The Home Team

Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find?

—Proverbs 20:6

Lately, I’ve been working on my commitment to the home team. Everybody has a home team: it’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyway.

There are two reasons you need to know who your home team is. First, you need to know who they are because they need you. These are the people you visit in the hospital no matter what. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking when they’re at your house. These are the people who cry when you cry. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.

The second reason you need to know who your home team is, is because then you know who your home team is not. Everyone else is everyone else. Each of us have a finite amount of time and energy. You can give yours to your home team. Or you can spend it haphazardly on an odd collection of people who need something from you because you don’t want to say no to them.