Aidan started summer baseball this past weekend with his first tournament games in Meridian and Decatur, Mississippi. It’s a new kind of baseball tournament for us where there isn’t pool and bracket play. Games are won by the team that wins the most innings and not by runs scored. There is a mound meeting with both teams after each game and we even had a player from the opposing team play on our team. Like I said, it’s a new kind of baseball. 😂
Saturday night the baseball organization had devotional on the baseball field. We went, not knowing what to expect, and were all pleasantly surprised. It was kind of cool having “church” on the baseball field under the lights. Their was a worship band that opened with a few songs and we then had a sermon from another baseball dad who happens to be a pastor. The message was succinct and applicable to all the young men in the stadium as well as the siblings, parents, and coaches. Did I mention it was FREEZING! Someone forgot to tell me that Mississippi is cold at night in late May! Temps were in the low 60s with a strong sustained wind so it felt like the 50s. For us Florida folk, that’s too cold.
Anyway, back to the message. One of the first things he shared was that “life is too short to be ungrateful.” I agree. I have a different vantage point on what it means when “life is too short” and think my experiences with the reality of that often times alter my view and reactions to things in a way different than it would have been if Reagan had not passed away. Anyway, he shared it to say that we need to be grateful for everything, big and small, and do appreciate what we have. To appreciate the people around us. To be thankful. He said no one likes a complainer. 🙌🏼 He said someone once told him, “complaining is like vomiting. It makes you feel better but makes everyone around you sick. So no one wants to be around you (the complainer) because they don’t want to get sick.” 🙌🏼 BRILLIANT!
He said other things – actually shared four takeaways but I only remember that one 😬 – and I thought I would share with y’all. Maybe it was the frigid conditions we were exposed to that affected my ability to remember all the lessons from that sermon but I got the good one.
So, stop complaining. Find the happy and if you can’t, then do something to change it for the better. Complaining gets you nowhere. If you focus on the things you don’t like or what’s going wrong then that is all you will see. The grass is not always greener. We each get to choose how we respond. We should choose to be grateful. Life really is too short.
Maggie
youaremyfightsong 