Rangers outfielder, wife talk about marriage

FLOWER MOUND—If your wife is years ahead of you in spiritual head knowledge, don’t let that keep you from being the spiritual leader in your home.

That is part of what Texas Rangers right fielder David Murphy said God is teaching him in his 11th year as a follower of Christ and his seventh year in Major League baseball.

Murphy and his wife Andrea answered questions about their marriage during a portion of the morning worship services at RockPointe Church in Flower Mound on Jan. 29 to kick off a sermon series on marriage. The couple shared frankly about the perceived glamour of a Major League life, and the reality.

He’s on the road three months a year and another four months of Big-League grind leaves little family time.

The past two seasons—with consecutive World Series appearances—an extra month of postseason play has cut into the offseason.

And during the season when he’s home, “he’s not really home,” Andrea said, explaining that he leaves for the ballpark in the early afternoon.

“I am thankful for the offseason because we do have about four months of him being home all the time. So I guess some people live for the weekend; I live for the offseason,” she said.

‘A GOOD PERSON’
Murphy, who grew up Roman Catholic, said Andrea asked him, as Baylor freshmen on a first date, if he considered himself a Christian.

“At the time I said, ‘I go to church. I believe I’m a good person.’ So I really didn’t think a whole lot of it. As we continued to date God continued to work in my heart and about a month or two later she invited me to a Monday night praise and worship service called Touchstone. And it was that night that God just really convicted me. I just felt a huge void and a hole in my heart that night. I just kind of started to think there is a difference between being a good person and being a Christian.”

Over coffee, “I came to faith in Jesus that night,” Murphy said.

ACCOUNTABILITY
With a career that involves frequent travel, a married couple must talk more than most, Murphy said.

With Andrea at home with their three young children, “if we don’t speak a lot when I’m on the road, I think it’s human nature that things are going to start going on in her mind. So basically, we talk on the phone a lot. We use the computer, we see each other on our iPad or on Skype or however we can.”

Murphy said he and another well-known Christian in the clubhouse, All-Star left fielder Josh Hamilton, have a special bond as believers. (Since this story was posted, Hamilton admitted to a relapse in his ongoing struggle with alcohol and drugs after reports of him drinking at a Dallas restaurant surfaced.)

“I look to him for accountability. I try to be an accountability partner for him as well. And I try to love on all the guys,” Murphy said. “Obviously, it’s a world where if you try to be over the top with guys you are going to get turned away pretty quickly. But if you lead by example and love on the guys, hopefully God will work on their hearts a little bit.”

Asked what God is teaching them right now, Andrea Murphy responded, “A lot recently. I think right now, probably the hardest thing for me has been being David Murphy’s wife. It’s really hard to be labeled that. I love my husband very, very much. But it’s hard, one, to live in someone else’s shadow. But it’s hard to live in your husband’s shadow. And I feel like people don’t really see me for me. And what I didn’t realize is there is a whole level of pride that I didn’t realize I had until I started feeling this way. So it’s been really hard for me to lay that down and to see beyond myself, truly.”

Also, she said she is learning that her children and her husband are not hers but God’s.

“For both us lately, we’ve been trying to let each other have the freedom to be who God created us to be. Most of the time I want to keep him in a little box. I want him to be just what I want him to be and ‘he can’t do this or that,’ and there’s plenty of things that I would like to change,” she said, causing a chorus of laughter.

For David Murphy, “I need to really step back at times and realize that she’s not here to just to love me when I need it, or ‘Hey, I’ll go play baseball, you watch my kids,’ that sort of thing.

“Her main dream her entire life has been to be a mom. And we have three kids and it’s awesome. But at the same time, she went to Baylor to be a doctor. And that’s something she also dreamed of her entire life. And we got to a point when we realized we were going to get married, that, ‘Hey, something’s gotta give here.’ … So, I need to remember that a lot and how selfless that she has been letting me go out there and live my dream.”

Also, Murphy admitted that he, too, puts his wife in a box created by his expectations.

“I’m somewhat of a perfectionist and a lot of times I don’t see things from her point of view; I see things from my own and I don’t understand that she’s a woman. She sees thing differently than me, she wants different things than me.”   

LEADING AT HOME
Murphy said after struggling for years, he is finally learning how to lead spiritually.

“Andrea has known the Lord since she was 5. I came to Christ when I was 19,” Murphy said. “And for a long time I was intimidated by the fact that she knew more than me or had grown up in a better background and I was intimidated thinking, ‘How can I come into this family and be the spiritual leader?’ I think when it really comes down to it, God put us together for a reason and it doesn’t matter if she knows the Bible better, it doesn’t matter what her past has been like and the same thing for me.

“All that matters from here on out is what we’re going to do with what we have. And I have a great wife. I have three incredible kids. And I have a responsibility; this family has a responsibility. So I’d say I just desire to lead in the way that God desires me to lead.”