “that nothing and no one in this life is perfect. The only one who was perfect was Jesus Christ. As time went on, I began to understand that it was about the revelation of Jesus Christ, who hung on the cross of Calvary and shed his blood for sinners like us so that we could have life and have it in abundance. And it’s about being able to experience the transformation and go back and love someone else and meet someone else right where they are, with all the problems and the shards and tell them, ‘God loves you.'”
Suddenly pastor
God called Darryl twelve years ago to become an evangelist to preach the gospel. “I said: ‘You have chosen the wrong man.'” But he felt how God told him: “No, I have the right one.” – “But I am not qualified.” – And God’s answer: «Nobody is qualified. I qualify. “
Let this be a gift. “I don’t deserve the gift, but he gave it to me and I want to attract as many people as I can. You need Jesus because you have problems. And I know that when I was consumed by that lifestyle, I didn’t have Jesus. I didn’t want anything to do with Jesus then because I believed I had everything. I had all earthly things. ” But he had no real fulfillment. “He found me when I was in a pit and he put me on a pulpit.”
On the subject:
Get to know God personally
You too can be there: Baseball Star offers Bible reading program
Because he wants to obey God: Ex-baseball star publicly apologizes for doping sins
Ed Mylett: The day he lost his shorts
Date:
31.05.2021
Author: Jesus Calling / Daniel Gerber
Those: Jesus Calling / shortened translation: Jesus.ch
