Tebow and Teresa

 Calling attention to a story I heard this week about Blessed Mother Teresa's life:

The Story

Mother Teresa went into a local bakery to ask the owner if he would share his day old bread with the poor.  The baker sized up the crinkled, stooped woman in robes and he was repulsed by her begging.  Taking a bite of one of those day old breads, he chewed it up in his mouth, mixing it with the juice of his saliva and then spit it on Mother Theresa as she stood there, waiting.  Humbly, she said: Thank you, sir, for my portion, may I please have the rest of the bread for the poor.  

Try to imagine this baker as he hears her words!  (No doubt in my mind he would have heard much different from me).  Can you believe that he ended up giving her everything he had and became one of her regular donors?

The Similarities (stick with me, here)

First, Tim Tebow,  (in the larger game of life) is at the receiving end, like Mother Teresa.  In this game, the spitting commenced the first time he knelt publicly in prayer.  I think that like Mother Teresa he thought the world would be open to the need.   However, after huddling together and coming up with their game plan, the world sent warriors out to throw comments, ridicules and a litany of profanities at him.  Like the baker, they spat.  Secondly, in many people's mind Tim was being shallow enough to beg for a win.  The baker was shallow enough to believe that his day old bread was not worthy of an orphan.

The differences (you are still with me, I knew you would be ::))

From my sideline writing here, as I see it, the difference is: This is NOT a one time event for Tim Tebow, like it was for Mother Teresa.  Furthermore this "spitting" might become copious in amount and ugly in appearance. Secondly, he is not in the bakery; with one person,the baker.   Oh if only Tim Tebow  could be that lucky!!!  Instead, he is in the modern day world, where one false move will be instantaneously everywhere.  Close your eyes (well, only one eye so you can still read this;)  Imagine if Twitter existed back in Mother Teresa's bakery scene and a patron recorded a possible human show of frustration.  What if Mother Teresa, maybe a raised eyebrow or uttered a snort in retort??  Oh my goodness!!! then this story of her wonderful GRACE to be humble would have forever been shadowed by the grayness of a small display of initial human frustration.  (sarcasm break....my hope is that it would become an example of momentary frustration which was overcome and won over by the grace of humility...but I think that part would have been edited, to increase sales).

GRACE, the Game Plan; My personal letter to Tim Tebow; and my reflection.

Dear Tim Tebow, 

Any coach in sports will tell you that you can’t win a game with Love and Grace!!  I am not a football coach but in the end are we  really talking about football?  I pray that you receive what ever they spit at you with the same grace as Blessed Mother Teresa received hers.  Continue to humbly wipe the remarks (the spit of the baker) from you.  Stand firm and strong in faith.  You are under a micromanaged microscope with super lenses!!  That simple fact is one of the very reasons why I pray for you and I do not envy you. If there is ever a time that you might show a human frustration and/or reaction to the constant barrage, it will be instantaneously, everywhere.  Maintain the the Grace Gameplan and in the end, Love, will be the the Victory. Everyone who thinks you are just here to win a football game, well they remind me of the baker, who thought Mother Teresa, was only there to give bread to the poor.   

Tim Tebow, Thank you for this season!!! Thank you for bringing back to football what I needed and missed.  I wanted my kids to love the game as much as I did.  I wanted my kids to see more than just a "player" on the field, I wanted them to see a PERSON!  You have been another person in my life who has shown me to always have hope, even in something as small as the joy of watching football with my family.  God Bless YOU!!! Michele