Sometimes There is Crying in Baseball

I wept Thursday night. I’m not sure if it was the little boy in me, or the father in me or the grandfather in me weeping, but I wept. I wept for a little boy named Cooper who I did not know. He went to the ball game with his Dad, like I did so many times with mine, like my son did with me, like my grandson does with me. In fact, my grandson Price, went to the local minor league game with me the same night. Price came home with me and a baseball, his second of the season. Cooper went home without a ball or a Dad. Shannon Stone and his son Copper went to the Texas Ranger game Thursday, stopping on the way to buy Cooper a glove, for the purpose of catching a baseball. Seated on the front row of the outfield bleachers, Shannon reached over to catch a ball for Cooper and fell to his death, twenty feet below. As a little boy cried for his Daddy, a game stood still. Life (and death) came into perspective. Simon Peter wrote that he lived in the knowledge that, “the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent” (2 Peter 1:14, NAS). Not knowing the time nor circumstances of our earthly death, so must we live, even at a baseball game. I’m reminded of the oft-quoted line from baseball Manager Jimmy Dugan in the movie, “A League of Their Own,” – “There’s no crying in baseball.” Sometimes there is.

Join me in remembering the following global concerns:
• Pray for Youth Camp July 8-15 in the Eagle Mountains of the Czech Republic and for a Discipleship Camp for families of new believers and seekers July 9-16 in Northeast Poland.
• Pray for Chris & Cathie as they re-locate from their assignment in Spain to their new assignment in Texas and give thanks for Cathie feeling her best in three years.
• Pray for the renovation of the historic Sanyati Baptist Hospital so new generations of Zimbabweans can experience for themselves the love of the Great Physician.
• Pray for Julie and Karl as they renew their work in Cacak, Serbia after their stateside assignment.
• Pray for all the volunteer mission teams that are serving around the globe this week.