It was a summer night in early August at 1 Cor 16. A group
of friends from church had gathered for a night of sockball and card games. It
was the inaugural game at “1 Cor Field” and it had been quite a game. My team
was trailing my best friends team 23-20 going into the bottom of the ninth
inning. We had actually had two friends part their cars in our driveway
horizontally facing the front yard field with their headlights on. It was
really cool playing sockball under a starlit night sky, with just enough light
cast by the headlight beams to see the ball soaring through the air.
As my team scratched out a couple of runs and cut the score
to 23-22, I stepped up to the plate. The
scenario: two friends on base, two out and our best power hitter, my good friend
Shawn on deck. My thought was to simply get a hit to keep the game going and
get Shawn up to be in position to win the game.
I fouled the first pitch delivered to me by my best friend
and stood back in. As my best friend lobbed the sock ball towards home plate to
me again, I took a smooth easy swing. My metal softball bat connected with the
sockball, emitting a soft ‘plop’ sound and began to sail on an ascending line
towards the SUV parked in our driveway representing the center field fence.
I headed for first base and I watched simultaneously as the
ball soared through the night and my friend Andrew tracked it as it headed to
the SUV ‘wall.’ I watched as if in slow motion the ball broke the plane of the
lights on our garage that illuminated the warm summer darkness and sailed just
over the shadow of Andrew’s outstretched fingers and landed with a soft ‘pop’
onto the roof of the SUV, which meant by sock ball 1 Cor Field rules that ball
was a home run!
Could it be?! I remember thinking as I rounded first base.
Did I seriously just hit a walk off home run in my favorite backyard version of
baseball! My grandfather and I invented this game back when I was nine years
old. I was now 26 and had never been the person to hit a game-winning homer.
The craziest part was I wasn’t even trying in that moment. I extended my arms
in the air and screamed “yeah!” as I rounded third and headed for home, where I
my teammates were waiting with outstretched high fives. I jumped on home plate
and landed a return high five on each one of their raised hands.
Childish? Perhaps a little, but the fact that I still
remember this moment clear as a bell seven months later tells you that I
definitely still have an inner child that gets released during a game of
sockball. I think God gives us joy in small things like that in order that we
remember that he wants us to have a child like faith in what big things He can
do in each of our lives. May you trust Him more and more each day, and I will
try to do the same!
