Josh Hamilton

In the fight of your life, how many times do you get knocked down before you find yourself too weak to throw another punch?  Making more money than ever imaginable, suddenly everything Josh Hamilton knew and loved was taken away in an instant. When the rush and adrenaline of his spot in professional baseball slipped from his grasp, the search for fulfillment was helplessly found in drugs and alcohol.  Following was a path of destruction, “and it wasn’t because of anybody else. It was because of me.”

In this deeply intriguing and heartfelt story, he narrates his life through metaphors of dreams and a reminiscence of weariness. His is a story of a time when he could no longer lift his hand or his heart to fight his enemy. He found strength to fight another round and since has never felt more powerful and at peace.

Q: Where has this journey of life taken you?

A: Growing up, I was really good at sports. That’s all I ever wanted to do and that’s all my life was focused around was playing and being a part of a team. So after I got to high school, I had such a focus on baseball and consequently a lot of things were put behind baseball such as having friends, having a relationship with God, the One who actually gave me the ability to be good at and to play the game that I love. I got drafted after high school to play professional baseball and it was a dream come true for me and as I started to play on the weekends I got away from church and really wasn’t believer yet. I believed in God but I hadn’t accepted Christ as my Savior. Over the first couple of years after I got drafted I did really well and I had more money than I ever wanted to have. My parents were there watching me play the game that they had put so much into, but I didn’t do it for them, I did it because I loved it.

So later when I got home, I would go to church with my aunt and uncle and that’s really where I got my belief in God from. I accepted Christ in their living room but I didn’t realize what I needed to do from that step forward. I didn’t know how to get in the Word, how to grow spiritually, how to pray – all the things it takes to grow and get closer to Christ

So my parents and I, on the way home from a spring training game got in a car accident. A dump truck ran a red light as we were turning left and plowed into us and over the next four to five years I went down the path of destruction. The two things I really knew in life: baseball and my parents were taken away from me at the same time. So I had to find somewhere I could turn where I felt comfortable and I’d go to the field for two hours in the morning and then I’d have nothing to do for the rest of the day because I couldn’t play. So I started getting tattoos, hanging out at the parlor all day. I was introduced to my first drug and my first drink. So it was interesting that this clean cut kid, Mr. All American boy never did anything wrong, would all of a sudden start drinking, start using [drugs].

Q: What was your low point?

A: Drugs and alcohol, you never use one without the other and I used it. Then I started playing baseball again and I was fine for three or four months, then I got hurt again. Once again, baseball was taken away and drugs were the closest thing to that adrenalin rush I got from throwing somebody out from the outfield and seeing the play developing; the ball’s hit and it goes up, you get under it, the crowds starting to build, guys tagging, you get behind it, you throw it in and to see that whole play being created in front of you and the roar of the crowd has just an adrenalin rush.

When baseball wasn’t there, drugs is what did that for me and that’s what got me addicted so quickly. Soon, it turned to not being about that rush anymore. It was just about escaping the feelings that I had whether it be sad, happy or mad and it became something I felt like I needed to get through the day. I had been married for a year and my wife and I were separated for a couple of months. I remember showing up at my grandmother’s door one night because he always told me I could come there for anything. At the time, I weighed one hundred eighty pounds when I was normally two hundred thirty pounds. She barely recognized me and I’d been out for three or four days using drugs. I wanted to get better and I didn’t want her to see me like this but I started staying there. In that first week, I used drugs a couple of times at her house and then one day she confronted me about it.

I had heard many times from the people who loved me, “Josh you’re killing yourself, you’re killing us by making us worry about you all the time. You’re such a good person and you can do great things.” I had heard all these things before. But my grandmother said it again to me and for some reason God opened my heart that night and actually allowed me to see the hurt, pain and tears coming down her face. That’s when I felt like I could do this and that I wasn’t alone.

Q: How did this experience help you to encounter Christ?

A: While staying at my grandmother’s house I had a dream a couple of days after she told me she couldn’t take seeming me like this anymore. And in this dream there was this guy in this suit, this dark suit and I was I was fighting him and I know it was the devil, ‘cause I was fighting him and beating him and knocking him down and he just had this cold smirk on this face and he just kept getting up and coming after me. I was getting to the point where I was worn out and I couldn’t fight anymore and I woke up and being twenty-five at the time, and it scared me so bad, that I got up out of my bed, went across the hallway into my grandmother’s room and said, “Grandma,” she said, “Yeah?” “Can I sleep with you?” This is a twenty five year old man asking if he can get in the bed with his grandmother and but welcomed me in. The next night, I noticed a bible at the end of the bed and I didn’t know where to begin. So happen, it turned to James and I was looking through it and a verse caught my eye. It was James 4:7. It says, “Humble yourselves before God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.” And that’s exactly what I did. I asked God, I said, “I need help. I been trying to do this for so long and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t try anymore because I failed on my own. So if you would help me do this, I’ll do whatever. You do with me, what you want to do with me. But I surrender.”

Within the next month, I was going to church again, reading the bible, praying and within the next three months I was in Florida at a baseball facility, suspended, and I had to have a whole year clean before I can even think about being reinstated. From the time I had that dream, within six months I was about to be reinstated, I got back together with my wife and kids and moved them to Florida so I could get ready to start playing baseball again. We were in a hotel room and the dream that I had before, at my grandmother’s house except I was fighting the devil, and he was coming after me and I was knocking him down, beating him and hitting him and he stood up and just looked at me. And I looked to my side and I didn’t see Jesus, but I knew He was standing beside me because we started chasing the devil. And I woke up feeling more calm and at peace than I ever have.

Q: What is it like to put Christ first and Joshua second?

A: Every day I wake up, I pray that I’m a responsible man, a good husband and a good father to glorify God in every way that I can. It used to be waking up not praying at all and doing whatever I wanted to do. I used to worry when I prayed because of what people were going to say or think or just think it was stupid. I quickly learned that God doesn’t care what it sounds like, He just cares about what’s coming from your heart and to just share the message that He loves you and He loves me.

I believe in Christ, I believe He’s first in my life, family’s second and everything else is after that. And I wouldn’t be where I am today because everything I tried to do on my own, well it almost cost me everything. So I put Christ first in my life today.