Sign the Ball and Kiss My Boo-Boo!

What would you do if you got clobbered on the head with a hard-hit baseball? Keep reading. No pain, no gain” is an expression most of us have heard and many have likely used. The words are often used in reference to exercise, implying that if you don’t feel any pain, you won’t lose weight or gain muscle. Some sources trace the idiom to Jane Fonda in her 1982 video series of aerobic workouts, although Benjamin Franklin said, “There are no gains without pain.” Long before Fonda or Franklin the Bible said, “Count it all joy when you call in to various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience” (James 1:2-3). Trials and testing can be productive. Like muscles that get sore but get stronger from “working out,” so faith does, too. No pain, no gain. Even when we feel the “burn” from life’s various trials and tests, because of the heavenly hope offered in the gospel of Christ, we can, as the apostle Paul directs in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice.” Paul was in prison [likely in Rome] when he wrote those words about 62 A. D. But he had earlier learned to “sing in the pain” from a prison in Philippi along with his co-missionary Silas (read Acts 16:22-25ff for that amazing attitude and equally amazing results of it).

Let me tell you about Cory down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I don’t know this guy, but he seems to know how to sing in the pain. He was in the news very recently. He is a big fan of the LSU Tigers baseball team and was one of thousands attending a game on Tuesday April 23, 2024, in Baton Rouge. Tyler Nettuno tells about Cory in an article posted @ sports.yahoo.com on April 24. LSU easily defeated the rival team from Nicholls 9-0. The victory was sealed in the bottom of the 8th inning when Tommy White smashed a three-run bomb to left field to give the Tigers a decisive 9-0 lead. That’s where Cory comes into the picture. He was in the bleachers and according to him in an interview before the game ended, the home run ball “was on a rope” and came straight to him. He was even wearing a baseball glove. He caught the high-flying hard ball missile traveling at over 100 mph — not in his glove, but on his forehead! In the interview he said, “Hole in the glove, man, what can I say? Beaned off my dome.” He even showed off a big “goose egg” on his ‘noggin where the ball bounced off his head! When asked if it hurt, he said, “It didn’t feel good.” But he had a great attitude and was laughing and joking about the whole thing. He couldn’t retrieve the ball, which bounced over the fence. But Tigers outfielder Josh Pearson later gave him a warm-up ball between innings. Cory (last name never given) went on to say, “I’ll probably go get Tommy White to sign it for me and maybe kiss my boo-boo.”                                                 

Touché Cory! What an attitude! His words and joyful attitude while wearing a large and no doubt painful “goose egg” on his head bring the words of Revelation 21:4 to mind: “God will wipe every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Take heart, hurting Christian friend. Stay faithful to Jesus. Persevere through the pain and the rain. Someday your pain will give way to eternal gain literally out of this world. 

by: Dan Gulley