The Christophers: Fatherhood Teaches Unconditional Love

Tony Rossi,

Director of Communications,

The Christophers’

(Continued from last week.)

After hitting rock bottom as an alcoholic 26 years ago, Clint Hurdle committed his life to Christ, got sober, and focused on building a family. Those experiences left the Colorado Rockies’ new hitting coach with a lot of hard-earned wisdom that he shares in his book “Hurdle-isms: Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Baseball.” One of the blessings in Clint’s life is a 39-year-old daughter, Ashley, who he never knew about from a previous relationship. During a “Christopher Closeup” interview, he noted, “We developed a relationship that’s become a miracle over time as I’ve gone through recovery, and she stayed in there with me.” 

Clint also takes pride in his other two children that he had with Karla, his wife of 26 years. Their son, Christian, is studying to be a pastry chef at the Culinary Institute of America—and their daughter, Maddy, has special needs. Specifically, she was born with Prader-Willi Syndrome. “It’s a deletion of the 15th chromosome,” explained Clint, “which is your satiation chromosome, the one that lets you know you’re hungry—and then, after you’ve eaten, it’s the one that lets you know you’re full.” Maddy’s system, therefore, has “no regulation, no off switch…whether it’s anxiety…whether it’s food seeking, [or] verbal outbursts.”

Despite Maddy’s struggles, Clint knows that she doesn’t need to be defined by them because she has many positive qualities and accomplishments. He said, “Maddy has shown us her resolve…She went through high school. She had an aide with her in class. She went through vocational training school. She works three days a week at a dog store…She won a gold medal two years ago in Special Olympics…and to see her stand on a podium and receive the Florida State Championship gold medal for freestyle swimming a hundred meter [was so gratifying]…It has put my wife and I in a position of truly unconditional love for each other as well as for her. Unconditional love. I thought I knew it. Not until I got to live it…I’ve been blessed with three children. They have skill sets very different from mine, but I believe God’s put them in my life to transform me in areas where I needed to grow and I needed to appreciate more.”

Though God has transformed Clint’s life, he started saying a prayer every day asking for even greater transformation: “Lord, help me become a simple person in a complex world.” Why is that prayer important, and how can it help others?

Clint concluded, “I need to be a simple man. I need to do what’s next, make my next good choice, make the next good decision for my family. Don’t overcook it. I don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen two weeks from now. I’ve got to take care of today…I need to make sure that I’m there for my wife…because so many times when I was employed as a manager, two weeks out of every month, I’m gone. Karla stays home and deals with all of it. So how can I simply engage and be of help to her, on a daily basis, when I’m home? Being a simple man has been an answer for me to not try and think I’m ‘more than,’ that I’m some kind of white knight on a horse going to come in and save this or save that. I need to be a good friend, good father, good brother, good servant of Jesus, good husband. That’s going to keep me full today.”

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For free copies of the Christopher News Note TURN YOUR BROKENNESS INTO HOLINESS, write: The Christophers, 264 West 40th Street, Room 603, New York, NY 10018; or e-mail: mail@christophers.org