Baseball, Christmas, Family

I just heard about the second part of this story this week.  Perhaps you heard about the first part this summer.  After the third out of an inning Texas Ranger All-Star and MVP Josh Hamilton flips the ball towards the fans in the stands.  In a very unfortunate incident, a father who is at the game with his young son, falls out of the stands and dies after reaching for the ball.

Now the second half of the story: during the World Series, the Rangers had the boy come to the mound and throw out the first pitch to Hamilton.  50,000+ fans in the stadium stood to their feet and applauded.   The next part was pretty cool.  Hamilton hugged the boy, then his mother. You could tell he was saying something to her that made it tough for her to control her emotions.

Hamilton said; "I just asked her if they were believers in Christ and she said they were. I said, `Well, we know where your husband is right now. Make sure that the little one knows who his daddy was and what he stood for."  

You can see how this all played out in this video link.

This story serves also serves as a reminder to us that there are many in our church family who will experience the Christmas holidays without a loved one because they passed away this year.  There are at least a dozen here at CrossPoint who are affected this way.  If you know who one of those people are, please remember to pray for them during the next few weeks.  Christmas is often a time when family gathers, so it can also be a very tough time emotionally.