On Deck

 We watch the Little League World Series on TV almost every summer. One summer when visiting my parents, we made a trip to Williamsport, PA, the home of Little League. Maybe it was all of his years of playing or of watching our sons play and coaching them through the years, but it’s an annual event in our home. We rarely watch pro baseball, but catch many of the little league games.  As a matter of fact, the games have been our current evening TV viewing

So it's not usual that baseball analogies make their way into our conversations. When Bob's dad went to be with the Lord, Bob started telling our family that he was "on deck now."

So, it’s not surprising when a baseball analogy flows into our conversations. When his father was dying, Bob started saying to our family, “Well, I guess I’m on deck now.”

Mom has just passed into eternity as well. Mom Thimsen is the last of our parents. I have been acting as the matriarch of the family for awhile, since Mom Thimsen has been declining in health and the noise and confusion that is expected with extended family visits was more than she wanted to manage. Family events are usually orchestrated through me. So now I’m on deck as well.

It’s amazing how quickly you move from kid to young adult to wife, to mother and then to grandmother. If I live as long as Joyce, I’m looking at 24 more years.

 A death is good in many ways. For Joyce she went from being in pain and very weak to wholly restored and in the presence of her Lord, her husband and her oldest son. What a wonderful reunion that must have been.

But a death is also a reminder that, while we are eternal beings, our time on earth is short. It is how we invest our lives that is critical. Not our possessions . Not any acclaims or honors.  It was interesting that the focus of the sermon today, which I gratefully could watch via the livestream while sitting with Mom, was on the accountability we have in our impact on others.

My heart’s desire is to be a woman whose impact on my husband, my sons and their wives, my grandchildren, my extended family, my friends and those that the Lord sends into my life is eternally beneficial.

 I pray that I will be a conduit of grace and the truth of the gospel. I pray that my actions will draw others to a life wholly devoted to the Lord.

But my heart’s desire and my actions are not the same thing. It’s only by God’s grace that I can live out my heart’s desire.

I’m on deck. My time until I’m up to bat is limited. Pray with me that I use the time well.