“Wait on the Lord and he will work.”
Psalm 37: 34.

“Don’t wait just because you can’t see one inch in front of your face. Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.” O. Chambers

And we are told to wait on the Lord and He will work. It’s a promise. He will work.

He may not work in the way we want Him to…thankfully, because He will work in far more abundant ways than we can even ask or imagine. (Ephesian 3:20)

It is His way and His promise.

✨🥳✨
AMRB!

The Homerun

The day held overcast skies, cool breezes, and fresh forest air as the batter took his place at the plate.
He is one of the few of his teammates who have not yet managed to breach the 200 foot fence. Though his team rallies around him, their fierce hope and the force of their wanting will not,alone, carry the batter’s ball to victory.

There is a slight sweat on his brow as he feels the pitcher sum him up. He knows the feeling well having just left the mound himself after pitching several no run innings. He wipes those thoughts away as he wipes away the moisture on his brow.

He focuses. Looking first into the eyes of the pitcher then solidly back at the ball. His eyes follow it, like a shell game, never wavering, as it is released into the shining gray day.

His decision-making is lightning-fast though it is a slower pitch than some. When he does swing, the crack of the bat is unmistakably sharp. For an instant, he thinks, “it was too low, I shouldn’t have swung!” but, nonetheless, instinctively, he drops his Marucci and begins his flight to first.

Running hard, the roar of the erupting crowd enters his perception and he turns his eyes toward the ball. As if in slow motion, he watches, amazed, as the ball sails high over the green outfield wall into the field beyond. Then, as if time suddenly catches up, exhilaration speeds up from his toes and rockets out of the top of his voice, breaking uncontainable joy all over his face and the faces of his teammates. He has done it!

“It seems,” he says to himself with a smile,
“it was a good hit after all.”

Wednesday

The overcast skies of the morning, lend a brilliance to the many colors of green that surround me in the forest. There is a captivating little creek along the edge of the thickness of the trees. As I come near, I hear the gurgling of the brook and just barely see the tadpoles as they dart and hide under the rock shelving. They are so swift in their retreat it is hard to get a good look. I find that if I stand just right and still enough, for long enough, they venture back out. I can then see that among the tiny tadpoles are also a marvelous little school of small fish.

I breathe deeply of the fragrant forest air and consider the fish. I think of myself this week darting to and fro, in and out of fear for my player.
He is such a relational person. When the coach doesn’t play him, he feels disconnected and doesn’t play as well, so coach doesn’t play him… round and round it goes. It’s the personal connection that fuels his game of both baseball and life.

Yesterday, he was mightily challenged. It was hump day and fatigue was high as was my concern for him. But, it turned out that his struggles opened up communication with his coach and the next game was the best of his Coopertown experience. My player was back, energized with his diving catches, rifling throws to first, his racing slides to third. I suspect it was the connection to coach that turned him around.
So as I stand still and watch the fish who now come out to play in numbers, Psalm 46:10 comes unbidden: “Be still and know that I am God.”
It makes me consider how He takes my darting thoughts, my in and out of fear and brings clarity to calm my silly soul. When I stand just right on His promises and am still enough, for long enough, I can know that He is God. And when I stop to know, He opens me to the stillness of His beauty alongside a gurgling brook and the fantastic greens of His forest.

Tuesday in C-Town

“Behold, he is coming in the clouds”
Revelation 1:7

“God often manifested Himself in an energized, blazing light called the Shekinah or Glory cloud. No one could see it fully and live so it had to be veiled, but when Christ returns the glory will be completely visible.” -MacArthur

How fitting that a day of clouds is followed by a morning devotion about God’s glory cloud. As the clouds rolled in yesterday and granted me some relief from the heat, they also covered the baseball field where Joe was pitching. Close your eyes and imagine God coming on those clouds.

Imagine Him present as Joe pitched and the batters hit home runs. Imagine God lending some of Himself to Joe, though we, and especially Joe, did not recognize it. Imagine God coming on those clouds to empower Joe to extend His mercy and grace through Joe’s weakness; through the opportunity for Joe to give out of his own need to others in need thereby meeting everyone’s need.

And finally, imagine, if God’s present glory can be veiled in the weakness of a struggling 12 year old pitcher, how, then, will He show it through your own?

Monday in C-Town

The overcast skies with their rain laden clouds bring intermittent yet cherished respite from the searing sun and the damp blanket of air that lays heavy about my ears and shoulders. I combat my discomfort with weak attempts at distractive cooling. I pace, fan, drink ice water but to little avail until game 4 begins.
As the game gathers forward motion, the heat is easily defeated by the almost linear succession of homeruns that arch high over the green wall of the outfield.
We celebrate these victors, some of whom glory in the accomplishment of their first home run ever! But we, also, search for the elusive words of encouragement for those yet to glory.

Winning by a significant lead, I am surprised that the boys stay so focused on playing well. Their heart break is almost palpable when they miss their own expectations. Caught in the intensity of the moment, they are unable to notice the victory and joy they allow others to receive because of their own undoing.

It is a hard lesson to embrace but it is, perhaps, the one lesson that allows us to experience the true glory of being beautifully human.

Game Day

It was Joe’s first game at Cooperstown and he was on the bench. I told myself to trust the process but sharp memories of days gone by and the spirit-breaking of another son as he sat on the bench, gripped my heart. I was already overwhelmed by the morning with tired, hot, cranky bones and an attitude of parched unsettling. I felt disgruntlement creep up from my toes. As fear began to take a foothold, I knew I needed the breath of God to turn me around, to redeem my attitude and revive me.

As I prayed for God to intervene, I thought of how my devotional life had been disconnected as of late but I opened to Oswald Chamber’s July 28 anyway and read:

“God’s purpose is for me
to depend on Him and on His power now.
If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life,
the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me…
What He desires for me is that
I see Him walking on the sea
with no shore, no success, no goal in sight
but simply having the absolute certainty
that everything is alright.”
Mark 6:45-50

Remaining calm, faithful and unconfused in the absolute certainty that all is well. I repeated those words over and over and let their living water sink into the dryness of my fear.
When I looked up, Joe was playing third and smiling and, to my surprise, I found my heart was smiling too.

AMRB, 2019

Cooperstown
Game Two

I say goodbye to our first Cooperstown game day as the sweet cooling breezes of the evening allow me pause. The pink tinged skies of the setting sun against the endless greens of the forest, connect me to the beauty that is baseball.

Game 2 proved to be a challenge. The thick, warm air somehow provided buoyancy for the pitching; the red dirt with its sticky, denseness slowed our sliding; the 200-foot fields practically taunted the batters to breach them nonetheless our Fire boys came together.
I see them learning each other’s ways: high-fiving the homerun-ers of both sides and encouraging the struggling…Living outside of themselves on this journey to become true champions. Win or lose, this is the real prize.

AMRB, 2019

Flagstaff is our cool, breezy host for this tournament weekend of baseball, nestled within the fresh smelling pines of the Arizona high country. Through the tall pines, I can see the briskly blowing flag at half mast in honor of all those who have fallen but are not forgotten. Joe wears flag socks with his baseball uniform for the same reason. It is good to celebrate this Memorial Day in the home of the free because of the brave.

The sun plays hide and seek with the clouds in the crisp blue sky as the temperature tags along like an unwanted younger sibling, chilling and warming as it follows the sun. I am grateful for Audrey’s long sweater coat as my desert-dwelling self shivers in the shade of a silly 59 degrees.

Today, it is a glorious day on the Frances Short Pond that lies just beyond the baseball fields.

It is a small pond within a meadow encircled by trees. All textures of green thrive with abandon here: the full roundness of the green-yellow willow trees, the shorter narrower whitish green of the delicate birch leaves, all skirted round about by the towering arrows of the dark green pine. There are scattered boulders around the shore, randomly perfected for sitting on in the recurrent ebb and flow of the sun.

Local fishermen families also line it’s shores while the Mallards and the brilliant white Pekin ducks clean themselves without fanfare or fear. The breezes ruffling the velvety down of their necks and hind quarters in untouchable waves of softness.

Sparkling twinkles of silver draw my eyes to the beauty of the wind rippled water as my ears catch the distant, patriotic rhythms of a tuba. Snatching my attention away, it signals the start of, and summons me back to, our afternoon of play.