I wept Thursday night. I’m not sure if it was the little boy in me, or the father in me or the grandfather in me weeping, but I wept. I wept for a little boy named Cooper who I did not know. He went to the ball game with his Dad, like I did so many times with mine, like my son did with me, like my grandson does with me. In fact, my grandson Price, went to the local minor league game with me the same night. Price came home with me and a baseball, his second of the season. Cooper went home without a ball or a Dad. Shannon Stone and his son Copper went to the Texas Ranger game Thursday, stopping on the way to buy Cooper a glove, for the purpose of catching a baseball. Seated on the front row of the outfield bleachers, Shannon reached over to catch a ball for Cooper and fell to his death, twenty feet below. As a little boy cried for his Daddy, a game stood still. Life (and death) came into perspective. Simon Peter wrote that he lived in the knowledge that, “the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent” (2 Peter 1:14, NAS). Not knowing the time nor circumstances of our earthly death, so must we live, even at a baseball game. I’m reminded of the oft-quoted line from baseball Manager Jimmy Dugan in the movie, “A League of Their Own,” - “There’s no crying in baseball.” Sometimes there is. I'm praying for the Stone family and the Brownwood, Texas firefighter brotherhood today as they bury Shannon.You can receive this Momday Morning Memo via E-mail every Monday morning and it's free. Go to www.discipleallnations.org and click on "Subscribe." Then follow the directions.
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