Pro baseball player R.A. Dickey was the 2012 National League Cy Young Award winner, the highest honor for a pitcher. But Dickey's career almost ended before it started. In 1996, the Texas Rangers made him their #1 draft pick and offered him an $810,000 contract. All he had to do was pass a routine team physical. But unknown to Dickey, the physical revealed that his right elbow was missing its ulnar collateral ligament.

As Dickey, a committed follower of Christ, entered training camp he uttered a prayer of gratitude: "Thank you, Lord, for all your blessings and for helping me get this far." But shortly after that prayer, his agent pulled him into a meeting with Doug Melvin, the Rangers general manager. Melvin flatly said, "We are going to retract our offer. We think there's something wrong with your elbow."

Dickey writes:

I try to take in those words for a second or two: We are going to retract our offer … I don't feel devastation, or even anger. I feel rage. Complete rage. It feels as if it starts in my toes and blasts upward through my body like a tsunami, into my guts and right up through the top of my head … [I want to tell Melvin] about … how this is the one thing … that I can do right and that makes me somebody … I want to make sure he knows [that] he's matter-of-factly dropped this atomic bomb on my baseball career. On my life.

[But] it's as if there's a strong hand on my shoulder holding me back, giving me pause. In that instant I have a self-control that wasn't there a moment earlier. I hear a voice: "Relax, I've got you. Relax, R.A. It's okay … I've got you." The voice is the Holy Spirit … I was just talking to God in prayer and now he is talking back, giving me a composure that could not have come from anywhere else. The tsunami passes. I am crushed by Doug Melvin's words but I am not going to do anything stupid … "I've got you."

Editor’s Note: Update – Robert Allen Dickey is a retired professional baseball pitcher. He played in the MLB for the Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Braves. You can read his testimony here: https://www.faithdrivenathlete.org/bios/ra-dickey